A regional group representing organized labor says a proposed Wal-Mart superstore in the Berkshire County city of Pittsfield, Massachusetts is “an insult to the community.”
According to an August 31st story from Reuters, people on Wall Street are asking: What’s wrong with retailing these days? “Too many stores,” the article
“It’s a shame that a small community succumbs to a large corporation,” Rick O’Donnell told the Tribune-Review newspaper. “I have a nice house in Edgewater
Residents of Topsham, Maine may think their community is number #1 — but now they know that as far as Wal-Mart is concerned, they were
They call themselves MADSET: the Milford Alliance to Defeat Sprawl at Exit Ten. Residents in this small community have organized to push off the map
Residents in the Visitacion Valley neighborhood of San Francisco are hoping to prevent a visitation from a planned 108,000 s.f. Home Depot. According to a
Citizens in Maine are actively resisting big box sprawl in Ellsworth, Belfast, Rockland, and Topsham (see newsflash entries on 7/17, 6/30, 6/25, and 6/7.) In
Like an ever-growing number of communities across the country, the picturesque town of Lenox, Massachusetts is facing surburban developers who will change the character of
More than four years after Sprawl-Busters reported on the dangers of shopping at big box retailers, the major media is now “discovering” the issue. In
On August 5, 2000, 42 year old Fred Nelson went to his local Wal-Mart store on Hudson Drive in Stow, Ohio, and purchased a sawed-off
I visited beautiful Decorah, Iowa back in December of 1998 at the invitation of the Citizens for Responsible Development. They were trying to stop Wal-Mart
One defeat was not enough to kill Wal-Mart in Mason City, Iowa. Local officials were so eager to see Wal-Mart come to town — even
According to reports from sprawl-busters in Peachtree City, GA, which has been battling with Home Depot and Wal-Mart incursions, the city’s Planning Commission will discuss
All that residents in Stanley, Kansas want is growth that is proportional to residential growth, and appropriate in scale. Their community, which was annexed 15
It took a jury only 3 hours to award New Hampshire resident Gail Yount $550,000 for injuries she sustained while shopping at Wal-Mart. It took
Home Depot just didn’t have the answers to please local officials at a recent meeting of the Mountain View, CA Environmental Planning Commission. Home Depot
The Akron Beacon Journal (www.ohio.com) carried a 4 part series on megastores in mid July, including an insight to Wal-Mart’s power over its manufacturing vendors.
Even I, who has fought superstores for the past 7 years, was appalled to read in today’s Cincinnati Enquirer a story about Lowe’s trying to
The natives are restless in Home Depot’s home town. A citzen’s group called the Northwest Community Alliance (NCA) has been fighting a plan to build
A Land Use Board of Appeals (LUBA) in Oregon has ruled that Oregon City did not give Wal-Mart enough time to rebut some of the
We reported on 11/20/99 (see newsflash) that many residents of Peachtree City did want Home Depot to branch out in their city, but in recent
On the late afternoon of Sunday, July 9th, around 6 pm, twin brothers Dennis and Jeffrey Mead went shopping at the Federal Road Home Depot
On July 18th. the Colleyville, Texas City Council listened to the concerns of its citizens and voted against rezoning land for a Wal-Mart “Neighborhood Market”.
On Sunday afternoon, May 29, 2000, around 4:30 pm, 3 year old Janessa Horner was inside the Twin Falls, Idaho Home Depot when she was
Sprawl-Busters in Belfast, Maine have filed the following report on the latest anti-sprawl activity in their town: Tonight (July 18th, 2000) the Belfast, Maine City
If you ever saw it, you would even say it glows! Here’s the a press release put out in May about irradiated food being test-marketed
A Las Vegas couple has sued Home Depot for breach of contract and fraud in a case that the plaintiffs say involves the building supply
The Queen Anne’s County (Maryland) Commissioners voted on May 23rd not to grant a water and sewer connection for a proposed 154,000 s.f. Wal-Mart supercenter
In a self-congratulatory company press release, Home Depot announced today that it will tie a 2,200 s.f. orange apron to the columns of the “mighty”
Wal-Mart’s public relations people must have scratched their heads over an unwelcomed “award” the company received a couple of weeks ago from a group of
In order to serve its rapacious growth, Wal-Mart has planned to build 11 new distribution centers, those enormous, 1 million square foot brain centers that
According to the just-released list of top 100 retailers compiuled by the National Retail Federation and Triversity, Inc. Wal-Mart, with 1999 sales of $165 billion,
Wal-Mart has indicated that it wants to add 230 stores to its units in the United States (165 supercenters, 40 discount stores, and 25 Sam’s
Q: How long does a Wal-Mart last? A: In Bardstown, Kentucky, the answer is nine years. Wal-Mart is trying to move into its 3rd store
Sam Walton used to say that if a town, “for whatever reason”, didn’t want a Wal-Mart, that his company would not go in and “create
Linda Lee wasted no time in letting members of the Metropolitan Planning Commission know how she felt about Home Depot coming to town. “If this
Wal-Mart wants to be the main retailer in Maine, and has launched a multi-town assault on vacationland. Sprawl-busters in Rockland, Topsham and Belfast are already
According to the Glastonbury Citizen newspaper, developers in Glastonbury, Connecticut are promising local residents that their 131,795 s.f. Home Depot will be “nice” and “well
A developer wants to build a 225,000 s.f. Wal-Mart Super Center on 22 acres on U.S. Route 13 in between Dover and Cheswold, Delaware, plus
Over the years I have written about some of the dangers of shopping at stores like Wal-Mart and Home Depot. Here’s another one, this time
On June 3, 2000 (see below) we profiled the battle going on in New Rochelle, New York regarding a huge proposed IKEA furniture store and
Mayor Bill Souder got the Home Depot he wanted. It looked like tough going at first, because the Planning & Zoning Commission in North Richland
In January of 1998, if you had entered the Wal-Mart in Oxnard, California, you would have been under the watchful eye of no less than
The devastating impact of superstores on small town America has not been lost on other countries. Ireland, Norway, and now Argentina have placed limits on
A Wal-Mart developer in Charlotte, North Carolina is looking for a handout. In fact, he’s looking for a half million dollar tax bailout in order
Wal-Mart pulled out of Rockland, Maine recently (see newsflash below) and is now trolling for more land in nearby communities. Local activists in Belfast, Maine
It’s a dog’s life. Just ask Mark Braun, who worked for Wal-Mart in California as a pharmacist, until he was fired for refusing to fill
Elizabeth Swenson was shopping at a Wal-Mart in 1994 when she went to use the handicapped stall. Swenson, who is wheelchair bound, was using the
Robert Washington is no Emperor, but he had to leave Wal-Mart looking very much like the fairy tale Emperor’s New Clothes. Six years ago, Washington
Homeowners in Las Vegas are gambling with the future of their largest investment, as Rodney Helm found out. He never had to enter a gambling
The strategies written here were produced by Sprawl-Busters in 2006 at the request of the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW), mainly for citizen groups that were fighting Walmart. But the tips for fighting unwanted development apply to any project—whether its fighting Dollar General, an Amazon warehouse, or a Home Depot.
Big projects, or small, these BATTLEMART TIPS will help you better understand what you are up against, and how to win your battle.