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PORTLAND, ME [June 28, 2005]—Hundreds of Maine workers employed by Wal-Mart are enrolled in the state’s public assistance programs, including Medicaid, Food Stamps, and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, according to data released by the Maine Department of Health and Human Services. … Read More
More than 40 percent of the towns surveyed for a new report by the London-based New Economics Foundation are so overrun by chain stores that they have lost their local identity and become little more than "clone towns." … Read More
Grassroots groups that form to fight big-box development proposals often dissolve after winning or losing on that particular project. But a citizens group in Charlevoix, Michigan, called This is Our Town, kept on working. Now, one year after successfully pressuring Wal-Mart to drop plans for a supercenter, the group is celebrating new zoning rules that will limit future big-box development. … Read More
This 8-minute story on Minnesota Public Radio looks at how some Twin Cities area small business owners are banding together to promote shopping at local, independently-owned stores. Includes an interview with ILSR’s Stacy Mitchell.… Read More
The entry of Wal-Mart into New York City is the biggest challenge to neighborhood businesses and local communities in our city’s history, contends the Neighborhood Retail Alliance, which has been an advocate for New York City’s locally owned businesses for the past twenty years. … Read More
The National Trust for Historic Preservation has presented its 2005 Main Street Civic Leadership Award to the New Rules Project, a program of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance (ILSR). The award recognizes outstanding contributions to the commercial district revitalization movement by an organization or individual working in the public policy arena.… Read More
At the request of independent movie theaters across the state, California Attorney General Bill Lockyer is investigating claims that major movie theater chains use their clout with distributors to prevent independent theaters from showing many of the most popular first-run films. At issue is a common industry practice called clearance, whereby theaters are given exclusive rights to show a film within a certain radius around their theaters. … Read More
Voters in San Luis Obispo, California, have defeated a 650,000-square-foot big-box shopping center.
The Marketplace project, which included a Target, Lowe’s, Whole Foods, Old Navy, Circuit City, and several other chains, was to be built on 130 acres of prime farmland at the gateway to the city. San Luis Obispo has a population of 45,000 and is located about halfway between San Francisco and Los Angeles.
Known for squeezing every last dime out of employees and suppliers, Wal-Mart has even managed to get a rock-bottom deal on corporate green-washing. My local newspaper, the Portland (Maine) Press Herald, reported last week, in glowing front-page coverage, that an effort to protect a tract of northern forestland from development had "taken a huge step forward thanks to Wal-Mart. Similar stories of treasured lands gaining protection with help from Wal-Mart ran in hundreds of newspapers across the country under such headlines as Wal-Mart grant will help fund Squaw Creek conservation plan, and Wal-Mart to aid in effort to protect Grand Canyon.… Read More
