We had a neighborhood dilemma, stood up against it, and we lost

[Mira]

A large flower shop, built only 7 years before, was demolished after the flower shop moved and sold the land and building to Family Dollar.
We are an older neighborhood, historic, in NC, we are very diverse and wonderful. We fought tooth and nail with meetings, with petitions, the city council, and with hundreds of yard signs of “Family Dollar / NO”
It made no difference.
The site was razed and the store was built and in a week it will be open.

On a fence bordering the parking lot over which they have no control and that they do not own words started to appear. They were individually lettered and randomly nailed up. They did not make sense, during construction more words appeared, one every now and then, and this week it began to coalesce and read:

"Why would Family Dollar build a store in the middle of a neighborhood that asked it not to?
That’s what a 16 Billion Dollar corporate Bully does!”



As you can see it is a neighborhood full of artists.
That’s how we can make ourselves feel a little better, because they cannot take it down. And our not patronizing the store will make a difference to their not having listened.

[shanti]

1. you can bet

the dollar store will be feeling it when there are no customers. heh!

[Mira]

4. They were foolish to follow through.

Driving through the neighborhood street there were literally parts where every single yard had the sign. They will not make a go of this store. We don't even want to be SEEN going in there LOL

[Hortensis]

18. I hope that turns out to be exactly the case.

Keep it up. Perhaps enough people will avoid the place to encourage it to close -- delivering a lesson to top management as well. Itm, it sounds like an especially wonderful neighborhood, one I'd love to live in.

Fwiw, though, once the corporation purchased this land legally with plan for a legal "improvement," it was probably too late. Land owners have rights too.

[Baobab]

87. Mira, you need to start a neighborhood organiztion NOW

because this wont be the last attack on you. Seeing those nifty signs- Unless you live somewhere outside the US-

START AN ORGANIZATION TO PROTECT YOUR HOMES NOW.

[Hortensis]

90. Great suggestion. They need to foresee and

be able to raise funds and hire consultants and professional advocates as needed while there's still time.

[Travis_0004]

47. I'm guessing they will do just fine.

A lot of people who live right next to it will be upset, but I assume they have done the market research.

They don't become a billion dollar company by loosing money (too often)

[Mosby]

2. the family dollars around here are dumps

Did your neighbors find out who owns the property?

[djean111]

3. Family Dollar, or Dollar Tree? Family Dollar (rips off poor people) was bought out by

Dollar Tree.

I would not want either one in a residential neighborhood. But, as someone who is, at times, really poor, Dollar Tree has been a real help.

Your story illustrates, MO, just how little people matter any more. That store was likely on money-greased skids.

[virgogal]

43. Most of my neighbors shop at Dollar Tree,as do I.

They have some fantastic deals and most of the shoppers are middle class.

I agree that they don't belong in a residential neighborhood---no retailer does.

[Baobab]

85. Likely your local planning department sees your neighborhood as being poor soon.

If it isn't already.

Planning organizations are planning for massive displacements as poor people get pushed out to the margins and wealthy people move back into city centers.


I read planning literature.

As far as I can tell, there is an inverse relationship between wealth and likelihood of community disruption from various churning schemes.

they know no shame.

[virgogal]

112. Aaaah,no. Our median house price is $450,000.00 and rising.

We shop at Dollar Tree so we can afford to live here.

[Doremus]

94. Beware what you buy at dollar stores

A lot of it is store returns, overstock, fire/distressed, etc. For example, the off-brand crayons I used to buy for my kids were later exposed to have lead in them.

To save money, my best advice is to shop house sales. The merchandise is better quality, cheaper and helps save the environment.

[djean111]

99. I buy bleach, name brand dish detergent, things like that.

I can't drive all over the place, and I cannot really buy in bulk. When you only have a couple dollars, it is helpful to be able to buy 1 1/2 ponds of pasta for a dollar, or the same brands of bread that are sold in, say, Publix, for a dollar. Not out of date, just what Publix or whoever did not have room for on the shelves.

It actually costs more to be poor, in some instances. And hard for me to stick to not eating carbs, too!

[alarimer]

5. Blame Art Pope.

Didn't he make his fortune with one of those chains? I can't remember which one, but he's not known for being civic-minded.

[blm]

13. Pope has Roses - he changed the name after protesters targeted him.

Save-a-Lot is what he's using now. The umbrella company is Variety Stores, iirc.

