A Succubus in New Orleans: "Wal-mart Unmoved" by recent Yes Men hoax (with poll!)
Wed Aug 30, 2006 at 06:13:45 PM PDT
Prologue: I suppose "vampire" would have been a more appropriate metaphor,
but some New Orleans lore must be left untainted.
The very word succubus seems to point out how much Wal-Mart "succs," figuratively and literally,
as opposed to offering succor, as its marketing would have people believe.
In truth it is both succubus and incubus.
The succubus seduces the shoppers and some community leaders with the
promises of low low prices, jobs, tax revenue, and other contributions,
as the incubus manages to have commercial "intercourse" with those who
are "asleep" through their lack of knowledge or interest in the
destructive effects of Wal.
Posing
as fictitious HUD official "Rene Oswin," a name used because Rene means
"rebirth" and Oswin is the patron saint of the betrayed, one of the
innovative political activists known as the Yes Men
and spoke in New Orleans Monday, as part of a panel which featured
Mayor Ray Nagin and Louisiana Governor Kathleen Babineaux Blanco.
MaximusNYC had a great diary on this already:
Brilliant prank exposes federal neglect of New Orleans
After detailing a complete policy reversal in which he declared that
public housing would be repaired and rebuilt rather than razed, Mr.
"Oswin" went even further, speaking directly to the issue of local
economic infrastructure: Wal-Mart would withdraw its stores from near
low-income housing and "help nurture local businesses to replace them."
According to a CNN story on the hoax, Wal-Mart was unmoved.
"As evidenced by the fact that we recently reopened two stores in the New Orleans metropolitan area,
there is absolutely no truth to these statements," said spokeswoman Marisa Bluestone.
After yesterday's Katrina anniversary, in which I remembered the
well-televised scenes of looting at the Wal-Mart on Tchoupitoulas
Street, I thought I'd do a little reading and googling to see what
affect it had on the area when that store was built.
An article from the archives of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, New Orleans Faces Off with Wal-Mart
told an all-too-common story of Wal-Mart's ways and means for
establishing themselves upon a host city or neighborhood, although
worsened in this case by the fact that they intended to drain lifeblood
from New Orleans, an already fragile organism.
Some significant excerpts:
When finished, the building could create 500 jobs, generate millions of dollars, and enliven a previously broken neighborhood.
But more than 1,500 historic housing units were razed to clear the
site, displacing 845 low-income families, and this five-acre store may
harm small businesses when construction is complete.
Built in 1941, the 50-acre St. Thomas Housing Project,
just two miles down-river from Bourbon Street, contained 167 two- and
three-story brick duplexes with hipped roofs--not your typical
tower-in-the-park projects. "These were National Register-eligible
buildings," Borah says.
(William Borah is a land-use attorney for Smart Growth of Louisiana,
one of the five nonprofits behind a lawsuit to halt construction at the
time of the article.)
Ok, here's where HUD starts to factor in:
Eight years ago, the department of Housing and Urban
Development gave the city of New Orleans a $25 million Housing
Opportunities for People Everywhere (HOPE) VI grant, a program for
transforming "severely distressed" public housing and "improving the
living environment for public housing residents." By 2001, all but five
of the buildings had been demolished to make way for an integrated
community with roughly 25 percent low-income units and 75 percent
market-rate. The plan called for a mixed-income population as well as
resident-owned commercial development.
Razing the buildings was only the first in a series of moves that upset
preservationists, environmentalists, and some residents. "Those
buildings were perfectly adaptable," says Meg Lousteau, executive
director of the Lousiana Landmarks Society. "We could have had a great
HOPE VI project without demolishing everything."
The Wal-Mart plan, approved by the New Orleans City Council on Apr. 18,
2002, turned the original ratio upside down, leaving only 25 percent of
the housing affordable and substituting luxury condos for subsidized
housing. And the "resident-owned" retail development is a
200,000-square-foot Wal-Mart superstore.
So if it's "resident-owned," who is to say that those "looters" weren't
just "resident owners," coming down to their larder for a few supplies?!
