Big-box bait and switch, Part III (Can we get there from here?)

This will be my final installment in my brief look at big-box blight, as it spreads across Maine (as well as many other similar areas of the country), felling trees, paving over fields and creating asphalt wastelands where fowl and fauna once roamed. My intention isn’t to be too overly dramatic. For me, however, the Wal-Mart issue is one that really pushes buttons and hits close to home.

I love Maine. Anyone who has read my book, or reads my posts about the Pine Tree State has figured that out by now. I know there is always a danger in standing against what some call progress. It’s easy to be labeled a crank, overly nostalgic, or even, a Luddite. There are times that I wear those badges, with a certain amount of pride. On this issue, however, I know I have company that makes this something more than just my own personal hobby-horse.

We can start with the Brookings Institute Report, Charting Maine's Future: An Action Plan for Promoting Sustainable Prosperity and Quality Places that has garnered statewide support and praise. With the exception of a handful of the usual naysayers and negative types, the response has been primarily positive. What makes this even more impressive is the bipartisan nature of the support, with most of the state’s leaders and legislative contingent endorsing its findings.

For the people who have been paying attention and in particular, those of us that have lived here over the past 20 years, the explosion in low-density development that characterizes sprawl is quite evident. This is an area that Maine will have to address. Jobs are important, particularly well-paying jobs that pay a living wage for Maine’s workers. Not only Maine, but many other rural areas of the U.S. are finding that their local economies are being strangled by the influx of big-box retailers that exploit the local labor market and inject little or nothing into these communities in the way of social capital.

The Economic Policy Institute has a helpful calculator that offers the ability to find out where the starting point should be in wage structure. If you want to talk economic development and real job creation, I think this is a good starting point. Instead, as is most often the case, local officials are hailed when they create a couple of hundred entry level jobs, paying $8 or $9 an hour. This type of job creation just contributes to the ongoing demise of the middle class and kills any substantive economic growth that benefits people in the long run.

If you haven’t already read Stacy Mitchell’s book, I suggest taking some time this spring to plow through it. It is amazingly readable, given Mitchell’s thorough research and density of material that she packs into the book. In my opinion, it is one of the more important books to read for anyone who desires sustainable local economies and communities where people, rather than profits, are given priority. I also suggest the organization that Mitchell is affiliated with, the Institute for Local Self-Reliance.

In addition to the EPI’s calculator, their site has a lot of pertinent material that will help you to better understand the dangers inherent in big-box development. Information is power and sites like this one will help you acquire the information that you’ll need to speak intelligently to your friends, neighbors and family members about why you have issues with Wal-Mart, Home Depot, Target and other similar corporate retailers.

All of us can be agents for positive change in our communities—in fact, we should be striving to be people who are willing to fight for local and regional values, preserving our unique landscape, one which befits the area of the country where we live. We don’t have to succumb to the homogenization that has overtaken so much of the U.S. By banding together with other folks who value their local bookstore, farmer’s market and neighborhood grocery store, or coffee shop, we can be like the two mothers, Eleanor Kinney and Jenny Mayher, in Damariscotta, who cared enough about their small community and its unique character to organize a group of other like-minded residents and as a result, Wal-Mart wasn’t allowed into that area of Midcoast Maine.

I’ll end by saying that there are locally-owned businesses that aren’t much better than the Wal-Marts of this world. In fact, there are businesses owned by Mainers that stock an ample supply of merchandise manufactured in third-world countries and that rely on exploitation of labor in those parts of the world. There are other businesses, while considerably smaller than Wal-Mart that still engage in tactics and seek their own success, at the expense of other smaller businesses. That’s one of the major drawbacks with capitalism’s model. There are always going to be winners and losers.

Given the choice we have, however, I still think we can do better than bowing down before the big-box deities of the retail kingdom. By preserving our local economies, we’re maintaining control over an important area of our daily lives, in a world where control and autonomy is rapidly disappearing.

Big-box Bait and Switch, Part II (the myth of lower prices)

If you ask big-box shoppers why they shop at Wal-Mart, Target, Best Buy and any other similar store, the most common reason given is lower prices. Because these large retailers have an advantage due to economies of scale and buying clout, it would seem logical, then that they would in fact offer lower prices on most items and goods. On closer inspection however, “always lower prices” may not be the reality.