[cstanleytech]

66. I dont think he owns Save-a-Lot rather I read that he

bought a license for a franchise for it kinda like IGA but he still owns Roses, in fact there is a Roses in my area though its in a very bad part of town.

[blm]

75. The Roses I pass here in Charlotte was changed.

.

[cstanleytech]

76. Heres a link article to an article that might explain it better

http://www.bizjournals.com/triangle/news/2014/10/30/roses-save-a-lot-variety-wholesalers-raleigh.html

[blm]

77. Perhaps he thinks the Roses name is toxic in Dem stronghold counties. ; )

.

[cstanleytech]

88. I kinda doubt it as Save-aLot is purely a grocery store where as Roses

is more like a smaller version of an old pre-grocery Walmart.

[BillZBubb]

6. In a red state, big money rules.

Heck, the way things are going, soon in every state big money rules.

[jtuck004]

67. "the way things are going" They are already gone. n/t

[ananda]

7. boycott

..

[secondwind]

8. Love all the signs!!! I hope the community does not give them their business!

[Lifelong Protester]

9. Love your neighborhood signs

hate Family Dollar, as they exude greed. They came to our town, too. A little town in the middle of the Great River Road. A lot of people did not want it. I will not go there, and I hope all the folks that were against it also withhold their dollars.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

31. I was shocked to see one open on the Great River Road in Pepin, WI, last year.

It's such a scenic little town (I go there to sail), and that thing is just a blight.

[Lifelong Protester]

96. I agree, I dislike it

never go into it. Think that its presence is one thing non-rural people do NOT want to see in Pepin.

[retrowire]

10. where in NC is this bullshit going on?

I'll make it my own imperative to never stop at this location

[malaise]

11. Mira - you are now a consumer

not a citizen. Please adjust

[daleanime]

62. Sadly, that seems to be....

how they view us.

[murielm99]

12. We have a Dollar General.

It is a dump. The merchandise is third rate. The store is dirty. Most of the workers are indifferent.

We lost the grocery store in our small rural community a few months before the dollar store came in. People go to the dollar store because there is nothing else. If we run out of one item, like toilet paper, there is nowhere else to go, unless we want to travel twelve miles one way.

I end up in the place about once a month. The rest of the time, I combine my trips so that I don't have to use the place.

For a long time, the parking lot had more craters than the moon. We have local man who rides a scooter because he cannot drive after a stroke. He was injured in the parking lot. There was a financial settlement. I know only that there was a settlement. His daughter told me the rest of it is confidential. But now their parking lot has been fixed.

I wish that eyesore and blight on the community would go away.

[Purveyor]

15. DG is doing what Walmart hasn't accomplished, kill off

the last of the mom and pops.

We are dealing with a new open that is challenging one of my stores.

Saw a drop in sales initially but our locals prefer our neighborly customer service.

[hfojvt]

19. i've been to a lot of them

never seen one that was really dirty. Although this one was brand new about four years ago. Three years ago, I offered to work for them, about an hour a night after they close - cleaning the floors. I've been a school janitor for about twelve years. I never heard from them, and I notice the floors are not cleaned very well.

I'm usually friendly with the workers, but they come and go, and they tell me they get paid less than Wally World.

As for 3rd rate merchandise? Well, a can of pringles or a box of cereal or a bottle of pop are pretty much standard anywhere and DG has better prices than most grocery stores. The candles and the sprinkler I got from there seem to work just fine.

[romanic]

53. The DG near my apartment is pretty clean.

It's an older store, taking up a space once owned by the Salvation Army. I guess it depends on location and demographics cause where I live, it's mostly business people and an older middle-class community. I find them a step above Family Dollar and Dollar Tree, some of their products are good and I never found outdated food. Only thing I dislike about it is that they are expanding at a rate that Wal-mart did in towns like yours. That I find very sad.

[hfojvt]

14. Why so against Family Dollar?

I hardly ever shop there, but they do not seem THAT much different than Dollar General.

I shop a fair amount at DG, they have always been a little closer to my location than Family Dollar.

I am not sure how big your "neighborhood" is. Perhaps they figure that their market is larger than your neighborhood.

[xfundy]

16. Creatives and artists are probably our last hope.

Including satirists and comedians.

