Wal-Mart is one of the most celebrated American businesses of all time. College students spend entire semesters studying the company’s supply-chain system. Founder Sam Walton is celebrated as one of the world’s greatest business leaders.
But popular opinion about Wal-Mart is rapidly changing. Anytime you become as successful as Wal-Mart, you are going to make enemies. Once, rated as the “America’s Most Admired Business” two years in a row by Fortune Magazine, Wal-Mart slipped down to the 19th spot in 2007.
So what’s driving down Wal-Mart’s popularity?
Wal-Mart’s critics claim that Wal-Mart stores hurt small communities. It puts local small merchants out of business, puts a strain on the local pubic infrastructure and pollutes the environment.
And some of Wal-Mart’s biggest critics are right in the company’s back yard. Northwest Arkansas.
Boomtown
The largest retailer in the world operates its corporate headquarters in the Northwest Arkansas city of Bentonville. In 1970, Bentonville was a tiny town of 5,508 people. Back then, Wal-Mart had only 18 stores in the region. Today, Wal-Mart has nearly 7,000 stores under its corporate umbrella worldwide and Bentonville’s population has swelled close to 30,000.
Bentonville’s growth has had a ripple effect in the Fayetteville-Springdale-Rogers Metropolitan Statistical Area, commonly referred to as the Northwest Arkansas region. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the region added more than 90,000 new residents from 2000 to 2006. That’s nearly 13,000 people a year. The Census Bureau projects the 2007 population to 438,000. Up from 347,045 people in 2000.
The majority of growth is related to Wal-Mart suppliers. To help “facilitate” good business with Wal-Mart, many suppliers have set up shop near the Wal-Mart headquarters. Procter and Gamble, Motorola, Nestle Purina, General Mills, Kelloggs, and many others have established satellite corporate branches in the region.
But Wal-Mart is not the only driver of the area’s population boom. Springdale is home of the world’s leading producer of poultry and beef, Tyson Foods. Lowell, which sits halfway between Springdale and Rogers, hosts the nation’s largest publicly owned truckload carrier, J.B. Hunt. And, Fayetteville is home to the state’s largest University, The University of Arkansas.
But like the many people who criticize the effect that Wal-Mart Stores have on small communities, many are also critical of the effect that big businesses have had on Northwest Arkansas.
“It’s turned into cement city,” says Elkins resident Mary Lightheart. In May 2000, Lightheart received national media attention from an act of civil disobedience. After Fayetteville City Council members approved a building permit, ignoring the city’s tree ordnance, that allowed a grove of 225-year-old oak trees to be cut down to make way for a strip-mall, she staged a sit in. The 53-year-old grandmother climbed up one of the trees in the grove and refused to leave. She stayed there for three weeks.
The grove was still cut down and the strip-mall was built. But, Lightheart’s protest set in motion a series of events that led to the mayor and many city council members losing their office.
Springdale residents have also been vocal about the uncontrolled growth in their city. Springdale Minister Josh Jenkins was passionate enough about the issue to start a website, springdalevotes.com. The website aims to inform fellow Springdale citizens about livability issues and hold city officials accountable for the decisions they make.
Springdale incumbent city council member Jessie Core is running on a platform of improving city streets and creating a sign ordnance to reduce the size and height of signs used by businesses.
Most public officials in the region, if they want to stay in office, make an effort to listen to their voters. But most lack the influence to effect projects beyond their city borders. And, this is really uncharted territory that most small cities never face - uncontrollable growth.
On the surface, things that appear to be solutions turn out to be part of the problem. Case in point: Interstate-540. Built in 1999, it’s intended purpose was to serve as a North-South by-pass, west around the major cities of Fayetteville, Springdale and Rogers. Supporters of the interstate claimed that it would keep the traffic out of those cities. Instead, businesses are sprouting up along the interstate. Causing even more traffic than before.
“Business interests are quickly making matters worse. Rogers is the leading offender,” said Art Hobson in an editorial in the Northwest Arkansas Times. “Developers plan to make a bundle out of lining I-540 with seven huge new shopping malls and a hospital complex.”
Now, traffic jams are a common site along the interstate and public officials have proposed two solutions: another North-South bypass further west or, expanding I-540 to eight lanes.
As George Santayana once said, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”
The Future of the Region
The Chamber’s of Commerce in the Northwestern Arkansas cities are quick to point out all the benefits of living in the growing region. They are more than happy to advertise the region as the retail capital of the world. They pitch the region as having a growing economy with high paying jobs and all the conveniences of the big cities but in a the quiet country setting.
Northwest Arkansas has a lot in common with the boomtowns of Old West. It grew rapidly and had a tremendous influx of money and people in a very short amount of time. Like the boomtowns of the Old West, it’s now struggling to meet the needs of the people rushing into the area.
It also shares another common characteristic of the boomtowns of the Old West. Boomtowns usually relied on just one resource to fuel its economy. Most of the time it was mining. For Northwest Arkansas, its the retail industry. As long as the retail industry does well, so will Northwest Arkansas.
But many fear that all the great qualities that bring people to the region are quickly eroding. People go to Northwest Arkansas to get away from traffic, noise and pollution. They like the idea of having a high-paying job and low cost-of-living. But Northwest Arkansas is rapidly become that which everyone there was trying to escape.
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