Big Cities Big Boxes

New Book, Big Box Swindle

Beacon Press has just brought out Stacy Mitchell's book Big Box Swindle. For anyone interested in preserving local commerce, this is a big event.

City Planning Commission Should Deny Permits to East River Plaza

Letter to the Honorable Amanda M. Burden, Chairperson, New York City Planning Commission

Dear Chairperson Burden:

I am writing as a concerned citizen with a special interest in New York City's retail stores. I urge the City Planning Commission not to renew the special permits the Commission granted in 1999 to Tiago Holdings for a shopping mall at 116th Street and the East River Drive. That project, East River Plaza, was expected to have as lead tenants two big-box stores, Home Depot and Costco. When East River Plaza (ERP) came before the Commission for zoning changes and special permits on September 7, 1999, you voted against it. In the nearly seven years since, much has changed. Conditions in East Harlem have changed, and Forest City Ratner has joined the original developer, Blumenfeld, as a partner in Tiago Holdings. One fact, however, remains unchanged, namely, that the East River Plaza project is entirely unsuited to the site at 116th Street and the East River Drive.

Bloomberg Administration Encourages Corruption With Community Benefits Agreements

Developers' use of so-called Community Benefits Agreements (CBAs) in Bruce Ratner's Atlantic Yards project, the Bronx Terminal Market project, the Yankee Stadium project and, now, it appears, the Shea Stadium project, introduces large-scale pay-offs and public patronage into the development process, in the guise of democracy and doing good, as Crain's New York has finally recognized. Under Mayor Giuliani, agreements that developers who wanted approval under ULURP entered into with either

New Urban News Reports that Target is "Tailoring its Stores to Urban Markets," With Two Levels, Escalators, and Structured Parking

The October-November 2005 issue of New Urban News features a story called Targeting Changes in Big Box Stores, reporting on the willingness of Target, if not yet Wal-Mart, to make stores small enough, and close enough to the sidewalk and public transit, so that they fit into urban settings. The New Urban News treats the trend as a good thing. To fit into big cities, the big boxes must give up their standard one-story warehouses with long, blank walls, surrounded by surface parking. The Target store in Brooklyn, in fact, has no parking at all. Another Target store planned for Queens will be beneath 800 housing units.

Elsewhere, as we have reported earlier, city planners both

All the Shopping on the Fringes of Cities, and a Desolate Downtown, Like Detroit?

Speaking about the limits the U.K has placed on the size of stores, Sir Terrence Conran, quoted in the Telegraph, said that he was pleased that the U.K.'s new out-of-town planning laws appeared to have restricted Ikea's growth. The restrictive laws in the U.K., on which we reported here in June,

North Hempstead Keeps Out Big Boxes by Limiting Retailers to 85,000 Square Feet

In a move likely to be imitated by other Long Island towns, North Hempstead has acted to keep the big boxes out by capping size at 85,000 squre feet. Meanwhile, over in Smithtown, residents have been startled to discover that a huge shopping mall has been approved right across the road from their houses. Read about it in the New York Daily News here.

Towns Force Wal-Mart and Other Big Boxes to Conform to Local Size and Design Standards

The message of this blog, BigCitiesBigBoxes.com, is that the citizens of New York City need to have a civil conversation about whether we want to allow big box stores into the city and, if so, with what size and site constraints, and with what labor practices. Other localities have forced the big boxes to conform to local size and design standards. On June 23, 2005, Anne D'Innocenzio of the AP reported in

U.K. Forces Ikea to Build Smaller Stores and Locate Near Transit Hubs

Little England has now stood up to the mighty Ikea on its demands to build gigantic, overscale, automobile-dependent stores, and the British government has won. If only the New York City Planning Commission and the City Council had had the same courage as the British to turn Ikea down when it demanded approval for a huge suburban store with a 1,400-car parking lot on the remote waterfront in Red Hook, Brooklyn.

MCG: Letter to New York Post Critiques Charles E. F. Millard's Pro-Wal-Mart Op-Ed

The following letter was submitted by email, Tuesday, April 5, 2005:

To the Editor of the New York Post:

Former City Council member Charles E.F. Millard, who was City Economic Development Corporation head under Mayor Giuliani, criticizes Representative Anthony Weiner's attacks on Wal-Mart's labor practices primarily on the grounds that labor unions back Weiner's positions. ("Whiner Weiner Chases Jobs," April 4, 2005). In deciding on zoning policies for big box stores, New Yorkers must demand better information, within a far larger philosophical framework, than Mr. Millard's sneering attack provides.

Contrary to Millard's suggestion, in careful studies all over the country, economists have found that big boxes destroy the small retail businesses that still make New York's 400 neighborhood high streets so lively. In an Iowa study sponsored by the National Trust for Historic Preservation, economists Thomas Muller and Elizabeth Humstone examined seven counties where Wal-Mart built stores. In five out of seven counties, non-retail jobs grew while the retail share of all jobs actually declined. Those jobs come out of the local businesses that the big boxes destroy.

For generations New York City urbanism has meant high density and high use of public transit, with small shops ringing large blocks of apartment buildings in walkable neighborhoods. Big box stores, however, are suburban, not urban. Unless our zoning forces them to conform to New York City's urban patterns, the big boxes will not only destroy jobs and neighborhood shopping streets, they will chop the city into a suburban form, increase the use of automobiles, increase traffic, and cause sprawl. At stake are our small businesses, our neighborhood shopping streets, and a key element of our New York City way of life.

Yours truly,

Mary Campbell Gallagher