Sad state we're in now.

[csziggy]

17. What really stinks is that if a boycott suceeds the empty eyesore is left

Maybe once the Family Dollar goes under the artist community could rent the building and use it for an artist co-op with shops and classes for the locals.

[2naSalit]

22. Like that idea!!!

Hope something like that happens.

[cui bono]

34. Or a market that is a co-op. Those can really thrive. n/t

[Jeffersons Ghost]

20. K&R

[ridgenvalley]

21. This op hit home.

My rural PA county has had 6 Family Dollars open in the past 2 years, putting a new strain on the already struggling Mom & Pops. But the bastards know it's an area down on its economic luck, and they have obviously made the decision to take full advantage. I still shop at the M & Ps, but the writing is on the wall. My s.o.jokes that if we ever get a Five Below store it'll be a sign that good times are back again.
I wish we had stood up to the flood of FD stores, but frankly, it was a blitzkrieg assault. Nobody realized what was happening til it was over. Kind of like the fracking....

[Dont call me Shirley]

23. Family Dollar should change thier name to "The Family Takes Your Last Dollar". They're not really

that great of a bargain.

[glinda]

27. They have highly toxic products also.

[Dont call me Shirley]

28. And outdated food.

[womanofthehills]

108. Outdated GMO chemical food

with the additives from hell.

[Dont call me Shirley]

109. In bpa lined cans and bpa ladened plastic containers.

[sulphurdunn]

24. This kind of thing happens when

local governing bodies are dominated by vacuous Babbitts who believe that any and all development is good, even when it costs more in community services and decline in quality of life than it generates in revenue or other economic benefit. The only solution is to remove such characters and replaces them with rational people.

[WinkyDink]

26. I fail to see how one Family Tree store "costs more in community services and decline in quality of

life."

You think "Made in China" isn't in boutiques?!

[sulphurdunn]

39. Try and see this:

Corporate chain development is often pursued by local governments willing to compete with other municipalities by sweetening the deal with tax abatements, direct grants for infrastructure and other things. Cost increases come from the need to provide expand public services such as police and fire protection, subsidies to what are often low wage workers, increased volume to sewage treatment facilities, addition draws on power grids and more. It is particularly egregious when the same municipalities that seek such development also refuse to raise taxes to cover the costs. Then it begins stealing from Peter to pay Paul in its budgets while the profits from the corporate chain store leave the community and go somewhere else.

[1939]

80. "Subsidies to low wage workers?"

Having worked for a "Mom and Pop" as a teenager, I can assure you that M&P don't pay a livable wage with benefits. It was often a struggle to get paid on time.

[sulphurdunn]

92. Low wage workers

cost taxpayers about $150 billion annually. Employees for Dollar General are low wage workers. Also, almost 90% of low wage workers are over the age of 20 and one-third of those are over 40.

[WinkyDink]

25. I presume the site is legally zoned for this store? As you noted, the "acceptable" flower store

owners are the ones WHO SOLD TO FD!

I think only a fool would buy tablets, school and office supplies, balloons and other decorations, paper goods (including security envelopes), and more from anywhere BUT a Dollar Tree, which is the one near me.

This FD will thrive, as there are more people than you might suspect who would rather save money than pride.

Maybe even for buying art supplies.

[ridgenvalley]

29. Ooh, ouchy poo.

The fact that communities were perfectly happy before the FDs came and used corporate clout to undercut the M&Ps -- the M&Ps who btw are our longtime neighbors and whose kids play soccer with our kids, evidently makes no difference to you.
I feel sorry for that attitude. You have a sad idea of what community is about, IMO.

[WinkyDink]

73. Oh, pipe down. I spent my youth and career in my same small town; I know perfectly well and

intimately everything about "community," but all sides, not just Pollyanna's. I grew up with many a kid whose parents were the downtown merchants, gas station owners, druggists, etc. I loved it all, and still do, living not far away now.

But times change. .

Maybe FD will employ more than that florist did.

[ridgenvalley]

95. Times change. You got that right.

Communities are FORCED to change to accommodate far off corporate interests, whether they want to or not.

Call me a proud Pollyanna.

PS The FD pays crap hourly wages and next to no benefits that no single person could survive comfortably on, let alone a family. Great jobs you're advocating for.

[ridgenvalley]

98. And don't ever tell me to "pipe down."

Ain't ever going to happen.

