Product Description

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #131904 in Books
• Published on: 2007-10-04
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 344 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780807035016
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

From Publishers Weekly
Mitchell, chair of the American Independent Business Alliance, has produced a compelling indictment of Wal-Mart and other "big box" stores, based on numerous national examples. Deep-pocketed chains like Home Depot flood the market to drive out competition, she points out, then advertise some products at or below cost, while most other products may offer no better value than at independent stores. Meanwhile, she argues, independent businesses not only return profits to local communities and remain more civic-minded and accountable, but offer resiliency rooted in diversity, in contrast to the big-box "monocrop." She even provides evidence that Wal-Mart lowers, rather than boosts community economic well-being, and that firms with fewer than 100 employees give twice as much in charity per employee as those with more than 500 workers. Mitchell challenges Chris Anderson's Long Tail theory, suggesting that an indie bookseller's passion about a product can be more critical to its sales than wide access via a Web retailer. Mitchell catalogues diverse ways indie-minded consumers can fight back, by campaigning against government subsidies to big-box stores, and advocating for sales tax collection on Internet sales and stronger antitrust enforcement. Visible citizens' coalitions can fight big-box expansion, especially if communities fine-tune their land use policies. The big-box trend, she suggests, can be countered by increasing public awareness. (Nov.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist
Across the U.S., large retail chain stores have created a monoculture of automobile-based shopping, driving out independently owned businesses and decimating downtown shopping districts. The numbers are staggering--Wal-Mart, the big gorilla, now receives 10 percent of American's spending dollars, and Home Depot gobbles up nearly half of all home-improvement sales. Mitchell, an advisor to communities on retail development and independent business, compares these companies' tactics to European colonialism--they enter a community and plunder its resources, rather than adding value and enhancing the local economy. Gobbling up land, creating sprawl, and even knocking down historical landmarks in their quest for total dominance, these powerful corporations let nothing stand in their way. From shrinking the middle class to diminishing culture and landscape, the effects of the big-box retailers are far reaching, but Mitchell has uncovered a movement to curb the proliferation of the megaretailers and create policies that favor local enterprises. Her call to action reveals the hidden costs of those "low prices" promoted by the big-box bullies and gives hope to local entrepreneurs and concerned citizens alike. David Siegfried
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Review

Review By: Jim Hightower, national radio commentator, writer, and public speaker - March 28, 2006
"Through rich, real-life stories, Stacy Mitchell reveals that those 'low prices' so proudly promoted by big-box behemoths come at an intolerably high cost to our communities and culture. Can we beat the behemoths? Yes! And Mitchell shows us the way. Read on, take heart, and take action!"

Review By: Bill McKibben, author of The End of Nature - July 13, 2006
"This is the ultimate account of the single most important economic trend in our country-the replacement of local businesses, and all they represent, with the big boxes. What Nickel and Dimed did for the Wal-Mart worker, Stacy Mitchell does for the community threatened by mega-retailers."

Review By: Reverend Billy, Leader of the Church of Stop Shopping - July 13, 2006
" "A great read! The big-box shadow looms over us mightily, but, as Stacy Mitchell documents, hundreds of communities have already saved themselves. She tells us how they did it and firmly invites us to step forward into the light. Change-a-lujah!"

Review By: Ben Bagdikian, author of The New Media Monopoly - July 13, 2006
"Big-Box Swindle is a well-researched and frightening book about an economic pandemic engulfing the United States_The big boxes are draining cities and towns of money and bankrupting neighborhood businesses that have long been the backbone of American communities. Big-Box Swindle is a book every citizen needs to read."

Review By: Kennedy Smith, former director, National Trust for Historic Preservation - July 13, 2006
"Stacy Mitchell provides an astonishing exposé of the broad-reaching implications of our shopping habits. Big Box Swindle should be required reading for everyone who cares about America's main streets, as well as a call to arms to small businesses everywhere to organize and take action."

Review Publishers Weekly - September 11, 2006
"[Mitchell] has produced a compelling indictment of Wal-Mart and other "big box" stores, based on numerous national examples."

Review Booklist, boxed and starred review - October 15, 2006
"Mitchell has uncovered a movement to curb the proliferation of the mega-retailers and create policies that favor local enterprises. Her call to action reveals the hidden cost of those 'low prices' promoted by the big-box bullies and gives hope to local entrepreneurs and concerned citizens alike."

Review Deseret Morning News - October 15, 2006
"This is a well-written and informative book."

Review Chicago Reader - November 1, 2006
"...she raises issues that Chicago's big-box debate hasn't touched."

Review Austin Chronicle - November 24, 2006
"There remain some publishers willing to face the book-chain heat; we have Beacon Press to thank for Mitchell's indeed fine and important book."

Customer Reviews

Busting the BIG BOX Myth
I have been eagerly awaiting Stacy Mitchell's follow up to her earlier book Hometown Advantage, which was invaluable in understanding the planning process, zoning, and how development decisions are made at the local level. It became my "bible" in understanding a complex process and helping to preserve and protect my community from the impact of large scale incompatible development.
Her follow up--BIG Box SWINDLE defrocks the myth making and PR that BIG BOXES use to not only financially swindle communities but also to influence your local decision makers. All is done in the innocent sounding name of "economic development".
BIG BOX SWINDLE includes greater detail and more research based information on the negative impact of the BIG Boxes on communities and their economy. It reveals the mythmaking for what it is: a well financed fraud on the community. Only after the community has become trapped in the web of myths, are the true costs to the community revealed, often, too late to reverse direction.
BIG BOX SWINDLE is an easy read. Each chapter can be read on their own independently. Each chapter focuses on different aspects of this myth making swindle. It gives those who value locally owned and grown communities, the information needed to preserve them. Information can be used to bust the BIG BOX's myths and to help decision makers make better and wiser economic decisions.
Mitchell's recounting of real life experience of those average citizens paving a better path for communities is heartening and hopeful.
Big Box Swindle is a "must read" for anyone wanting to preserve the integrity of their community and for those rejecting the negative aspects of the global economy.
It should be required reading for all decision makers---Councilors, Planning Board Members,legislators, Economic Development Directors--- before making decisions.
This is another slam dunk for Mitchell, well researched, well articulated. Every page is filled with her well researched knowledge and experience. She makes the complex, understandable. It will be another well used resource to help change the direction of communities.

It's not just consumer desire which drives big box store expansions
Big-Box Swindle: The True Cost of Mega-Retailers and the Fight for America's Independent Businesses goes beyond most similar condemnations of big retailers to outline just how their domination is dangerous to society - and then moves on to show how citizens are fighting the phenomenon. Since 2000 nearly two hundred big-box development projects have been halted by citizens groups and communities across the U.S. are banding together to keep them out, recognizing the value in locally owned, independent businesses. It's not just consumer desire which drives big box store expansions; it's public policy and politics: BIG BOX SWINDLE documents these factors and is an important acquisition for any public or college-level library concerned with consumer and business issues, trends, and influences.

Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch

Loss of community
If you think the big boxes help the working man and woman, you really need to read this book. Mitchell details the drop in wages and living standards throughout the affected areas, loss of support for local development, increase in abandoned buildings and water pollution, and the blackmail of civic leaders. As for the prices, she illustrates that prices do not stay low once the competition has been dealt with. I really appreciate the variety of ways she measures community, e.g. Costco rates well for putting money into an area through good wages but poorly for its failure to offer local products.