Illustration by Cody Angell

Let's be honest, we've all shopped at Wal-Mart, K-Mart, Target and other "big box" (large retail) stores. They have low prices and provide one-stop shopping, a prized asset with Tucson's worsening traffic. So why should we work to stop them from being built and consider moving our patronage to other stores? The fact is, no matter how convenient or budget-friendly big box retailers may be to us, they have an enormous negative impact on the community. Like blisters mistaken for healthy growth, they stress nearly every aspect of our community as they gobble up land, 100,000 square feet of floor space at a time, leaving mothballed hulks in their tracks.

On Monday night, the Tucson City Council voted appropriately to hold off on a proposal to amend many of the neighborhood protections. Some of the changes were well intended, but it may take time to separate those amendments from the ones designed to give developers absolute power. Developers have an opportunity to appeal any decision made by bureaucrats, boards or commissions to the City Council. Neighborhoods deserve the same opportunity to appeal decisions that directly affect them.

In a surprise turnaround, Vice Mayor Carol West provided a key vote in preventing a proposed Target on the east side from taking over part of Old Spanish Trail, an arterial street. This appropriate decision will give neighborhoods a chance to win other battles, which will be fought uphill the entire way.

Should the council champion the neighborhoods fighting the Target on Old Spanish Trail, the trend that began with the unfortunate El Con (or El Controversy, as it would be better named) decision could be over. The opportunities at El Con for mixed use and neighborhood integrated small-scale retail were lost, and the developers have chosen to create a big box heavy mall that will undoubtedly fail in the near future.

Every big box retailer adds cars to arterial streets by the tens of thousands, clogging already congested intersections and thoroughfares. If big boxes are to rein over Tucson, they must be held responsible for the traffic issues they cause.

An issue that receives far too little attention is that the vast majority of big box retailers are non-union. Even as starving students, the money saved by shopping at Wal-Mart instead of Safeway contributes to a company that sees nothing wrong with paying its employees minimum wage with no benefits while preventing them from organizing. Personally, I prefer to pay an extra 5 cents for a soda, or 25 cents for a box of Kleenex at Safeway and know that I'm not contributing to the degradation of the people checking me out.

Locally owned businesses also suffer with the presence of big boxes. Some people undoubtedly see no value in "mom and pop" businesses, but they are an important part of our community that prevents the homogenization of America's cities.

In 1999, the City Council passed the Large Retail Ordinance, or "Big Box Law," as it is affectionately called. Despite the greatest efforts of the conservative local press, I have found nothing unreasonable about the ordinance. Buffer zones for neighborhoods and time restrictions for truck deliveries and garbage pickup may seem extravagant at first glance, but picture for a second living with a family only several feet away from 24-hour parking lot lights, loitering customers, outdoor fertilizer and potting soil displays, idling trucks and a giant red sun in the shape of a "K." Do neighborhood protections still seem so frivolous?

The most controversial part of the ordinance is a limit on the amount of floor space that can be dedicated to groceries. This limit was included to protect union grocery stores from being driven out of business by big boxes, as has happened in other cities. Many people disagree with the concept of restricting where legal products may be sold, simply because some people "don't like" big box retailers. However, few people consider that we heavily regulate where pornography - a perfectly legal product - can be sold simply because we "don't like" stores that sell it and "don't like" their impact on our community. I'm not advocating removing any regulations on pornography, but the analogy shows the importance and legitimacy of the grocery limits.

The big box issue will remain at the forefront of our City Council's agenda. Let's hope that El Con will fall under the category of "never again." The decision for Old Spanish Trail is not final, and the grocery limits will come before the council very soon. Some may consider big boxes to be an issue only for elitist liberals. I prefer to believe that a larger group of people can appreciate the seriousness and complexity of the issue.