Division of Labour: Wal-Mart & Productivity; Wal-Mart's Land Seized Via Eminent Domain

May 24, 2006

Wal-Mart & Productivity; Wal-Mart's Land Seized Via Eminent Domain

Co-blogger Mike DeBow requested info on Wal-Mart's effect on productivity growth. It'd be out of character for me to forego an opportunity to blog on Wal-Mart.

Here's a NYT article by Virginia Postrel that cites (and links to) a McKinsey study finding large productivity effects arising from Wal-Mart.

Now to a different Wal-Mart topic. From ABC News:

Tuesday night, during a sometimes raucous meeting, the city council voted unanimously to take Wal-Mart's land by power of eminent domain. It's a power the Supreme Court affirmed for municipalities in a controversial New London, Conn., ruling, in which the city wanted to take private property for a commercial development.

The Hercules, Calif., land in question consists of a 17-acre stretch next to new homes, offering a view of the San Pablo Bay. The city did not want Wal-Mart to be the centerpiece of its planned waterfront.

Instead, city planners have looked for a more historic-looking development, with buildings that include apartments on the second floor and shops and restaurants on the ground floor.

Sigh--more fallout from the awful Kelo decision. On the other hand, if Wal-Mart has ever benefitted from an eminent domain land grab there might a bit of rough justice here. Hopefully being on the losing side of an eminent domain issue will deter Wal-Mart from future development via eminent domain.

Posted by E. Frank Stephenson at 11:29 PM in Misc. · TrackBack (0)

Comments

"Hopefully being on the losing side of an eminent domain issue will deter Wal-Mart from future development via eminent domain."

Interesting….depends which way they look at it.

They might well react to this moral injustice by being more aggressive with future takings for their own benefit. Classic moral justification fodder that occurs at the margins whenever one has been wronged by a law. We were screwed….so next time we will feel absolutely no guilt when using the law ourselves.

Or...will they be so horrified by the injustice done to them that they will refrain from it themselves? More likely that once the government blesses the action, individual moral decision making becomes much easier to obfuscate...and the government position, backed by the implied moral 'correctness' that laws/rulings carry with them, tends to dilute any guilt one might feel.

Posted by: I_am_a_lead_pencil at May 25, 2006 11:54 AM

Wal-Mart may indeed have a history of using eminent domain to gain desireable locations for its stores. Just a couple weeks ago there was a story about Wal-Mart threatening to use eminent domain in Putnam County, Florida. Wal-Mart later decided that was a bad idea, and apologized for making the threat.
http://www.palatkadailynews.com/articles/2006/05/20/news/news02.txt

There was a similar incident in Alabaster, Alabama, but I can't find anything on it that isn't fairly sensationalistic. Neil Boortz got upset about it, for example, and you probably know how bombastic he is. This site discuss Wal-Mart and eminent domain in general:
http://reclaimdemocracy.org/independent_business/walmart_eminent_domain.html
But I'm not sure I'd trust them as a source. For example, they mention "subsidies" received by Wal-Mart, but I wonder if they really mean "tax breaks". I think they dislike "big box" stores in general, with or without eminent domain.

After reading a few other sites, it seems that Wal-Mart retains some plausible deniability. They might be able to say, for example "The government was going to sieze the land for redevelopment anyway; we just happen to be an anchor store in the strip mall". I suspect that they have probably used it in the past, but are probably not as eager to use it as the activists would suggest. So I guess it does feel like a bit of poetic justice to me when Wal-Mart suffers the pointy end of eminent domain.

Posted by: Mike Hammock at May 25, 2006 12:29 PM