[Mira]

35. Yes, the appropriate zoning was in place

which made it hard to fight it in City Hall

[shrike]

86. The problem may also be with state law

I have no idea what the laws are in NC, but where I live, if a business comes in and fits the zoning requirements, etc., it's extremely difficult to keep them out. Your town may have been opening itself up to an expensive lawsuit, if nothing else. I sympathize, but municipalities are often hamstrung by arcane and byzantine legal requirements that make it difficult or at times impossible to block such a development.

[mdbl]

69. Not that I have a stake in the NC situation

but any of those stores I have been in has third rate or watered down versions of any name brand products. It's almost like they take the generic versions and repackage them with less product, then charge a little bit less but give you a whole lot less. Just my opinion of what I always see there. I guess if you're there to buy candy bars or something like that it might not matter.

[fasttense]

71. Everytime you shop at a chain you are sending money out of the community

Instead of being spread around your community, that money spent at a chain gets sent away, perhaps to land in a panama shell corporation.

While the handfull of minimum wa ge jobs it creates are reason for giving the chain store tax cuts and subsidies.

[WinkyDink]

72. While perhaps true, this isn't exactly a new phenomenon in American business. Yes, I grew up

in a small town with separate stores of the fishmonger, butcher, pharmacist, florist, shoe sales and shoe repairs, pizza parlor, dress salon, etc.

Some are still there. But so now are CVS, Giant, and McDonald's.

[1939]

81. In many states

the state give local governments a cut on the sales tax take. A high sales volume store can really help the local tax take. In Virginia, when Walmart opened a store in a county, the adjoining city wanted to annex the land right away.

[KamaAina]

97. That's Wally World's M.O.

Build 50 feet or so outside city limits, so they can suck the city dry without paying any taxes to it.

[1939]

103. You missed my point

Local governments often welcome large stores if they get a significant jump in revenue from the sales taxes generated by the store.

[noamnety]

89. I'm wondering how the zoning is for signs.

It wouldn't surprise me if the dollar store finds a way to get the signs taken down if they violate zoning. In my area a local artist had to paint over the word LOVE on this shop because it was too large and violated the ordnance for a "sign with words."

[Trajan]

102. Yeah ... FUCK the community ....

Got it ...

Gone ...

[stopbush]

30. But people will shop there out of necessity.

Hard to be choosy when you have to support a family on a crap income. Third-rate stuff is better than nothing. Hell, some of the most-expensive products one can buy are produced with 3rd-rate manufacturing standards.

[Mira]

33. The most infuriating part to us is

that less than a half a mile, on the left is another one!!!!!!! in a legitimate shopping center.
But it makes it easier for all of us who would not be caught going in it to boycott it. And we have our cake (the less expensive things we might pick up in a dollar store) and eat it, too.
This new store - if boycotted by the neighbors - does not have enough through traffic to be sustained, especially with the shopping center right down the street. A little Mom and Pop is across the street that has been there for 40 plus years.
As I said, infuriating.

[Baobab]

91. Read "Kelo v. City of New London"

on http://scholar.google.com


Its a SCOTUS case (federal)

Articles about it there too. Go, do it.

Now do you see why the people (many artists) in Brooklyn who lived under the bridge named their neighborhood "Dumbo" ?

Mybe you can think of some strategy to prevent the churners from capturing all the value you have created for yourselves.

Everything is changed now. Promises are routinely broken because of the argument that its more efficient to give rich people other people's money.

See "The Problem of Social Cost" by Ronald Coase, 1960.

This is the problem with the "New Republicans" and their grandiose dishonesty.

[Warpy]

57. Yes, I see people here loading up at the Dollar Store and Big Lots

and then popping across the street to fill in the gaps at the high priced store, Wal Mart. There used to be a discount grocery here but they've long since disappeared. The Dollar Store is where people trying to feed their kids something on shitty minimum wage jobs go to shop. Then Big Lots. Then Wal Mart.

I live in a very poor area in a very poor state.

[matt819]

32. That's really not a $16 billion bully issue

Like the geico commercial says about cats and such. It's what they do. Big companies build and buildings grow, or die.

Rather, I think, it's a local council issue. Now, if the council caved due to illegal pressure or bribes, well, then, that's something to explore.

