I would have stopped by for a beer

Debate: Are Chain Stores and Big Box Retailers Hurting New York City?.

Valid question. But most usually the discussants have no geographic/spatial sense and so conflate the spatial form of a big-box with its economic impact, thus making the conversation a somewhat frustrating one.

UPDATE: Don't miss Benjamin Hemric's comment to this post.

Comments

[Karol]

The visual aspect of it was discussed quite a bit, actually.

[David Sucher]

I don't mean "visual" btw. That's why I didn't use the term "visual."

I meant the way the building is designed to interact with the city around it. That is very different from "visual."

[Benjamin Hemric]

I agree that most of the discussions about big boxes in NYC (especially with relation to Manhattan) are hampered (sp?) by the fact that most people don't seem to have a clear definition of what they mean by a big box store. Is is the design of the building (in relation to the rest of the city), the type of merchandise (e.g., large appliances), the nature of the operations (e.g., bulk purchases only), etc?

For instance, a year or two ago there was an article in the "Times" that called a large electronics store on 23rd St. (Circuit City[?]) a big box store. This store is located on the first two [?] floors of a new, very large, but traditionally designed, building, with apartments above. Is this really a big box store?

Same holds true for the K-Mart that takes up only PART of the first two floors (and basement) of a gigantic, handsome building on Astor Place that was designed by Daniel Burnham as an annex to Wanamaker's (the new owners of A.T. Stewart's). Is this a big box store? (The upper seven floors or so are now used for office space.)

And then there are all those chain operations with large stores on Sixth Ave. that are located in very old, architecturally distinguished (and landmarked) department stores from the 1890s or so (e.g., Cooper-Siegel-Cooper). I think the tendancy is to call these stores big boxes too. (Some of the upper stories are used for retail, some are for other commercial uses like office space or health clubs.) But if these are big boxes, does that make Macy's, Gimbel's, etc. big box stores too?

What makes a big building in NYC a department store (or an adaptively re-used department store) and what makes it a big box? It seems to me that the big difference (especially since department stores from the early 20th Century seem to have painted in most of their windows) is (or should be) the nature of the retail operation rather than the building -- does it sell in bulk only, and thus does this mean the store depends on people using a car to lug the stuff home. An operation that depends on 1) people carrying their own purchases or 2) the less do-it-yourself and expensive home delivery (the way Macy's would deliver a TV set or home furnishings), would seem to me to make an operation more like a traditional department store -- with the interesting wrinkle that each department is separately owned and operated.

[Benjamin Hemric]

P.S. -- Forgot to mention that most people seem to feel that a "big box" store is a physically large, high volume, specialty chain store with suburban, shopping mall, origins.

It seems to me, as David's original post points out, that using the term "big box" to describe this kind of store (in the context of NYC, and especially in Manhattan) tends to confuse the discussion of "big boxes" rather than to help clarify it.

[Benjamin Hemric]

P.P.S. -- Re-reading the posts, I see I may be disagreeing a bit with David's definition of "big box" -- at least as it would pertain to Manhattan. However, in less urban environments, I can see how the way a big store (whether it is a traditional department store or a large specialty store)is designed in relation to its environment would make it a "big box" or not.

But in an urban environment like Manhattan, where "big box" retailers would most likely be locating in traditional urban buildings anyway ([a]) old department stores (or new buildings built like old department stores) or [b] in old warehouse buildings on the fringe), it seems to me that it might be more useful to think of big boxes in terms of how they sell their merchandise (e.g., in bulk) rather than the physical form of the building itself.

But I realize that this would now confuse the issue further as there would then be two defnitions of "big box," one for urban areas like Manhattan and one for less urban areas. So I guess in my ideal scheme of things, I would prefer to call bulk retailers "big box" retailers and to call large, poorly designed (in relation to their environment) stores "large, poorly designed retail stores."

I guess the important thing is just to be explicit about what one means by the term "big box"!!!

[David Sucher]

I agree, Benjamin. The definitions are fuzzy and it leads to a great deal of confusion.

