Corporate Ethics International : Site Fight Resources

Site Fight Resources

Communities across the U.S. are fighting unwanted big box development. Many have now passed moratoriums on such development, recognizing the tremendous costs - to small businesses and the local economy, workers, taxpayers, the environment, transportation, and beyond - when a big box store comes to town.

Studies show that when Wal-Mart enters a region, worker wages fall. Studies also show that taxpayers are forced to foot the bill to the tune of millions of dollars to pay for the health care that Wal-Mart doesn't provide its employees. Wal-Mart routinely violates the Clean Water Act when it constructs new stores. These are just some of the reasons that communities are seeking to keep Wal-Mart and other big box retailers from coming to town.

In this section you will find some key resources to help you protect your community from unwanted corporations.

Community Opposition Works!
WalMartWatch

A new report by a professor at the Columbia School of Business examines how Walmart goes about expanding.

PCN toolbox is a treasure trove! Check it out!
PCN

Communication Tools to Help YOU!

Baseswiki: A New Online Resource on Access to Non-Judicial Remedy
Baseswiki

BASESwiki...a new on-line resource focused on the non-judicial mechanisms available around the world to help companies and their external stakeholders resolve disputes..

Sprawlbusters

No matter what the logo on the building says--Wal-Mart, Home Depot, Target, Lowe's, Kohls, CVS--if its unwanted development, Sprawl-Busters can help you stop it. In hundreds of communities, it has helped citizens groups strategize and carry out a plan to stop the superstores.

Big Box Tool Kit
by Institute for Local Self-Reliance

Are you working to stop or prevent sprawling big-box development in your community? Are you looking for ways to strengthen local policies to protect your community and ensure that citizens control its future? Are you trying to expand locally owned businesses? Big Box Tool Kit has the resources you'll need to both beat the big box and to chart a new course for economic development in your community.

Wal-Mart and Beyond: The Battle for Good Jobs and Strong Communities in Urban America
by Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy, www.laane.org
January 8th, 2007

Why is Wal-Mart the target of so much criticism? The answer is Wal-Mart’s unparalleled size, and its corresponding impact on everything from job quality, poverty and the survival of small business to the environment, health care and crime. The report looks at 12 Wal-Mart battles in 11 cities, from New York to Chicago to Turlock, CA. Each battle illustrates one of five key strategies used to combat Wal-Mart’s aggressive expansion. Some

Big-Box Sprawl (And How to Control It)
by Constance Beaumont and Leslie Tucker, National Trust for Historic Preservation
March 1st, 2002

In the view of many, big-box stores impose hidden costs that don’t appear on the price tags of the products they sell: traffic congestion; loss of trees, open space and farmland; displaced small businesses; substitution of jobs that support families with low-paying jobs that don’t; air and water pollution; dying downtowns with vacant buildings; abandoned shopping centers; a degraded sense of community; and sprawl. The list of problems linked to big-box stores is long.