We had the same thing in our tiny town. Residents spoke out and demanded the town say no and they found a way that the plans violated all sorts of ordinances. Traffic, parking, ground cover/runoff, zoning, environment, lighting, etc. Although I think the various town boatds were in favor, they couldn't dispute the vehement opposition and the fact that the project wasn't in accordance with the rules. In short, the town residents made it clear that we would object at every step.

[annabanana]

78. "Big companies build and buildings grow, or die": Yeah.. like sharks . . . n/t

[hunter]

93. Nope, like scum in a stagnant pond, blocking out all the light to the life below.

Running a healthy economy is like maintaining a healthy pond. You've got to skim the scum off the top and keep clean oxygenated water circulating in the depths.

In economic terms that means steeply progressive taxation and the aggressive removal of corrupt officials rising to the top of our financial and political institutions.

[greymouse]

36. I'm sorry

I've gone to the mat on a couple of issues, fought hard and lost.

[bluestateguy]

37. I guess I would say that organizing a boycott would be the next step

but that won't work if non-neighborhood outsiders come in and shop there.

[felix_numinous]

38. Much of their crap ends up in the trash

non biodegradable plastic and tinsel that is just used once. It would be great if someday we could pass local ordinances to protect the environment that ban stores that sell this crap.

[maindawg]

40. They will close that store

And build a new right next door. That's is what they do.

[navarth]

41. Lost the battle. But we'll win the war.

Next step is to make them pay for what they did. Give them no business. Hit them in the pocketbook.

[AngryAmish]

42. And Dollar stores attract the poors. Can't have that.

The Poors are not Artistic.

[virgogal]

44. Oh,my !

[bluestateguy]

45. Because artists are so wealthy

Geesh.

[LanternWaste]

100. Post hoc ergo prompter hoc... and irrelevant as well.

Post hoc ergo prompter hoc... and irrelevant as well.

[womanofthehills]

107. The artists are the poors

In the 90's you could make a good living as an artist, but it's very hard today. People are more into their cell phones than buying art.

Now people just take photos of art with their cell phones instead of buying the art. One of the galleries I sell my work at has signs all over the gallery - Do Not Take Photos of the Art -

[Promethean]

46. I feel like I'm missing something here.

Did the Family Dollar coerce the flower store owners to sell the land?

[Mira]

55. Oh no. The flower shop moved to larger quarters

in another part of town

[Promethean]

58. Please help me to understand. I must be missing something.

Flower shop is doing well, needs a larger location to expand. Flower shop sells property and moves of own accord. Dollar store buys property legally and there isn't even the appearance of coercion on the flower shop. OMG CORPORATE BULLY!

The only thing I can see is that people just don't want a business they don't like in their neighborhood. Lets say you got the dollar store blocked. Do you trust every group that gets together in the future with the power to block new businesses from opening? The tools of oppression you use today will be used on you tomorrow. There is nothing unethical about how they are setting up this store. Thus you are literally being the oppressors in telling them they cannot buy and use that property legally. If they were blocked then you set the precedent that anybody can be blocked for frankly frivolous reasons. I don't like that new flower shop opening next door to me, I'll write a letter to the city council and get them blocked. The justification is the exact same as the justification for blocking the dollar store.

[klook]

63. So you would have no problem with a beautiful flower shop being replaced by

a butt-ugly Family Fucking Dollar in your neighborhood? Give me a break.

The OP is about the heartbreak of seeing a (presumably) locally owned business that was an asset to the community replaced by a crappy chain store. Here's hoping that in a couple of years Mira will be seeing this on that spot:


In the meantime, the artists' hand-painted signs on the wall are great.

[mythology]

74. But it's not being replaced

The flower shop moved to a larger location.

As for whether the store is "ugly" that is a cosmetic thing and up to individual tastes. I think the thing in front of the Louvre is an eye-sore. But not everybody agrees.

[passiveporcupine]

68. The problem is a large chain store replacing mom and pops

And the money that used to be kept in the neighborhood is now gone. And this will close more Mom and Pops, like the little grocer she mentioned was across the street.

My town stopped Walmart from upgrading to a super store. We had to fight many years, but we won. We are now in the midst of a fight to keep Nestle from starting a bottling plant in our county, taking our dwindling water supplies (due to global warming and drought) for almost nothing and selling it around the world, adding heavy truck traffic through our beautiful senic area, and adding more plastic bottles to the landscape, where many will end up in the ocean, killing sea life and fowl. Bottled water is a crime for the ecology. We need our water, as our prime water supply (a glacier) is melting and it will seriously affect our farms and orchards.

