As a devoted NPR supporter I almost drove off the road this morning with outrage and disbelief at your parroted characterization of a “Retail Katrina.”

As a human rights worker whose organization has directly witnessed the ongoing human devastation and huge injustices as a result on the Gulf Coast for over 3 years now, I am appalled at your inappropriate framing in this piece.

Get with it.

As someone who is entangled in this mess, I don’t necessarily disagree with the Katrina characterization. The difference is that it is much more invisible.

This is more than big-box stores. There are many small businesses who are hanging on by a thread.

I sell my work to many small retailers, and have seen sales drop, slow payments, and canceled orders.

Just yesterday I received an e-mail from a shop in San Diego who received an order from me in September. The work is selling well. Some of it has already sold out. But she will not be re-ordering. And she said she is canceling orders that were late in delivery.

Big box stores will be closing, but so will tens of thousands of small retailers, and their suppliers.

I disagree with your comment that the “little guys” will all go away even more with this crisis.

I would much rather give my neighbor some business that the giant mega thing like Wal-Mart.

Wal-mart doesn’t care about quality or diversity it only has cheap and the problem is that you can’t find what you need at Wal-Mart all the time.

With a neighborhood business they will work with you to try to find what you need.

It disgusts me that every town in this country has the same stuff being sold all over and you have to hunt out the diversity that used to be the charm and wonder of the individuality of what was America.

On my recent trip to Ireland I noticed a store called SPAR. It was a small store filled with convenience type items with the bigger ones looking more like full grocery stores. There was one in every town and in the big cities there could be one on every street. It reminded me of Kwick Stop here in the states.

Business seems to forget that it takes people working to have the resources to buy their products, be they essentials or luxuries. As we can not continue having the severe trade imbalances, both for reasons of transportation expenses and the fact that sooner or later we won’t have any money left to buy import goods, we have to encourage business and production back into this country, and thus use the open buildings.

If you try to encourage a balance of trade (roughly equal imports and exports), this will encourage use of existing real estate. If you force importers to purchase import credits from those who export (based on value), traded on a public market to control price, it will encourage efficiency in the system. As the system is so imbalanced now, excess import credits will be required temporarily, and could be provided by marking their price at twice the traded price for import credit. This would encourage the use of the resources we have here.

I’ve gone to the mall several times in the past months determined only to buy clothing that was made in the USA. Time and again, I leave empty handed because I can’t find any. What stores carry US-made clothing these days, besides Levi’s jeans?

I finally decided I could buy something that was just NOT made in China, but that’s no easy task either. I settled for something made in El Salvador. At least my purchase might help some worker in this hemisphere. Maybe if stores stocked US-made goods, and displayed them separately, people might shop out of good will towards our economy.

We have met the enemy and he/she is us…

Walt Kelly.

Just wondering if anyone is talking about the design life of the buildings. These flat rooved, concrete block structures were designed with one thing in mind, and that is company profit. Most have very few windows (room for more merchandise inside) deteriate fast especially when they are unoccupied for awhile.

Future scrap yards?

This type of development has taken away from the quality of life in America and will continue to do so.

Thanks for letting me voice my opinion.

One of your guests stated that the smaller retailers were going to have a more difficult time. It is actually the opposite. Unless you try to compete with WALMART, smaller stores not only can survive by tightening their belts but can weather it better because their overheads are much less. Sole proprietary shops also provide something that large block stores do NOT - service and loyalty to their customers.

What has worried me about the few big block stores in our inventory of retail outlets is that NEW IDEAS do not start in Walmart or Target but in the smaller shops and work their way up. EVEN IF SOMEONE HAD AN IDEA that was attractive to Walmart, a new idea could fund its production particularly when profit margins are so incredibly small with big block stores. When you sell something to Walmart, the only who makes a profit is Walmart.

Thanks

Nick A.
Glencoe Models

Hit up the big retailers for part of the cost of fixing the problem. They pulled the profits.

Level half of them - develop local farm land and develop the other half into transportation centers run by the state. Park your car inside and hop in the bus into the city.

Happy to see them go - they were ugly and wasteful.

I am wondering if there will be an opportunity for stores that sell things that will save people money: insulation for their homes, efficient lighting, xeriscape products, rain barrels, composters, garden supplies, cheap solar panels… etc.

I know it will not nearly replace all the stores that are closing, but we as a country need to use less energy and carbon, so we don’t spend so much, and perhaps retail can address this, as retail rents decline.

I agree with a prior posting. Those structures are literally warehouses in retail trappings, they are not designed to be used for anything else but a big box retailer.