Wal-Mart, more than any of the other big-box retailers lives by the perception that their prices are lower than anyone else’s. From the smiley faces in their incessant ads to their famous slogan, this mega-retailer has convinced shoppers that they're getting the best deal at Wal-Mart, whether that’s true, or not.

In some instances, Wal-Mart will lower prices in order to drive the competition’s prices down, or worse, put them out of business. After that occurs, stores have then been known to up their so-called “everyday low prices.” Also, Wal-Mart’s prices are cheaper on some items simply because they are of inferior quality. There is no comparison between a shovel whose handle bends and breaks when shoveling heavy snow and one made by Rugg Mfg., or some other high quality U.S. manufacturer.

According to Kenneth Stone, an economist at Iowa State University, all big-box stores utilize what’s called a pricing strategy known as “signposts” and “blinds.” Signposts are items that most consumers know the price of and blinds are those items that most customers have less knowledge of. By keeping the prices lower than the competition on bananas, diapers, four-packs of light bulbs and other items in prominent places, consumers assume that all items (these signposts) have lower prices.

In 2005, Consumer Reports found that on items such as ranges, refrigerators, vacuums and other large appliances, independent retailers out priced all the big-box retailers they surveyed. Also, the magazine also found that consumers rated the independent stores highest in customer service and selection. So why do shoppers continue to flock to the big-box stores at the peril of losing local control, putting U.S. manufacturers out of business and cutting their own economic throats? It’s really baffling and without any clear rational explanation.

Despite clear evidence that Wal-Mart and other big-box chains eliminate competition, destroy manufacturing jobs paying above average wages (with benefits) and on top of that, with evidence indicating that their prices may not always be lower and their selection on many items isn’t up to snuff with independent retailers, it’s tempting to argue that many Americans have become just too damn stupid to know any better.

One area I’m particularly concerned about when it comes to big-box stores and mega-retailers, is bookselling. While perceptions of most consumers is that the local Barnes & Noble, or other chain has a greater selection than the independent bookseller, in fact, chain stores’ merchandising policies tend to focus their attention and dollars on the big-name authors. As a result, new novelists and non-fiction titles get relegated to the back of the store. Midlist authors and their books, if they have succeeded, almost always attribute their success to the independent bookstores.

In our local area, independent stores like Longfellow Books in Portland (an independent in every sense of the word, primarily because of its wonderfully feisty owner, Chris Bowe), Bookland in Brunswick and even smaller stores like BookMarcs in Bangor, have staff picks and highlight titles other than Stephen King’s, or J.K. Rowling’s latest runaway bestseller. Taking nothing away from these authors, there are thousands of other wonderful books, many of them by first-time authors, who would end up selling poorly and ending up out-of-print if not for the bibliophiles that more often than not run the independent stores.

Wal-Mart also tries to act as moral arbiter of a community when it refuses to stock music CDs that have parental guidance stickers, or deal with themes that it deems inappropriate. This kind of censorship isn’t limited to Wal-Mart, either. Blockbuster requires movie makers produce “sanitized” versions of movies that they consider objectionable.

The resulting homogeneity that comes as a result of this shrinking of retail choices doesn’t bode well for innovation, or just plain diversity of products, not to mention how it portends the demise of artistic risk-taking by musicians, writers, and other creative types.

So, if Wal-Mart and the other chain stores are so destructive to our communities, then what can, or should we do to keep them out of our communities? And if they have already set up shop, what are our options as consumers?

I’ll be back with at least one more post to answer these questions and focus some of my own thoughts on what our roles and responsibilities are in these matters.

Happy Birthday, Bouton

I was 12 when I first read Jim Bouton’s Ball Four. It was all Bouton, giving the proverbial middle finger to the baseball establishment. Tame by today’s preponderance of “kiss and tell” treatises, in 1970, it stood the baseball world on its head.

At the time, sports books were like Wonder Bread—bland and G-rated without much texture and filled with preservatives, simulating reality, but more in keeping with the dictates of ad men, rather than farmers. Then, along comes Bouton, the former 21 game winner in 1963, the year after I was born, naming names, pulling back the curtain and making no excuses for revealing what the world of athletics was really like.