All for greed.

I'm sorry Mira. I love the message on the fence. Very touching.

[womanofthehills]

104. The Dollar Store has ruined my small town in NM

The closest town to me is 12 miles - it's a town of under 2000 people - with a 2 block main street with many of the old original buildings. There has been a grocery store in this town since it was founded in the early 1900's and today I find out the grocery store is closing this week - the next closest grocery store is 50 miles away.

As soon as the Dollar Store opened a few yrs ago, the grocery suffered, the pharmacy suffered, the hardware store suffered and a mom and pop variety store closed. The hardware store is now for sale, and the pharmacy is barely making it.

All the town council could talk about was the tax revenue they were going to get - and now they have no grocery store in their town.

[passiveporcupine]

105. Walmart has done that to so many small towns

It's pretty sad.

[Baobab]

111. Dollar store will probably carry some food items - but watch out for chemicals

Ive read a lot of news stories that the products carried in dollar stores often have issues with various chemicals that should not be there.

They might be legal but still have dangerous levels of various chemicals. The laws on toxic chemicals have not been updated in 30+ years.

[LanternWaste]

101. Help me understand, as I'm, missing something as well....

Help me understand, as I'm, missing something as well....

You're taking exception to someone's negative perception of a change in their own community you're not familiar with?

[Igel]

114. Not from what I read.

Sounds like the flower store didn't get the votes necessary to stay, i.e., $.

So they left because the community liked them, but not really like-liked them. Odds are they'd rather have sold to somebody locally, but nobody was around. Again, the community is against stuff more than it's for.

Now it seems they want an empty building and empty lot because they don't like what they wrangled. Perhaps that empty lot that doesn't pay taxes or hire anybody, even at minimum wage, is better. Perhaps something really cool will move in there that won't require $ to stay running. Like artists and art classes. Artists like starving.

[TeamPooka]

48. If your city council didn't help you then you must not have a coalition large enough to scare them.

Besides, Americans trade off good jobs for cheap shoddy goods and politicians that match every damn day.

[mcar]

49. You tried

I applaud you for that!

[Victor_c3]

50. Fighting a shitty chain is worth it, regardless of the ultimate outcome

About 20 years ago Walmart tried to move into my area. The people put up a tremendous fight and eventually Walmart stopped trying to build a store there. At the time, we were one of the few or first localities to actually stop them. Regardless of the outcone, it is totally worth the effort to stop the businesses like that from destroying our communities. Thank you for your effort!

[Manifestor_of_Light]

61. Many years ago,

they opened a Wal-Mart Neighborhood Market in the big city. No zoning.

Then I was told that somebody decided to welcome them to the hood with a drive-by shooting, taking out the glass windows at the drive-through pharmacy window, late at night when they were closed.

[oldandhappy]

51. signs are beautiful.

Thanks for the picture.

Definitely do not patronize the store. I remember a story from awhile back about a 7-11 type store having trouble with rowdy teens hanging out in the parking lot. The store started piping classical music into the parking lot. Suddenly kids were gone! Leave your signs up. Maybe ask the owner of the parking lot area if you can put up a small table and chair and ask people to register to vote as they arrive to shop. Or sign petitions. You know -- something that is good for people. You could just do it on the weekends.

[mike dub]

52. Mira - I see another big co. doing the same thing

Publix grocery stores are doing a similar thing (in the rapidly growing NC town of Cary) to what Dollar General is doing in your community. Publix is pushing to have Residential zoned areas of Cary rezoned so that they can build new stores on land previously zoned residential backing up to more residential. Not much regard for the folks who (as next door neighbors) would actually potentially shop in their stores. These folks show up to town council meetings and ask why they would want food deliveries and dumpsters clanging at late/early hours, when all along their area had previously been zoned residential backing up to more residential. Now Publix comes in and it's almost foregone that they will be given a zoning change of residential backing up to Commerical. The homeowners in that area Always knew their homes could someday back up to More homes (instead of the woody buffer they currently back up to) but then the rules get changed= nope, your home might now back up to Commercial development instead. Kind of lame, or more pointedly: It's absurd.