One way I look at it is to imagine how the most perfect-you-can-imagine socialist society would sell consumer goods. Would it take advantage of large-scale purchase/distribution? Passing on savings to the consumer? Or would it insist on goods -- imagine your stereo, even -- being sold in mom-and-pop stores? I have no doubt that the popular vote (assuming they had votes) would be for the former.

So I think that the benefits of large-scale distribution are obvious and insurmountable.

So my objection to the big box store (labor polices aside -- and Costco demonstrates the disconnect) is purely architectural/spatial/urban design.

[Mary Campbell Gallagher]

My subject of my blog, http://www.BigCitiesBigBoxes.com, is the big box stores, the New York City urban high streets, and the future of the New York City economy. I would like to refer you and Ben and your other visitors to the blog for helpful material. The big box stores are Wal-Mart, Costco, Ikea, and other stores following Wal-Mart's pattern. A lot of confusion about terminology results from looking at the physical stores, rather than at the business model. The business model of the big box stores typically calls for a flattened distribution system, tight controls over suppliers, low wages, and cloning stores repeatedly so that the stores are set so close together that they squeeze competitors out of business. Typically, in addition--although there are a few recent exceptions--big box stores are 100,000 square feet or more in size, and set as near as possible to highway off-ramps. "Category killers" are like big boxes, but typically stock fewer product categories. Staples and Best Buys are category killers.

Different places, including New York City, have different customs and traditions. I must note, with due respect, that New York is very different from the West Coast. Take a really vital point. You hold up socialist efficiency as a model. Not many New Yorkers would agree. Contrasting Manchester with Birmingham, Jane Jacobs in fact demonstrated long ago that maximal urban creativity and productivity is incompatible with efficiency. New York is a fast-moving, creative, entrepreneureal place, where most businesses are small businesses, feeding one another, originating and supplying new needs at a rapid pace, and doubtless very, very inefficiently. For New York to adopt the socialist efficiency you hold up as a model would mean the end of the New York way of life, of what New Yorkers value here and, if Jacobs is right, of New York productivity.

As to the appropriate legal limits for big box stores, I think that New Yorkers need to debate that. Perhaps the debate has now begun. In my own view, expressed on my blog, http://www.BigCitiesBigBoxes.com, if the big boxes are to come into New York City, they should have to act like New York City businesses. Otherwise, our uniquely creative, transit-oriented, neighborhood-oriented, walkable, way of life, in which small shops set immigrants on the escalator to the middle class, and in which our 400 neighborhood high streets are among the city's chief amenities, will be destroyed.

There are many posts on my blog, at http://www.BigCitiesBigBoxes.com, exploring the arguments for and against big box stores in New York, with and without limits of various kinds. Let me take one other really vital point. Automobile-dependency, which I believe you take for granted because you are not a New Yorker, is in fact inimical to the traditions of New York City. In Manhattan, where I live, 78 per cent of the households do not own a car. The big boxes, however, are inherently automobile-dependent, not just because each one normally--there are obviously a few in-city exceptions--sits in 10 or more land-sucking acres of parking lot, but because each one is stocked by 18-wheelers on computerized schedules demanding numerous tractor-trailer trips per day, and because each one not only takes up so much space, but has such a damaging effect on local retail, that consumers eventually have to buy a car in order to shop for daily necessities. As numerous economists have demonstrated, the local shopping street dies.

My piece "Ten (10) Reasons to Oppose Ikea-Red Hook," covers city-planning as well as economic issues related to the proposed Ikea store in Red Hook, Brooklyn. It appears in the left-hand column of the home page, at http://www.BigCitiesBigBoxes.com. As to the false promise of jobs, look at my op-ed "Superstores Come With Too High a Price," which originally appeared in Newsday. http://www.bigcitiesbigboxes.com/mcg_big_box_stores_dont_create_jobs_they_destroy_jobs/index.html. My analysis of the debate that the New York Daily News published on Sunday, September 4, appears at http://www.bigcitiesbigboxes.com/2005/09/walmart_attacks.html.

You need not re-invent the debate. It has already begun. The aim of my blog, http://www.BigCitiesBigBoxes.com, is to provide a useful resource to all debaters of good will.

MCG

[Brian Miller]

Mary brings up a good point: narrowly construed "efficiency" should not be the only or even a major goal of an economy or society.