Bouton dared to breach the subject of players cheating on their wives, abusing amphetamines (“greenies”) and even had the audacity to show Mickey Mantle, the epitome of white manhood in 1950s America, as a hard-drinking player, who abused his body and yet, warts and all, still comes across as larger than life.

[From Wikipedia] Baseball commissioner Bowie Kuhn called Ball Four "detrimental to baseball," and tried to force Bouton to sign a statement saying that the book was completely fictional. Bouton, however, refused to deny any of Ball Four's revelations. Many of Bouton's teammates never forgave him for publicly airing what he had learned in private about their flaws and foibles. The book made Bouton unpopular with many players, coaches and officials on other teams as well, as they felt he had betrayed the long-standing rule: "What you see here, what you say here, what you do here, let it stay here." Pete Rose took to yelling "F--- you, Shakespeare!" from the dugout whenever Bouton was pitching. Many traditional sportswriters also denounced Bouton, with Dick Young leading the way, calling Bouton and Shecter (Leonard Shecter, Bouton’s co-author and the sportswriter who convinced him to begin keeping a season-long diary and subsequently publishing it) "social lepers."

Bouton’s book helped me to realize that it was ok to be a “jock” and also read books and have opinions about things other than sports. Like Howard Zinn, who I wrote about last week, Bouton was a seminal figure in helping shape and form the person I am today.

During the period when I was struggling with whether to independently publish When Towns Had Teams, I ran across Foul Ball, Bouton’s own independently published book, about his adventures to save historic Waconah Park in Pittsfield, Massachusetts and the politics behind many local building projects and the shady figures and money movements that are part and parcel of much that passes for economic development across the country.

Bouton and partners offered the city of Pittsfield a restored ballpark, done entirely by private contributions and no cost to the taxpayers of the city. Yet, amazingly, it was opposed by a group of local power brokers who instead, sought to build their own 18.5 million stadium, a deal that had been voted down three times before! So much for the will of the people.

In the process, we learn about the mayor on the take and the local paper also in on the fix, all told in Bouton’s inimitable style.

While I will continue my saga of big-box malfeasance, with my next post probably appearing over the weekend, I wanted to take this occasion of Bouton’s birthday to highlight one of my sports heroes, still going strong at 68. As we head into another summer of baseball, now might be a good time to refamiliarize yourself with this sports classic.

Big-box Bait and Switch, Part I

It’s difficult to pick one thing and say that it’s the quintessential matter facing us as Americans. But after reading most of Stacy Mitchell’s Big-Box Swindle, I’d challenge anyone to argue what’s a more important economic trend than the systematic gutting of our local business culture and the disappearance of commerce along Main Street USA, as Americans kneel at the altar of the big-box behemoths.

While local, independent book stores close and are replaced by Borders, or Barnes and Noble and locally-owned hardware stores that have been in communities for decades board up their storefronts because they can’t compete with the prices at Home Depot, or Lowe’s, our neighbors continue to accumulate stuff, manufactured off-shore, courtesy of the sweat shops that are necessary for perpetuating our addictions to convenience and everyday low prices. The perpetual pressure brought to bear on locally-owned and community-centered businesses, by these corporate giants chewing up farmland like a virus on steroids, have initiated an economic race to the bottom. Not only have they have pretty much destroyed a proud tradition of locally- owned family businesses, they’ve all but snuffed out manufacturing in the U.S., a traditional occupation that was a foundation of middle-class American prosperity for the first 40 years following World War II.

The loss of both manufacturing jobs and local business autonomy have led to a 20 year decline in the share of national income flowing to the middle class. In all but two states, all new jobs being created pay less than those being lost. This ying and yang of the new economy becomes our daily bread, while at the same time, Americans seem to be helpless to resist shopping ourselves out of any remaining hope of decent jobs, with living wages and benefits.

Mitchell’s book clearly lays out the facts about what’s at stake as big-box stores become bigger and what little prosperity and economic self-reliance remains in our downtowns, if they aren’t boarded up already, is in peril. Mitchell herself, is a senior researcher for The Institute for Local Self Reliance and as such, builds her case fact by fact and anecdote by anecdote.