Additionally: Publix is working toward rezoning of a residential/rural area of north Durham, NC (closer to where I live) so they can build another store there. That's a Huge leap, as this area doesn't have Near the amount of folks living within that market area that Cary does, nor anywhere near as many newcomers coming in to this part of the region as Cary (rapidly growing Wake County) does. But it's open season. Will be interesting to see what all happens.

[1939]

83. I always heard

that integration of residential and retail spaces was a great "progressive ideal" and that home owners who objected were just NIMBY. People should be able to walk to shop and not have to use their cars for every trip to the store.

[CaptainTruth]

54. And Family Dollar is NOT a franchise.

Not a franchise, so no chance it would be owned by a local entrepreneur.

Sad.

[raven mad]

56. Oh, the memories!

We did this once to a McDonald's..................

[arikara]

59. I rarely go into any dollar store unless under duress

The smell of cheap Chinese plastic makes me feel ill almost immediately. The Mr thinks the Chinese mix their toxic waste into things like plastic to get rid of it, they don't care if they poison us slowly... or not so slowly as in the case of what they did with melamine.

[womanofthehills]

106. You are so right

The air quality in these stores is disgusting - all the chemicals out gassing. I always feel bad for the workers.

[zentrum]

60. May the people prevail.

It's so important to try to save community and neighborhood.

[RiverLover]

64. The homogenization of America continues & will not stop until every community looks like the

same retail wasteland selling cheap crap made by virtual slaves in other countries. Our culture now.

I'm so sad for you & your community.

[rosesaylavee]

65. Creative problem solving!

We are dealing with a similar neighborhood bully and we just so happen to have a long grey fence facing their property. If anything, this gave us a good cathartic laugh..

Good on you and your friends!

[anniebelle]

70. We have one right around the corner in this quiet little area where we live.

They sell the cheapest possible junk, shelves filled with trash from China and Mexico. But they do appeal to the people who cannot even afford to go to WalMart ~ how sad in the wealthiest country on earth and we as citizens apparently have no say. We have an area of shops in our little village that are family owned and sell quality merchandise, we have one small grocery that caters to us vegans and GMO haters, and also people who are still flesh eaters, where we do most of our shopping and what we can't find there, we go off the mountain to WholeFoods where we can find almost everything we need in the way of organic food. I, personally, would like to see every WalMart, Dollar General, Dollar Tree out of business, but that's wishful thinking on my part.

[FourScore]

79. I would love to live in your neighborhood. n/t

[Mira]

82. What a wonderful comment. Thank you.

All of us who live here feel privileged. Winston-Salem, NC. Old neighborhood, on historic register. Filled with huge old antebellum mansions, all now restored, and small houses as well, all around a huge city park. Our most illustrious resident at the moment, to my knowledge, is Melissa Harris Perry. She owns a half a city block with even a barn on it still. I got my little house 40 years ago before the neighborhood "came back". Now any given house is on the market about a week.
We did not need Family Dollar as a centerpiece.

[Baobab]

84. Just be thankful they did not use eminent domain and tear your neighborhood down!

and give it to them, "to increase tax revenue"

Dollar stores are one likely future, especially if Clinton wins, basically poverty is most of the nation's future because jobs as we know them are going away.

[womanofthehills]

110. Although many people in our town were against the Dollar Store

at the time our main fight was against Kinder Morgan and eminent domain. We were fighting a CO2 pipeline (transporting CO2 from eastern Arizona to West Texas and SE New Mexico for fracking.) I must say we were amazing in our fight. We were so organized against KM, we had little time left to fight the Dollar Store. Thankfully due to the drop in oil prices, Kinder Morgan scrapped the project "for now."

[Baobab]

113. Now they often take peoples homes to give to real estate developers

for projects like condos. Because it increases the tax base.

Read Kelo v. City of New London and the articles about it on http://scholar.google.com.

Basically, the neighborhoods that are being targeted are ones that are nice enough to sit on desireable land, but not rich enough that their residents could afford a costly legal fight. Its happening on a massive scale all across the country.


In other words, they dont need a reason any more, planning boards can get paid off and its impossible to prove. Real Estate developers and mall developers are doing that everywhere.


Churning. With less and less real wealth being generated, this churning is ramping up - and its a parasitic activity.