Another city is fighting back against dollar chains. The Chicago City Council has voted to enact an ordinance that will limit development of new chain dollar stores. Over 60 other cities and towns have enacted similar ordinances in recent years, but Chicago is the largest city to date to do so.… Read More
“Eliminating food deserts requires many solutions. But there is one absolutely essential action: preventing dollar stores from proliferating,” Tulsa City Council Member Vanessa Hall-Harper and ILSR Senior Researcher Kennedy Smith wrote in The Chicago Tribune in support of a proposal to limit dollar stores. … Read More
NPR affiliate station WBHM reported on the rapid expansion of dollar stores across the American South. Across three segments, reporter Stephan Bisha interviewed…… Read More
As dollar stores multiply rapidly across the U.S., cities are developing dollar store-specific policies to rein in their growth. Such policies include “dispersal restrictions” that set limits on how close new dollar stores can be to existing ones. These ordinances account for the existing concentration of dollar stores within a neighborhood or city and help ensure that these chains cannot amass at such a density that they impede opportunities for grocery stores and other businesses to take root and grow. Our new map shows dollar store defeats and restrictions across the country. … Read More
The New York Times reported on the growing opposition to chain dollar stores in communities across the U.S., drawing extensively from ILSR’s recent report, The Dollar Store Invasion.… Read More
In this report, we spotlight communities rising up against dollar chains and how federal policymakers need to address the ways in which misguided policies are fueling the destructive proliferation of dollar stores. … Read More
Original maps from eight U.S. cities show how numerous dollar stores have become in urban America and reveal a striking pattern between dollar store locations and neighborhood income and race. We discuss each local context, presenting evidence for why these patterns have emerged and how some cities are beginning to check the spread of dollar chains. … Read More
Although dollar stores sometimes fill a need in places that lack basic retail services, there’s growing evidence that these stores are not merely a byproduct of economic distress. They’re a cause of it. In small towns and urban neighborhoods alike, dollar stores are leading full-service grocery stores to close. And their strategy of saturating communities with multiple outlets is making it impossible for new grocers and other local businesses to take root and grow.… Read More
National dollar store chains, including Dollar General and Dollar Tree, have seen huge growth over the past decade. These stores are also feeding more Americans than Whole Foods is. New research from ILSR’s Community-Scaled Economy Initiative documents the rapid rise of dollar stores and their damaging effects on the local economies of cities and small towns. Explore our two-page fact sheet to learn more about dollar store impacts and strategies to take action.… Read More