I really liked the idea of transforming these spaces into community centers but it is true that no one wants to hang out in a vaccuous cement hanger. We are over-retailed and the retail mode has changed from one of “there is enough business for all” to a “I have to be prepared to kill my competition to win”. I live in a mid-sized midwestern city and we have SIX big malls. Three of which are struggling and two or three that are doing well. It’s really sad. We have more restaurants then we need, too much retail space.

Let’s hope that this will force us to take a fresh look at how we consume, shop and purchase. These structures are inefficient and huge energy drains on our resources.

It is already an out of site existing space for solar farms. Lets use it like one.

Some states have aggressive and progressive land taxes as opposed to property taxes. I cannot give all the details here but what it means is that with a progressive land tax, owners of abandoned properties are forced to sell (for local redevelopment) or improve.

Most areas have property taxes favoring the resale of buildings with the ‘holding costs’ being deferred until the sale is completed. We have one store that was vacant for 30 years in the center of our small downtown main street.

Local governments can implement these local self reliant strategies.

Simply put, no one has objected strongly enough to the stranglehold real estate outfits maintain on local governments and ordinances. They have been allowed to legislate at will.

It’s my understanding the Wal Mart is having to step into the credit crisis by helping their suppliers on the account payable side — trying to help them stay afloat and in business. Yes, I prefer local businesses and local farmer’s markets … and usually refer to Wal Mart as “The Evil Empire,” but I am hearing that the coperation is trying to keep business/suppliers operational in these hard times. Yes, it’s self-interested, but not just self-benefiting.

Some poeple have yet to see the light i think, first her we have the problem of the economy in a downward spiral, credit (individual)disappearing, itself causing job losses which are leading to defaults and tightening of credit, loss of retail that is leading to joblosses and so on, so where the retail will be in a yuear or two, no one really knows, will the big box store even be needed anymore? and who will go there to shop? since they depend solely on mass sales, not small per item sales.

Two and this is the biggy, a consumer economy, where will the money come from, any jobs if they survive will not pay enough cause of the surplus of labor available world wide, but no one is going to pay you to just go shopping, even uncle sam who has supprted the consumer economy with large budget deficits is a broke uncle.

A consumer economy is dead, the technology that was created to help us has also rendered us useless and worthless, whether the right that does not want you to get an abortion and just procreate, or that left that assumes that every ignorant, lame brained moran has a right to make babies are both wrong. The sooner we start stopping people from making useless litte kids that will only become a burden on the environment and natural resources. First step is to be to stop paying people for making children and next to pay them for NOT having any kids

I believe all of this talk about re-purposing the big boxes as libraries, etc. is off the mark. Turn them into manufacturing facilities and stop shipping jobs to China, India and wherever else.

Our economy is a mess because we do make anything any more. We’ve relied on financial tricks and uber-consumerism to support our economy. Our jobs have been going, going, gone.

I’m not a protectionist chicken-little, but let’s get real. We won’t have an economy without the jobs that support the middle class. The middle class is more than bankers and computer programmers. It will take blue collar jobs all levels of white collar jobs to rebuild our economic foundation.

Wow, this must have been a fabulous show! I can hardly wait to listen. As a commercial realtor committed to the transformation of our building stock, I can tell you just from the headlines that these people on the program were speaking lots of truth.

I know it is upsetting and flys in the face of lots of “current truths”, but I suggest that there is freedom in listening to this program without the filter of “knowing what is so”. As Martin Luther King said, the truth will set you free, but first it will piss you off.

My thanks to BUR, the program speakers and all who have commented.

Thank God,

I’m so pleased that the big box stores are disappearing. They have overtaken and developed so much land it is sick. Close down these stores and return the land to recreation.

In the Toledo area of “Joe the Plumber” we have seen two or our four malls closed. There are two Wal-Marts between Toledo and Holland. These are still working but the malls have lots of empty space. Unfortunately, they are probably too far gone for rehab. We have been “contracting” for maybe 15 years so we may be in a better position to cope with more contraction.

As a consultant to retailers, I have watched the retail sector stumble over the last year. But the recent 6 months remind me of the recession of the 80s. Johathan Miller’s comment that we are just at the beginning of the retail crash is right on target. His feeling that we will not see improvement for another 2-3 years I think, though, is optimistic. It will take 3-5 years for consumers to get back on their feet again, and only then will we see retail sales improve.

Well I guess that every ten years or so everything will just have to be trashed because society changes it’s intellegent mind about which trend to follow.

Eventually the environment will not be able to sustain all of the garbage which will be the next big crisis that everyone will be shocked to see.

