The Walmart's existence as a crime nexus was because it attracted trashy people from other neighborhoods, not because it was a congregation point. The same problem didn't occur at previous superstores, or high school football games, or the community college.
This whole comment thread is weird. That neighborhood is surrounded by shopping, probably more so than the worst suburb "developments". And that isn't a normal walmart, as you can see from the maps if you click on it: https://www.google.com/maps/place/Walmart+Neighborhood+Marke...
It's a walmart "Neighborhood Market" which looks like a grocery store to me. There's even pictures of the inside.
I think the reason why partially walmart has more problems is because they have a poorer client base, and poorer areas in general have more crime. Even if they changed policies, hired more private security and so on and it reduced everything by %50, they would still have about 3x the amount of police calls than more upscale target.
It's pretty unfortunate. Like how much police activity does foodmaxx and grocery outlet have compared to safeway and whole foods? Or mcdonalds vs subway?
In my area there is a Target and a Wal-Mart directly across the street from each other which makes for a good comparison.
The Wal-Mart has a very large surface lot that currently has a LED sign like used by interstate construction crews to display a rotating message that shop lifters will be prosecuted, has RVs and sketchy vans parked overnight and the 24/7 security roaming around feels necessary. The customers are obviously poor and unusually overweight (which is saying something for the US!). In short, it's depressing.
The Target has a parking deck because there are stores below it (a Whole Foods and some others). There aren't rent a cops rolling around, but it feels safe. Partly because parking lot is much smaller (and covered) because there are multiple floors. The customers don't all seem to be on public assistance and since it's not 24 hours there aren't suspicious characters hanging out overnight.
The difference is very stark. Wal-Mart is more like Dollar General than Target.
This article doesn't seem to cover much but I'd be curious to know the implications of this. Is this very common? How long do people stay? Are these people making trips or living there? I've heard a lot about crime occurring in Walmart parking lots, does this have any effect?
Nothing released by Walmart mentions crime or safety - only profitability, while the news about this whole foods does.
Chicago is a large city and none of these are really downtown. There used to be a small walmart that was actually downtown, but that closed a number of years ago - I do not recall why. There aren't really a lot of Walmart stores in Chicago - there was some kind of fight between the city and company around needing to pay living wages to get the approvals.
Of the closing ones I know the Lakeview store, it is a small/neighborhood store and in a fairly wealthy/pricey location. IMO it was never a great fit for the area's typical resident - there are many other higher end options within walking distance or with parking (which this walmart did not have) - several grocery stores, trader joe's, walgreens, target, whole foods, etc. Without parking or being that close to the subway, it was never the the kind of store that would serve a large area. I'm not at all surprised this one is unprofitable and closing.
Isn't it more efficient for more crime to be in one place? They can send a van to take arrestees to jail instead of individual trips; the Walmart employees are likely more effective at implementing proper procedure than a store that has one or two incidents a year, etc.
Nothing about your list describes Walmarts in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex, except perhaps the poorest parts of Dallas, which I have not personally visited.
Grapevine, Flower Mound, Roanoke, Rome, Keller, Preston Hollow Walmarts are all immaculately maintained and clean.
Can't speak to the statistic claimed, which does sound a little out there, but I can certainly testify that multiple millionaires shop at this Wal-Mart: http://www.walmart.com/store/59
Store 59 is also sort of a special case, in that when they leased their first building for it in the '70s, it was at least twice the size of anything they'd leased before, and became the proving ground for their Supercenters. And they made a point of rebuilding and reopening the second building on the site within 6 months after it got destroyed by the 2011 tornado (granted, that was easier since they didn't lose much of their employee pool (no one was killed in that Wal-Mart, but I'm sure some moved away because of the housing shortage), they were all very busy at the 2 other Wal-Marts in the area in the interim).
To provide a personal anecdote, one of those multimillionaires was my father, who in the early '60s was a low level manager at a Ben Franklin "Five and Dime" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Franklin_(company) ) in Joplin when Sam Walton, who owned a set of them down in Arkansas, would regularly drive up to Joplin for airplane trips. He'd always stop by and talk to the owner and managers of this (set of?) Joplin (area?) Ben Franklins, getting a feel for what was going on here. Very smart guy (certainly smarter than the Joplin owner, who declined the offer to invest in Walton's new venture...).
Stepping back to the general question, the crime patterns in Joplin area's four Wal-Marts pretty much match the neighborhoods they're in. Before anyone can claim Wal-Mart is doing a bad job here, they've got to correct for that.
Although I can't speak to the stories people are telling of poorly managed ones, only that I've never seen or heard of such here, the stores are well run and to my observation, pretty much all the employees but some of the cashiers are reasonably happy/satisfied with their jobs/whatever.
Walmart tried to move into a dilapidated mall in my neighborhood and everyone fought it and they couldnt. They moved a mile down the street to a slightly less wealthy neighborhood, in a dilapidated strip mall. Five years later, the strip mall with walmart is bustling with business and the other mall is still mostly empty. Wasted opportunity to get business into the township.
Even though I generally wouldn't shop there, I have no issue with walmart, for exactly the reasons this author suggests I wouldn't
Note that the demographic data can be argued but the core message of victim of their own success remains.
A world without walmart would have the police called to 3 of 20 small mom and pop shops and no individual shop would be considered the bad actor. A monopoly retail provider exists and 100% of retail police calls, 3 per day, will be at the monopoly provider and therefore the monopoly provider is causing crime or something. There's 3 police calls either way...
The police can't be called to Mom and Pop's shoe store for shoplifting because Walmart closed them down. And people who gotta steal shoes, have to do it at a store that's still open. So, walmart.
As you say, the crime patterns pretty much match the neighborhoods the stores are in and that ain't in a good one.
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