Her book comes along at an interesting time for me. I’m six months into a job that I’m thoroughly enjoying and actively engaged in some interesting projects. One of these in particular, is locally-focused and is helping to train some people and engage them in a skill-based program that is reaping some positive early results. As I work to help people build a foundation of job skills for the first time and help them take some small, but positive steps in their work lives, I’m also aware that in the community where I’m based, Lewiston (as well as our sister community across the river, Auburn), a plethora of low-wage and low-skill retail jobs have been dumped on both communities in the name of economic development. It seems counter-intuitive on one hand, for business people in the community to decry the skill-level of our workers and then, when skills-based training is provided and the skills of the workforce are upgraded, applaud the efforts of economic development people who ought to know better, as they bring in businesses that are intent on driving down wages and lowering the economic opportunities of people who have already seen their livelihoods turned upside-down when manufacturing jobs, as well as occupations focused on textiles and shoes disappeared, some thirty years earlier.

What’s even more frustrating to me is how many so-called leaders in the community spend so much time patting themselves on the back merely because they’ve managed to open a few boarded-up storefronts, fix a dilapidated arena (at a net yearly loss of $500K) and attract a handful of service industry jobs that still fall short of a living wage, while handing the keys to both communities over to absentee corporate entities like Wal-Mart, Lowe’s, Home Depot, as well as the usual chain culinary establishments. There is only so much disposable income to go around and while a handful of higher-end restaurants have opened and some boutique-style shops have sprung up, those have been in the minority.

Mitchell’s Big-Box Swindle has been a “call-to-arms” for me and has helped me to sense the danger this area faces as we turn over the potential for sustainable growth and forego slower, economic progress, for the pottage of the quick-fix. While job-creation numbers tend to make ignorant bureaucrats genuflect and wax poetic, the lasting damage big-box development will wreak here and in our state capital of Augusta is rarely breached in any of our daily newspapers. While a handful of smart growth advocates preach to the converted, Maine continues to barrel headlong down an economic path of difficult, if not impossible to reverse consequences. While political leadership has never been the state’s forte, it’s hard for me to watch our small businesses, already struggling to survive, lose any hope for the future as large scale, big-box development has been sold, like snake oil of old, to community, after community, all over the state.

I hope to use Mitchell’s book, as well as some other research material she’s made me aware of, to piggy-back on this post with a couple of other related ones over the next week. In fact, I may have found my next writing project, as the subject of people and places being more important than mere profit is an area near and dear to my heart.

Report indicates poverty in Maine's largest city

If you’ve moved to Maine from away, one thing that’s readily apparent, especially if relocating from an urban area, is that other than Portland, the state has little in the way of cities. Even the greater-Portland metro area has less than 100,000 people, which is small compared to many urban areas in New England and elsewhere.

For lifelong Mainers, however, Portland is the state’s hub, the epicenter of culture, the arts and if you live in many of the rural areas of the state, a destination and a place to spend the weekend. If you’re from points north, living in the western mountains, or in downeast Washington County, coming to Portland and spending the weekend at one of its more upscale hotels, such as the Regency, the historic Eastland Park Hotel, or even the Sheraton, in South Portland, near the Maine Mall, all make for a great weekend getaways.

For folks from elsewhere in Maine, Portland appears urban, chic and a place where everyone is better educated and makes more money. For those of us who know the city, however, today’s report, released by the Alliance for Ending Hunger, indicating that one out of 11 families in Cumberland County faced hunger in 2006.

420 families in Portland and another 430 families throughout Cumberland County were surveyed in compiling the report. For many who have traveled the state, the fact that Portland and Cumberland County would have poverty issues like these, is somewhat surprising. It also deflates the myth that everyone in and around Portland is driving luxury automobiles and living in an upscale townhouse on the water. While that is the reality for some, for many others, hunger and living one or two paychecks away from food insecurity is closer to the truth.

In addition to hunger, families on the margin face accompanying medical problems, diminished quality of life and lost economic potential. The survey did not include Portland’s homeless shelters, which provide food and shelter to hundreds of individuals and indicates the problem is much wider than the survey was able to identify.

While Mainers regularly hear calls for tax relief and vague proposals for education reform, our state still has a long way to go economically, hoping to raise the boats of all its people.