What Chicago is talking about this week:
The Wal-marts are coming! The Wal-marts are coming!
After six years of fighting, a second Wal-mart in the city limits was approved. But let me tell you, the whole process could easily fill a semester long study on urban planning. How's this for a list of underlying themes all at play: forcing Wal-mart to pay a "living wage", locating stores in poor communities where minority residents have no access to grocery stores and need jobs desperately, dealing with union-shops of other Chicago grocery stores concerned for the future, protecting mom-and-pop corner stores sure to fade away, rehabbing the reputation of the company as "predatory" with regards to labor issues -- and the list goes on and on.
What's really changed? The recession has us over a barrel, and the new rallying cry is "some wages are better than no wages". At this rate, we could go from 2 to 12 stores before the next increase in our state's minimum wage (8.25 on July 1)!
IT TOOK SIX YEARS BUT WAL-MART #2 IS A-COMIN':
http://money.cnn.com/news/newsfeeds/articles/reuters/MTFH19662_2010-06-24_20-05-35_N24109437.htm
BUT GOTHAM STILL SAYS NO WAY:
http://www.crainsnewyork.com/article/20100625/REAL_ESTATE/100629868#
CHECK MINIMUM WAGE RATES ACROSS THE US:
http://www.dol.gov/whd/minwage/america.htm#Illinois
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