Download or read book Small Town America in an Era of Big Box Development written by and published by . This book was released on 2005 with total page 160 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Articles and essays presented at the March 10-11, 2005, Symposium at Vermont Law School.
Download or read book Big Box Swindle written by Stacy Mitchell and published by Beacon Press. This book was released on 2007-10-01 with total page 340 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Book Sense Pick and Annual Highlight With a New Afterword In less than two decades, large retail chains have become the most powerful corporations in America. In this deft and revealing book, Stacy Mitchell illustrates how mega-retailers are fueling many of our most pressing problems, from the shrinking middle class to rising pollution and diminished civic engagement—and she shows how a growing number of communities and independent businesses are effectively fighting back. Mitchell traces the dramatic growth of mega-retailers—from big boxes like Wal-Mart, Home Depot, Costco, and Staples to chains like Starbucks, Olive Garden, Blockbuster, and Old Navy—and the precipitous decline of independent businesses. Drawing on examples from virtually every state in the country, she unearths the extraordinary impact of these companies and the big-box mentality on everything from soaring gasoline consumption to rising poverty rates, failing family farms, and declining voting levels. Along the way, Mitchell exposes the shocking role government policy has played in the expansion of mega-retailers and builds a compelling case that communities composed of many small, locally owned businesses are healthier and more prosperous than those dominated by a few large chains. More than a critique, Big-Box Swindle provides an invigorating account of how some communities have successfully countered the spread of big boxes and rebuilt their local economies. Since 2000, more than two hundred big-box development projects have been halted by groups of ordinary citizens, and scores of towns and cities have adopted laws that favor small-scale, local business development and limit the proliferation of chains. From cutting-edge land-use policies to innovative cooperative small-business initiatives, Mitchell offers communities concrete strategies that can stave off mega-retailers and create a more prosperous and sustainable future.
Download or read book Main Street Revisited written by Richard V. Francaviglia and published by University of Iowa Press. This book was released on 1996-06 with total page 252 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Popular culture, Francaviglia looks sympathetically but realistically at the ways in which Main Street's image developed and persists. He reaffirms that life can imitate art, that the cherished icons surrounding Main Street have become the substance of popular culture. Ultimately, his book is about the material culture that architects, town developers, and image makers have left us as their legacy. Seen through the lives of the visionaries who created them in their.
Download or read book Big Box USA written by Bart Elmore and published by University Press of Colorado. This book was released on 2024-04-15 with total page 182 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Big Box USA presents a new look at how the big box retail store has dramatically reshaped the US economy and its ecosystems in the last half century. From the rural South to the frigid North, from inside stores to ecologies far beyond, this book examines the relationships that make up one of the most visible features of late twentieth-century and early twenty-first-century American life. The rise of big box retail since the 1960s has transformed environments on both local and global scales. Almost everyone has explored the aisles of big box stores. The allure of “everyday low prices” and brightly colored products of every kind connect shoppers with a global marketplace. Contributors join a growing conversation between business and environmental history, addressing the ways American retail institutions have affected physical and cultural ecologies around the world. Essays on Walmart, Target, Cabela’s, REI, and Bass Pro Shops assess the “bigness” of these superstores from “smokestacks to coat racks” and contend that their ecological impacts are not limited to the footprints of parking lots and manufacturing but also play a didactic role in educating consumers about their relationships with the environment. A model for historians seeking to bring business and environmental histories together in their analyses of merchant capital’s role in the landscapes of everyday life and how it has remade human relationships with nature, Big Box USA is a must-read for students and scholars of the environment, business, sustainability, retail professionals, and a general audience.