The shift from low-income to luxury housing and
small-scale retail to big-box superstore worries critics. "This is a
moving target," Borah says. "Every time you turn around, they say it's
changing. How can you assess the impact if they're pulling the old
bait-and-switch?"
HRI's plan envisions a safer, more profitable area, but should
redeveloping a neighborhood mean displacing its residents? "Out of 800
families, only about 70 of them will have a chance to come back in,"
Borah says. "This displacement of low-income African Americans was
allegedly to build mixed-income housing. In reality, it's a way to get
a lot of money for high-income housing," he says.
And what of the former residents? "They're now in
neighborhoods that are better," Kabacoff says, though, he admits, "It's
not Nirvana. New Orleans is very poor. We didn't send them to
Shangri-la." (HUD and the Housing Authority of New Orleans paid for
residents' moving costs.)
Let me guess - the were moved to some of the highest land in the city ??
The store, they say, will take business away from the
small shops along nearby Magazine Street. "Magazine merchants are
terrified of this," Borah says.
Daphne Moore, a community affairs liaison for Wal-Mart, says,
"[Magazine Street] is all antiques stores and unique shops--nothing
that's in competition with Wal-Mart."
Magazine merchants disagree. Even antiques stores and art galleries can
lose shoppers to Wal-Mart, one-stop shopping for less expensive items.
Camille Strachan, a lawyer with a storefront practice along historic
Magazine Row, says, "Sixty percent of the items on Magazine Street are
competitive with items in Wal-Mart. We really do think it will have an
effect."
I'll vouch, having been down Magazine not only for the posh boutiques,
but also for that discount shoe shop (housed in a beautiful old
building, can't remember its name...)
And while some object to using federal grant money to
court the largest corporation in the world, Moore asserts that it's
Wal-Mart that is making the investment. "There's a misconception that
Wal-Mart is profiting from the HOPE VI funds, or receiving tax
incentive funds," she says. "In fact, we paid several years of property
taxes up front."
Some say the discount chain is getting a huge, and unfair, discount,
but even if Wal-Mart is paying a fraction of the property tax that
would be levied on small businesses, says Kabacoff, Wal-Mart's
investment was integral to funding. The company's $7 million went
straight into housing construction. Yet the houses constructed with
that money were market-rate homes and luxury condos; grant money
covered the low-income housing costs. If luxury housing were not being
developed, HRI wouldn't need Wal-Mart to come to the financial rescue.
Lousteau of Louisiana Landmarks says the project is
still too large. "To hear them tell it, they're building the Taj
Mahal," she says. "They put in 100 less parking spots, paint it red,
and put a cornice on it, as if that in any way could mitigate this
enormous suburban site plan."
The irony, say both Borah and Lousteau, is that HOPE VI was designed on
New Urbanist and smart growth principals, and that their city, built on
a grid system connected by streetcars, is a model for both. National
Register and National Historic Landmark Districts surround the Lower
Garden District, where the superstore is rising.
"We feel [Wal-Mart] will have a disastrous impact," Borah says. "It's a
big-box suburban sprawl store. It's got about as much urban design
features as McDonald's," Borah says. "It's everything New Orleans is
not. It's automobiles versus pedestrians, it's big-box versus small
stores."
Some worry that this redevelopment in New Orleans will set a dangerous
precedent. "If you can wrap an elephant in this kind of tissue paper,
then it's a model for the future," Strachan says. "Any inner city that
needs to be redeveloped is watching this very carefully."
Big-box retail is the key to economic improvement in cities, Kabacoff
maintains. "America has chosen where it wants to shop," he says. "And
you can't change America."
Who was Kabacoff again? You mean "Pres" Kabacoff? Why, he's just the
little ol' CEO of New Orleans-based "Historic Restoration, Inc."- the
developer overseeing construction of the Tchoupitoulas Street Wal-Mart.
Last-minute Lagniappe:
This article describes one of the controversies that went on before Wal-Mart managed to get in.
Signature Smackdown: A Wal-Mart petition war erupts on Magazine Street.
Tags: New Orleans, Katrina, HUD, Yes Men, hoax, NoLa, Katrina Blog Project, Wal-Mart, walmart (all tags)
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