WALMART EFFECT

Wal-Mart effect

Wall-Mart Effect

Wal-Mart has been fingered as the source of virtually every conceivable economic ill. It kills jobs and downtown, say critics, and destroys community character. It's been accused of discriminating against women, using illegal immigrants, requiring work off the clock and being overly aggressive in stopping the formation of labor unions among its workers.

It's been blamed for sprawl and traffic congestion, as well as aesthetic offenses. For example, as the company upsize from discount stores to supercenters in many towns, it often leaves behind an empty shell whose only visitors are the weeds that crop up in the unused parking lot, which might itself be in view of the new store. That new store, critics contend, probably received infrastructure upgrades that Wal-Mart strong-armed from local communities, lest it find a better offer elsewhere. The company adds a final dash of salt to the wound by repeatedly fighting (and mostly winning) property tax assessments on its stores.

Wal-Mart even scares businesses that aren't direct competitors, at least not yet. Banks, for instance, lobbied Congress hard to keep Wal-Mart from becoming an industrial loan corporation, which, in effect, would have allowed it to offer banking services.

But some argue that the company can be, and often is, a force for good. Wal-Mart's low prices are hard to dispute, and the biggest benefactors are low-income shoppers. Wal-Mart has been widely lauded for its $4 pharmacy program, which has rippled through drug and pharmacy industries to the delight of consumer advocates.

The company has received considerable attention for various environmental initiatives. It has widely replaced store lighting with energy-saving bulbs and given the bulbs prominent space on store shelves. The company announced in November that it has increased the energy efficiency of its buildings and truck fleets by 15 percent since 2005, and has committed to ...