Download or read book Small Towns and Big Business written by Stephen Halebsky and published by Lexington Books. This book was released on 2009 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: During the 1990s, a new type of controversy began occurring across the United States: controversies over the siting of superstores, also known as big box stores. In these disputes, which often involved Wal-Mart, the world's biggest retailer, local citizens mounted organized opposition to the proposed siting of a superstores in their town or neighborhood. Opponents criticized Wal-Mart superstores for putting local independent merchants out of business, siphoning money from the local economy, providing substandard jobs, disrupting residential neighborhoods, contributing to the "McDonaldization" of society, inducing sprawl, destroying downtowns and Main Streets, and undermining local uniqueness and small town charm. More generally, these David-and-Goliath controversies represented particularly stark examples of the conflict of interests between local communities and large corporations that have become common in contemporary society. Small Towns and Big Business uses fieldwork and archival sources to comprehensively examine these controversies and the underlying issues. While Wal-Mart is usually able to site its stores at its preferred locations, in some cases local opponents have been able to thwart its plans. Using detailed case studies of anti-superstore controversies in six small cities in five states, Halebsky employs a comparative-historical approach to construct an explanation of how some of these local social movements managed to prevail against Wal-Mart. This explanation is then extended to provide the basis for a model of the general conditions under which local communities may be able to constrain unwanted corporate action. Thus, this is both a study of social movement outcomes and an investigation of community-corporate conflict. Small Towns and Big Business provides insight into the potential of the local state to control large corporations, the inherently problematic nature of corporate retailing, the possibilities for resisting McDonaldization, and the fate of local anti-corporation activism. Book jacket.
Download or read book Strong Towns written by Charles L. Marohn, Jr. and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2019-10-01 with total page 262 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A new way forward for sustainable quality of life in cities of all sizes Strong Towns: A Bottom-Up Revolution to Build American Prosperity is a book of forward-thinking ideas that breaks with modern wisdom to present a new vision of urban development in the United States. Presenting the foundational ideas of the Strong Towns movement he co-founded, Charles Marohn explains why cities of all sizes continue to struggle to meet their basic needs, and reveals the new paradigm that can solve this longstanding problem. Inside, you’ll learn why inducing growth and development has been the conventional response to urban financial struggles—and why it just doesn’t work. New development and high-risk investing don’t generate enough wealth to support itself, and cities continue to struggle. Read this book to find out how cities large and small can focus on bottom-up investments to minimize risk and maximize their ability to strengthen the community financially and improve citizens’ quality of life. Develop in-depth knowledge of the underlying logic behind the “traditional” search for never-ending urban growth Learn practical solutions for ameliorating financial struggles through low-risk investment and a grassroots focus Gain insights and tools that can stop the vicious cycle of budget shortfalls and unexpected downturns Become a part of the Strong Towns revolution by shifting the focus away from top-down growth toward rebuilding American prosperity Strong Towns acknowledges that there is a problem with the American approach to growth and shows community leaders a new way forward. The Strong Towns response is a revolution in how we assemble the places we live.
Download or read book Small Town America written by Richard R. Lingeman and published by Putnam Publishing Group. This book was released on 1980 with total page 560 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The history of America is the history of its small towns. For better or worse, small town values, convictions, and attitudes have shaped the psyche of this nation...[This book] chronicles the rise and fall of small towns from the Atlantic to the Pacific and interweaves the story of their development with the main strands of American history..."--inside flap.
Download or read book Small Town Economic Development written by Joaquin Jay Gonzalez III, and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2017-05-24 with total page 303 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: We tend to associate small town economic development with the decline of the rural United States--empty houses, shuttered shops and rusting factories. A common diagnosis of sluggish small town recovery is their lack of lifestyle amenities that attract new residents and businesses. Yet many small towns have shown progress and potential in recent years. This collection of recent articles by experts presents stories of small-town America's struggle and describes innovations and practices behind successful revivals.
Download or read book An Equal Place written by Scott L. Cummings and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2021-01-04 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An Equal Place is a monumental study of the role of lawyers in the movement to challenge economic inequality in one of America's most unequal cities: Los Angeles. Breaking with the traditional focus on national civil rights history, the book turns to the stories of contemporary lawyers, on the front lines and behind the scenes, who use law to reshape the meaning of low-wage work in the local economy. Covering a transformative period of L.A. history, from the 1992 riots to the 2008 recession, Scott Cummings presents an unflinching account of five pivotal campaigns in which lawyers ally with local movements to challenge the abuses of garment sweatshops, the criminalization of day labor, the gentrification of downtown retail, the incursion of Wal-Mart groceries, and the misclassification of port truck drivers. Through these campaigns, lawyers and activists define the city as a space for redefining work in vital industries transformed by deindustrialization, outsourcing, and immigration. Organizing arises outside of traditional labor law, powered by community-labor and racial justice groups using levers of local government to ultimately change the nature of labor law itself. Cummings shows that sophisticated legal strategy engaging yet extending beyond courts, in which lawyers are equal partners in social movements is an indispensable part of the effort to make L.A. a more equal place. Challenging accounts of lawyers' negative impact on movements, Cummings argues that the L.A. campaigns have achieved meaningful reform, while strengthening the position of workers in local politics, through legal innovation. Dissecting the reasons for failure alongside the conditions for success, this groundbreaking book illuminates the crucial role of lawyers in forging a new model of city-building for the twenty-first century.
