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COURTESY SEIIG ENTERPRISES. INC.
ATHENS NEWS AND VIEWS
Glancing over the illustrations of the pro
posed development on the Armstrong & Dobbs
property (and others) is hilarious. They've
got three pastel-pencil, ground-level render
ings of a beautiful and beautifully peopled,
if context-free, new-urbanist, er... mall, and
then an aerial view that shows where and
how that rosy, idyllic landscape is supposed
to be situated: next to a huge, sickly-orange
box crammed into the eastern end of the
property and labeled "Anchor." Did anybody
with the remotest sense of humor proof
that graphic? Let's give the developer, Selig
Enterprises, the benefit of the doubt and
guess, "no." But more importantly, did anyone
with the faintest familiarity with Athens get a
look at it? There's your real problem.
And that's another thing. We're going to
hear an awful lot about how we don't have
the right to pick and choose what businesses
set up shop in our community, especially in
these tough economic times, when we should
presumably be thankful for any new jobs that
come to the community and accept them
without question. But opposing Walmart's
entrance or expansion into local markets isn't
elitist, liberal NIMBYism (again, despite what
we're going to hear); people do it all the time,
in cities and towns all over the world—and
that includes coalitions of poor and working-
class people. That's because Walmart has a
specific track record of exacerbating poverty
(not helping alleviate it, despite what we're
going to hear) by destroying more jobs than
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Don’t like the looks of this? The group People for a Better Athens has a petition, a Facebook page and some
ideas for how to make your opposition count. They’re not against the development on the whole; just the
100.000-square-foot Walmart. The petition is available at www.peopleforabetterathens.org.
Because, check it out: "Anchor" (aside from
its connotation as an immovable weight that
halts the progress of whatever it's attached
to) is a euphemism for "probably Walmart"—
and we're not talking about the kind of
"urban-scaled" Walmart th? was rumored (as
recently as two months ago, before Walmart
shot the rumor down) to be under consider
ation as the "anchor tenant" for an otherwise
cool mixed-use development at A&D. No: we're
talking about a store that's about as big as a
regular Walmart used to be way back about
10 years ago, when what they now call a
"Walmart" was still called a "Super-Walmart."
That's a very serious problem. This devel
opment would cover an area we've iong
envisioned as the best option for an exten
sion of downtown. The auto traffic a big-box
retailer would generate in the area can hardly
be imagined as a push in the right direction
where that's concerned. (Whatever is said
about the "pedestrian-friendliness" of this
development as a whole, no Walmart is, or
is supposed to be, a walkable destination.)
Adding insult to injury, the back end of the
big box would be snuggled right up against
the head of our soon-to-be-realized rail-to-
trail bicycle and pedestrian path, a project
endorsed by local taxpayers because it was
sure to be such a splendid hallmark of Athens'
enviable quality of life. To interfere with that
objective by putting a Walmart on top of it,
aside from being just absurdly stupid and
awful, would constitute a deeply irresponsible
undermining of this city's long-term eco
nomic development goals.
it creates, replacing them with lower-wage,
no-benefits employment. It's their business
model, and it's not going to change because
of a nicer-looking building.
There's a final aspect to this situation that
isn't being talked about much, but should be.
The idea that the only way to do business is
to make the absolute maximum profit, no mat
ter what, doesn't deserve to go unquestioned.
That's the idea that led to the housing bubble
and crash, and it's the operating principle
that's led to the hyper-consolidation of wealth
in the hands of huge banks and corporations
through massive lobbying and deregulation
campaigns. That's essentially what's going on
here, too: anchoring this development with a
100,000-square-foot big box isn't the only way
it can possibly happen; it's just the best way
for the developer to make the greatest profit.
We're under no obligation to facilitate that at
the cost of our own well-being.
A 100,000-square-foot big-box retail outlet
is a totally inappropriate use for this location.
Walmart is a notoriously bad corporate neigh
bor. The maximization of short-term profit at
the expense of long-term social benefits is
an unsustainable business practice. Have we
learned a damned thing? Here's a modest sug
gestion that actually sounds pretty good as a
refrain—and would have for a long time now,
if anybody had been able to say it out loud
without spitting out their Starbucks:
Someone's going to have to make a little
bit less money on this deal.
Dave Marr news@flagpole.com
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