New York City is next on Wal-Mart’s Risk list of global expansion, and this time the hypermarket is doing everything it can to win the steel hearts of New Yorkers.
Hoping to open new locations in the Bronx, Brooklyn and Queens, Wal-Mart has launched a media campaign focusing on bringing fresh products and jobs to areas where they are hard to find.
Wal-Mart mailers sent out to residents in the three boroughs read, “Some New Yorkers have plenty of options when it comes to shopping. We think you should too!”
“We know that job creation and access to affordable food are significant needs in the city and we think our stores can be part of the solution,” Steven Restivo, director of community affairs for Wal-Mart, said in a press release. “At the same time, we know New Yorkers overwhelmingly support Wal-Mart so we’re using social media to listen to the conversation, tell our story and give our supporters a voice.”
But CAS junior Andrew Gonzalez thinks Wal-Mart will annihilate any small businesses trying to succeed in the ultra-competitive market in New York City.
“It’s great for those who cannot afford the city’s incredibly pricey standards of living, but that does not excuse the exploitation of workers and the promotion of a conformist outlook on life,” he said.
“Different businesses need the chance to thrive in New York City. Do we really want this place to become like everywhere else in the country?”
WalmartNYC.com, created specifically for the corporation’s campaign in New York, claims that thousands of jobs will be created if a location is built in an outer borough. A poll of 1,000 New Yorkers, conducted by Douglas Schoen specifically for Wal-Mart, found that 71 percent of New Yorkers support the plan.
“Folks who live in rural areas and in the inner city often don’t have access to healthy food,” Leslie Dach, Wal-Mart’s executive vice president, said during an interview with WNYC. “Studies show that there are 23 million Americans who live in food deserts, and estimates say 3 million of those are in New York City.”
This is all part of a recent push, headed by first lady Michelle Obama, for Wal-Mart to take on more responsibility as the country’s biggest retailer by making fresh, healthy food more accessible and affordable.
Although Wal-Mart appears to be making a significant effort to portray itself as having a positive effect on communities, some of the city’s natives are still against the big corporation.
“What Wal-Mart has done around the country, any time they move into a town, is destroy every other business in a town,” Gristedes CEO John Catsimatidis said in an interview. “If the average wage is $20 in a town, the average wage is nearly half that at Wal-Mart. So whatever jobs they create are really jobs that are lost on the other side of the equation.”
A recent study released by Public Advocate Bill de Blasio and the Hunter College Center for Community Planning and Development said that for every two jobs Wal-Mart creates, three other retail jobs are lost.
In addition, small businesses in cities like Chicago have already seen a decrease within a two-mile radius of the newly opened store, according to a study by University of Illinois at Chicago.
“I’m defending a way of life in New York,” Catsimatidis said. “I want my neighborhoods to stay the way they are.”