When I was ten years old back in 1974 and saw all of the crappy, obviously-not-meant-to-last buildings being thrown up on 28th Street in Grand Rapids, Michigan and asked “Where they were going to end up? In a landfill? But this is only one street in one city in an entire country in an entire world!!!”

Basically, this issue has been around for a long time and defies even the logic of a simplistic 10-year-old!

We are at a watershed moment in our economic history. We are in a recession but the way we do business after the recovery will be different from the post-recoveries over the last 70-years.

In the past, we worked our way out of a recession with the help of the federal government providing some kind of stimulus package. In one to three years, the economy was back on a growth track and there were no serious, long-term casualties. We continued to spend and consume as in the past.

That was then and this is now.

Our economy has too much debt. Our federal government is running record-breaking federal deficits and the American consumer is dangerously overextended with mortgage and consumer debt. This has happened at the same time as the value of his principle asset, his home, has fallen in value by 20 to 30 percent. Further, we have been transferring our wealth to oil producing countries at a rate of $700-billion per year and other nations are getting stronger economically.

The federal government is doing the right thing spending money to revitalize the financial infrastructure of our economy and trying to stimulate short-term demand. These actions are necessary to prevent a depression and the total collapse of our economy: not to prevent a recession. The recession is here and will not go away soon.

In the long term, we need to reduce the amount of debt that we use to support our life style; or change our way of life. This is true as a nation, as investors and as individuals. If we do not, we will lose the economic battle with the rest of the world and the United States will no longer be the super power that we perceive.

Reducing our use of debt means that less money will be available to consume. Less consumption converts to less demand for the goods and services produced and excess capacity in the system to produce and deliver the products. Excess capacity will mean less demand for retail space and that in turn will mean lower rents for commercial properties and higher vacancies.

Lower rents, higher CAP rates and conservative underwriting will mean lower values for commercial properties.

Recovering from a hangover is painful.

For the poster looking for made in the USA clothing, order clothing from American Apparel, or buy from individual sellers on Etsy. Find a good tailor near you and have him or her make you a few signature pieces. They cost more, but they last longer and fit you perfectly.

Why is it that we are so ugly.
Why do we build ugly stores, houses, cars, are obese and why is it that we show the rest of the world so much contempt.

I see people at the McCain/Palin rallies chanting “drill baby drill” and while I know we need oil do we have to really consume 25 to 30% of the worlds resources to get around?

Why is that people want to live so far away from the place of work that to get there they are up a 3, 4 in the morning and don’t get home to after 9 in the evening.

We move to the exurbs because we want to have our back yard and pool and a lawn, and a larger entertainment room with a HUGE FLAT SCREEN TV”S to go with our HUGE SUV and our HUGE BUTTS. We go to super sized Wall Marts to buy super sized stuff to fill our huge McMansions.

How is it that we have become so ugly, nasty, mean and selfish. So reptilian.

What the hell happened?

One of the main reasons big box, and other, stores are going under is that real wages have declined steadily since the 70s. Families used to be able to achieve the middle class dream of spouse + house + 2 kids on one worker’s income. Now, two adults working the same–or even formally higher paid–jobs and longer hours than our parents and even grandparents, can’t achieve this basic lifestyle. Thus credit card debt and subprime mortgages.

jane dejonge,

Please join my campaign to eliminate the tedious use of the word ‘basically.’

Here is the reasoning::

The word “basically” is an overused verbal tic which demeans and condescends to the listener. It is at the same time a way for the speaker to inflate his own self esteem by flogging and repeating words that appear to emphasize personal knowledge.

It is a fault which has become, I fear, some sort of custom or accepted colloquialism.

This is the campaign to banish ‘basically’ permanently.

Most times you dig so deep. The airing on Thursday, October 23, 2008, however, was not one of those times. The subject–though I didn’t hear the very beginning of the program, due in part, I think to the “chop job” KCLU does with the programming during their pledge interruptions–seems to have centered on the impact that the current financial crisis is likely to have upon retailing. Then the discussion seems to have wandered away from anything like salience as an inordinate amount of time was given to a woman who has written a book about the different ways to utilize the remains of big box stores after they’ve failed. So many books–so little time. It takes vision and imagination to write a book. Without imagination nonfiction is impossible. Without vision authorship of any kind is futile.

I’ve been writing a novel for some while now. The time frame is set during the coming depression–the one from which the U.S. never fully recovers. If this isn’t the one–the recession we’re in–then it’s only a prelude to the inevitable. As for the program’s subject material as cited, cities, towns and villages don’t recycle buildings that sit on acres and acres of municipal lands. They tear them down. It only takes a day or two. . .hasn’t anyone noticed? City councils have no vision. They’re made up of ordinary citizens who haven’t a clue. . .not a moment’s worth of insight, which is why this country is headed toward it’s final great depression.