Download or read book Theme Town written by Thomas Wayne Paradis and published by iUniverse. This book was released on 2003-02-26 with total page 398 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book changes the way we view our everyday human landscapes by taking us on a 22-stop adventure through the heart of Flagstaff, Arizona. In Flagstaff's America Tour, the reader encounters four distinct though interacting landscape scenes: a themed historic business district, a pre-War multi-ethnic neighborhood, an expanding university campus, and a dynamic automobile commercial strip. Prior to the tour, Part 1 introduces us to the fascinating study of geography and the interpretation of human landscapes. In Part 2 Paradis discusses the expansion of the AT&SF Railway and its role in Flagstaff's own historical development. He further analyzes the implications of this global cargo corridor on Flagstaff's local community and themed landscapes. The entire book integrates a variety of cultural, economic, political, global, and environmental perspectives to understand the complexities of our everyday world. Whether enjoyed from the bustling streets of downtown Flagstaff or from the comfort of our own homes, Theme Town will encourage us to see our own local places with fresh and inquisitive eyes.
Download or read book A Companion to Bordering on Madness an American Land Use Tale Second Edition written by Andrew F. Popper and published by . This book was released on 2008 with total page 404 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Companion to Bordering on Madness: An American Land Use Tale, Second Edition expands the issues raised in the novel using cases, scholarship and case studies. The text serves as a foundation to understand select doctrine, theory and strategy applicable to conflicts between developers and those who oppose development. Land use is an area in which law and government become personal, direct, immediate, and, quite literally, tangible. Land use cases set the parameters for the structures in which we live, the vistas (or lack thereof) we experience quite literally, the sights, sounds and air that surround us. The mission of this text is to provide a window into this dynamic field.
Download or read book Alameda written by Greta Dutcher and published by Arcadia Publishing. This book was released on 2009-01-05 with total page 132 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Through its many incarnations, Alameda has never lost its charm and ability to draw people from all walks of life. Originally a peninsula inhabited by Native Americans, it was purchased by Don Luis Peralta in 1818 and developed into a bedroom community of San Francisco. Alameda became an island in 1902, and a short time later, it was a new home to many refugees from the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and fire. The Neptune Beach amusement park attracted tourists who enjoyed the bathing, beaches, and rides, making Alameda the Coney Island of the West. Modern transportation carried people and cargo in and out on ferries, trains, ships, and planes, which landed at the busy Airdrome. The creation of the Naval Air Station in 1938 and World War II made Alameda a military town. The 1990s brought Alameda back to its first purpose, as a small town amongst big cities, its streets lined with graceful Victorians and with a diverse and lively population.
