For big-box foes, battle joined, but war not over

By ARON GOLDMAN

Published on January 16, 2009

One night last month, as an ice storm was descending on the Valley, one hundred people gathered at Food for Thought Books in downtown Amherst. We were motivated by the "Grand Opening" of Home Depot.

It was too late to do anything about the latest strip mall big box to gobble up more of our farmland and open space, attracting more cars to the already traffic-choked eyesore that the region's main artery has become. And we were equally powerless to prevent the bison farm, not a mile down the road from Home Depot, from being bulldozed to prepare for a Lowe's Home Improvement Store.

But we felt a need to convene as a community.

The Pioneer Valley is known around the world for its exceptional quality of life. Nothing diminishes our greatest regional asset more effectively than a new big box store (or two).

We are also blessed to have several wonderful locally owned and multi- generation family-owned home improvement stores in the Valley. And in this economy, it is hard to imagine how even one big box store could compete with these existing outlets.

But two of these behemoths? This is the McDonald's-Burger King phenomenon on crack - local consumer demand taking a back seat to corporate boardroom strategy.

And no one will be surprised when next quarter's global sales numbers prompt a sudden change of heart, our new Home Depot is shuttered and we're left with a gaping hole on the landscape, and the beginning of a new era of dead malls.

Environmentalists, planners, business owners, unions, emergency workers, cyclists, drivers, mass transit users, students, seniors and many, many others came together to resist Wal-Mart's efforts to pave over the cornfields and wetlands across from Home Depot for a "Supercenter." Our amazing victory proved that, even when giant corporations are involved, regular people can sometimes have a say in what happens in their own community.

Some claim that a regional movement to contain strip malls in any one town is contrary to the idea of self-determination, or "home rule."

But it's only common sense that supersized projects like these will have diverse and regional impacts, and that therefore decisions about them should have correspondingly diverse and regional input. It is also important to point out that Hadley has passed a "big box cap," limiting future stores from exceeding 75,000 square feet. The end of an era in Hadley is encouraging, but one result is that mall developers will look for the next most vulnerable location.

Again, regional planning is the answer.

Another thing about us "regular people" trying to contain big box and strip mall proliferation: We have limited budgets, and we're busy.

When we can't find what we need or want downtown, we often end up down on the strip.

Al Norman, of Sprawl-Busters.com, calls this the "socks and underwear problem." But when we do get some spare time to reflect on why we love this area so much, we realize that we cannot take it for granted.

Strip malls have become a central feature of the American landscape, and if we want to hold on to even a quaint little patch of what we've got, it's time to create a vision and plan for an economically, socially and environmentally sustainable future.

And one practical question is, "How do we make the things we need available downtown?"

What about the new jobs Home Depot and Lowe's create? Big box stores contribute to a vast and expanding low wage underclass in this country. Common attributes include no health insurance (taxpayer burden), no union, no job security, no career path and no sense of meaning or community.

Any new jobs will be more than offset by downward pressure on the local economy, the extraction of wealth out of our community and the resulting elimination of higher-quality jobs and future prospects for regional economic development.

Aron Goldman is executive director of the nonprofit Policy Development. He teaches public policy at UMass and he is a member of the Shutesbury Planning Board.