With each day that passes during the financial crisis we’re experiencing I am more and more encouraged to keep writing and finish my work. And as it turns out, what I’ve produced so far seems to require very little revision as a reasonable predictor of the future.

If you’re at all interested, the program I’m citing failed in one important aspect. . .the current America and the one we’ll be living in shortly bear little resemblance to each other. The reason for this, which I think you may even have breathed out loud at one point, is the looming reduction in the ordinary American’s standard of living. It’s to be a permanent reduction with the trappings of mad consumption and the foolish waste of past generations visible in ruin far into the future. Major cities will have their “empty sectors,” which is the title of one of my chapters, and they will have them for the simple reason that there will be no budget capital for what many scholarly futurists have been conditioned to think of (and wishfully so) as urban redesign and revitalization.

Why the “inevitability” as I said earlier? Because just as I’d written back in the Ross Perot days of the ’80s, economic globalization–the supposed panacea of consumerism and the narcotic of choice among giant industrialists–is to become the great “equilibriator,” neglecting the indulgence if you don’t mind, which Perot characterized way back then as the “giant sucking sound” of jobs leaving the country. In other words, if you can’t heed the words of a visionary, you’ll be doomed to experience them first hand. Things that have been beyond the average American’s consciousness where third world living conditions are concerned will become everyday realities in the lives of most Americans.
Another of your guests–his bent being a dislike of municipal zoning regulations, obviously–predicted “mixed re-use” of these giant structures, treating us to his vision of parks, walkways and green spaces scattered tastefully among residences, schools and industry–all coexisting peacefully in small enclaves of paradise. Could anyone fail to hear the incessant call to develop, develop, develop in this man’s voice? We are at the end of development. Development has been a big part of the slash-and-burn mindset that’s gotten us this far into the disaster we’re experiencing. We’ve developed the flood basins along rivers and even the oceans. We’ve developed in the unstable areas of hillsides. We’ve developed in wetlands and swamps like the Okeechobee in Florida. We’ve developed on top of prime ag-land in California simply because people like the climate for living and raising their kids. The problem is that kids of the future may not have enough to eat once prime agricultural land is no longer available for producing food. And the follow-up to all of this?. . .water. Develop, develop, develop. . .right up to the limits of our natural resources and our infrastructure. If all this and much, much more hasn’t become an obvious enough problem to date, it soon will be. Famine in 21st Century America? Don’t count it out.
—-
Fred “Fritzwilliam” Bracy
Ventura, CA 93001
Blog at lit.org/fritzwilliam

Hey Fred. It’s funny that you mention that you’re writing a book about the upcoming economic depression since I, too, have aspirations of doing the same thing (though I doubt I’ll do it since I’m not much of a creative writer).

Anyway, there is a term to describe the “great equilibrator” that you mentioned. The term is Global Labor Arbitrage (foreign outsourcing, H-1B and L-1 visas, mass immigration). (I would love to see Tom Ashbrook do a show on this subject with economist Paul Craig Roberts (Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for the Reagan Administration).

An excellent summary of Global Labor Arbitrage is available here: http://outsourcing.yuku.com/topic/364

Lon C Ponschock,

Thank-you for the invitation but I am not sure I completely agree with your position. While I can agree it may not always be the best usage of the English language, if I hear someone use the word “basically” I take it to mean that they are speaking about something on basic terms for whatever reason.

If some people choose to perceive what I say as having a condescending tone maybe they will have to live with it, the same as I have had to live with being laughed at over the past twenty-five years for 1) growing much of my own food 2) wearing mostly second hand clothes, and for the past three years 3) using my bicycle as a primary form of transportation. This happens to be a way of life that I wholeheartedly recommend to everyone.

Personally I have always found it exceedingly rude that so many find it advisable to trash the planet and in so doing the entire human race. It has been both my belief and experience, even that the impending environmental problems that we will eventually face are a reflection of the hatred that most people have towards most other people and towards every life form.

Why are some people so hooked on retail? Isn’t it about time most Americans save a bit of their money?

[...] Boxes,” reported by Elizabeth Blair, 10/20/08 MIT Press Podcast, Episode 15, November, 2008 NPR: On Point with Tom Ashbrook, “Retail in the Coming Storm,” 10/23/08 Readymade Magazine: Review, Big Box Reuse, October 2008 Architect Magazine, “Excerpt: Big Box [...]