Merli Column: Battle of the big-box stores

What is it with the world’s biggest retailer and the Civil War? It seems nearly anywhere Wal-Mart wants to build one of its big-box stores, it’s always pretty close to a Civil War battlefield. I suppose in
Virginia, Pennsylvania and Maryland, wearing a blindfold and pinpointing a location on any map would pretty much place you within striking distance of a Civil War site. Yet Wal-Mart seems uncanny in its
ability to ferret out those precise locations for future sites.

Anyone who’s lived here in Prince William for more than a few years will recall the battles we’ve had over various proposed commercial ventures trying to find a home near our own battlefield sites (i.e.,
remember Lego Land? Or Disney’s amusement park version of the Civil War?). Yet a poor economic climate, high unemployment and gas at $2.50 a gallon can all weaken common-sense safeguards for
considering whether growth is healthy or ill advised.

This week, the Board of Supervisors of Orange County, gave their official blessing to building a Wal-Mart Supercenter at Locust Grove — close to what a lot of historians consider an important front in the
Civil War: the Wilderness Battlefield. It’s land where Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee met for the first time in battle nearly 150 years ago, and where 145,000 soldiers on both sides fought. (Nearly
30,000 were reported killed or wounded.) But with a 4-1 board vote, it wasn’t even close in the county that borders Spotsylvania County on the west.

The local decision was the latest, and surely not the last, in our region to weigh the significance of helping preserve a historic area against growth that usually results in new jobs, higher tax revenues, and
(in this case) an added low-cost shopping convenience for residents who don’t want to spend an hour or more driving to Potomac Mills or other points north or south. And it was hardly an unpopular
decision with a lot of locals.

At this Monday night’s (which turned into early Tuesday morning’s) board meeting — while some spoke against the move — more than one hundred residents spoke in favor of bringing a Wal-Mart outlet
to their neck of the woods. Although traffic will surely increase in the area (Wal-Mart likely will begin building in about a year), the board concluded it simply didn’t see the retailer’s presence as a direct
threat to the battlefield (at least a fourth of which is currently under special protection). Time will tell, of course.

However, my beef with Wal-Mart isn’t its vast success or the fact that it feels a need to expand. (That’s sort of living the American dream, corporate style.) My pet peeve with this retailer has always been
threefold. At least until recently, it had a reputation for not treating its workers very well when it came to wages and, especially, medical benefits. (“Dr. Obama, please report to the Wal-Mart Associates’ locker room.”) Reportedly that’s changing for the better, and rather quickly.

Secondly, however, Wal-Mart’s immense size and influence have usually resulted in sucking the life out of more “Main Streets” in America than can be named — local business zones which housed
those mom-and-pop shops that have all but vanished except in old movies and books.

Try asking a local radio station anywhere in the country (which depends almost entirely on local advertising) what it thinks about Wal-Mart erasing most of its small clients, and you’ll often get an earful.

Thirdly, it’s hardly a secret that nearly nothing sold at Wal-Mart is actually made in America. In fact, they have entire towns in China that are solely devoted to making only certain types of products for
Wal-Mart outlets exclusively. While that ultra-cheap Chinese labor may be appreciated by pennywise American consumers (especially these days), I continue to find it amusing that some of the same
Virginians who would never dream of buying a Japanese or German car (many of them built in the U.S.), don’t think twice about shopping at their local Wal-Mart.

Rationalization can be such a wondrous thing, especially when it’s not dwelled upon.

Sometimes perhaps the price for living in a material world seems just a bit too high. Still, winning the battle usually doesn’t end the war.

John Merli lives in Prince William County and has held various media posts for more than 40 years. He’s been a News & Messenger columnist since 1985. He can be reached at: j.merli@Comcast.net