Richard Florida has written about how important diversity, street art and culture are to high paid knowledge workers, that these workers gravitate to cities like San Francisco and Austin for their vibrant “scenes”. Rebecca Ryan’s book Live First, Work Second talks about how Gen Y workers seek a cool city to live in first, then figure out how support themselves once they get there. Big Box stores are not part of what makes a city cool.

From the perspective of a city, letting big box stores in may be a stupid move financially. The more you look like other cities, then the less reason residents, businesses, tourists have to come or stay there. Unless, that is, you give big incentives or tax breaks. This can add to what already is a race to the bottom among cities who compete for relocating businesses.

From the perspective of Florida and Ryan, the smarter strategy may be to foster diversity, a rich local culture, and livability so that folks have a reason to come and stay. The issue isn’t so much about big box stores or not or free market or not. It’s about cultivating distinctiveness so cities can compete in the global market for tourists, workers and businesses.

The local merchants wanted new buildings for local stores restricted. They claimed they wanted the national chains on their local streets, to attract customers there. National chains started showing up on local commercial streets. Then local merchants complained about being priced out. Then the total amount of retail space expanded, and vacancy went up. Local landlords complained about city policy, instead of cutting their rents, and local merchants blamed bike lanes.

The local merchant is the one that’s easiest to get to.

Same as going to Russia and finding a McDonald’s there.

Sorry, I want something different.

Intuitively, it seems that big box retails creates more negative externalities than smaller retail. I believe this is true myself. But I would be at a loss a to how to measure the relative amounts (it could differ widely depending on the precise location and type of retail, as well as what smaller alternatives exist.)

Imposing greater costs on the ownership and use of private cars would be unlikely to have a significant impact on consumer demand for big vs. small retail, as the actual cost of driving to the store is tiny.

That is why I think this is an issue best dealt with via planning and zoning – that is how communities should express their preference for the type of land use they want – and it should be at as local a level as possible.

Big box stores charge lower prices to the consumer, but they create greater external costs (greater environmental and social costs, such as more automobile trips and less cohesive communities).

Consumers decide where to shop based on the cost to the consumer, and they generally ignore external costs.

Therefore, big box stores will displace local stores even if their total costs (counting external costs as well as the cost of merchandise) are greater than the total costs of local stores.

Look at the elephant in the room. The auto-system is heavily subsidized. Without this subsidy, the big-boxes would lose their attraction and the town center would revive.

Transit fares are an auto-system subsidy. They do not exist to gather revenue. They exist to discourage usage. Make public transit free.

I also agree with J:lai that much of this issue with chain stores is asthetic and neighborhood character.

Definitely not a black/white issue and has to be thought about differently for every community.

Big box anything (stores, housing projects, whatever) creates a street-level environment that is less conducive to pedestrians than smaller (“mom and pop”) retail. I think it is reasonable that each borough should have certain zones where it is permissible to operate big-box retail, in order to provide the option to the consumers who want it while avoiding sterile and unfriendly streets in the majority of locations.

We also have to remember that Wal-Mart has not really succeeded in true downtown settings (yes, there are examples, but mostly not). The infrastructure of a true downtown is mostly incompatible with the large-purchase-which-you-take-to-your-large-SUV-in-free-parking-lot shopping/business model.

Yes, places like Starbucks and Old Navy will come into downtowns. It is the responsibility of individual business owners to differentiate their store from the national chains. The local stores that successfully differentiate their products and services and develop the right market niche will be successful.

- Keith

Those who believe the Iraq War was about oil would say that any oil-dependent, international corporation like Wal-Mart is surely relying on coercive government power to survive, and much more so than the average mom-and-pop shop. Chain stores are inherently more powerful because of economies of scale, which are sometimes possible only with government intervention.

Competition is always best for the consumer. Insulating businesses from competition does not.

Competition results in lower prices, greater choices and better services. Insulating a business from competition leads to taking the customer for granted and neglected product lines.

But established businesses like keeping other merchants away from their customers, and politicians like their campaign contributions!

Any business that needs to rely on the coercive exercise of government power to keep them in business ought not survive.