Download or read book Once Upon A Place written by Kenneth D. Tunnell and published by Xlibris Corporation. This book was released on 2011-07-15 with total page 178 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Across the globe, something is amiss. Even pedestrian observation recognizes that rural communities and small towns are fundamentally changing. Local economies, generations-old cultures, and ingrained ways of life are being severely altered. Within the United States, these changes are symbiotically tied to the demise of the family farm. The decline in family farming and -- the so-called “development” of the country-side -- race along unimpeded and, in fact, are aided by public officials and their policies. With these two great and fundamental changes – the downturn in family farming and the general paving of paradise – locally owned and operated small businesses are dying as big-box retailers come to dominate local economies. The “Wal-Marting of rural America” alters the economic and cultural landscape of rural communities and small towns. People are leaving their homes where their families have lived for generations. The exodus of residents, for example, from the Kansas plains and the Ohio Valley is tied to these forces of late modernity. The result: once-quaint hamlets are becoming vastly different places than of only a generation ago. Some of those places simply no longer exist. Living in central Kentucky and as a rural dweller, my community and I likewise are not immune as we are confronted with vast changes. I contemplate their affect on my life, my family, and our shared anxiety about what may come and what might have been. Over the past few years I have set out to document these fundamental shifts within rural Kentucky. I have paid visual attention to the downturn in family farming and to the closing of local businesses, schools, post offices, and churches; to local governments’ difficulties at providing infra-structural resources to financially strapped counties; to the aggressive influx of big-box retail chains; to the decaying, abandoned, and forgotten symbols of community awash in change; to the near absence of “civic community” among some public officials in rural villages and small towns; and to indications of subsequent social disorganization played out as myriad social problems that over- run ill-equipped communities. My observations of these unprecedented events within Kentucky, one of our country’s most rural and poorest states, are described within these pages. Readers will see too the many photographs that I have composed as I have made my rounds, camera in hand, to record geographical and cultural features of rural life in the throes of late modernity. My observations and writing are intended for both popular and scholarly audiences. Readers will soon learn that I take guidance from academic sociology. I have spent my adult life writing and teaching in sociology. Across this book, the fields of visual, rural and criminological sociology – particularly that specific to communities – guide the descriptive and theoretical analyses. My hope is that the prose is easily accessible.
Download or read book The Politics of Public Space written by Setha Low and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-01-11 with total page 189 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why is public space disappearing? Why is this disappearance important to democratic politics and how has it become an international phenomenon? Public spaces are no longer democratic spaces, but instead centres of private commerce and consumption, and even surveillance and police control. "The Politics of Public Space" extends the focus of current work on public space to include a consideration of the transnational - in the sense of moving people and transformations in the nation or state - to expand our definition of the 'public' and public space. Ultimately, public spaces are one of the last democratic forums for public dissent in a civil society. Without these significant central public spaces, individuals cannot directly participate in conflict resolution. "The Politics of Public Space" assembles a superb list of contributors to explore the important political dimensions of public space as a place where conflicts over cultural and political objectives become concrete.
Download or read book Foreclosed Rehousing the American Dream written by and published by The Museum of Modern Art. This book was released on with total page 185 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Seeking Spatial Justice written by Edward W. Soja and published by U of Minnesota Press. This book was released on 2013-11-30 with total page 277 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1996, the Los Angeles Bus Riders Union, a grassroots advocacy organization, won a historic legal victory against the city’s Metropolitan Transit Authority. The resulting consent decree forced the MTA for a period of ten years to essentially reorient the mass transit system to better serve the city’s poorest residents. A stunning reversal of conventional governance and planning in urban America, which almost always favors wealthier residents, this decision is also, for renowned urban theorist Edward W. Soja, a concrete example of spatial justice in action. In Seeking Spatial Justice, Soja argues that justice has a geography and that the equitable distribution of resources, services, and access is a basic human right. Building on current concerns in critical geography and the new spatial consciousness, Soja interweaves theory and practice, offering new ways of understanding and changing the unjust geographies in which we live. After tracing the evolution of spatial justice and the closely related notion of the right to the city in the influential work of Henri Lefebvre, David Harvey, and others, he demonstrates how these ideas are now being applied through a series of case studies in Los Angeles, the city at the forefront of this movement. Soja focuses on such innovative labor–community coalitions as Justice for Janitors, the Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy, and the Right to the City Alliance; on struggles for rent control and environmental justice; and on the role that faculty and students in the UCLA Department of Urban Planning have played in both developing the theory of spatial justice and putting it into practice. Effectively locating spatial justice as a theoretical concept, a mode of empirical analysis, and a strategy for social and political action, this book makes a significant contribution to the contemporary debates about justice, space, and the city.
Download or read book The Handbook of Community Practice written by Marie Weil and published by SAGE. This book was released on 2005 with total page 730 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Encompassing community development, organizing, planning, and social change, as well as globalisation, this book is grounded in participatory and empowerment practice. The 36 chapters assess practice, theory and research methods.
