Towns must grow to prosper (7/6/04)

Ghost town may sound dramatic but it isn’t far from the truth. Every town and city wants to look forward to a prosperous future but denying advances and therefore growth is not the way to do it.

I can imagine a similar concern to this facing Chicago when it was still a small city. Do we grow and people may be forced to close their businesses or do we protect what we have and let others around us grow, thus condemning the town to be swallowed up by some other city’s growth?

When places refuse to grow people end up shopping in neighboring cities that offer better prices and a wider range of goods, the money gets taken out of the city so projects don’t get funded and small businesses are forced to close because the lack of cash flow the people move away so they can find better lives. This may sound alarmist but the cycle is true and every place around the World faces this situation.

The biggest concern was the impact on local merchants, thus the closing of businesses and the loss of jobs. Considering that approximately 50 percent of businesses fail in the first five years and there are other factors involved such as the state of the economy, the location of the business and the actual need of the service or products offered in the area plus the towns jobless rate and economic growth it is irresponsible to blame most of the business closures that have happened since the opening of Wal-Mart on that store.

The questions of can we support this or that, has anyone asked LoBill management and will it shift the business prime spots for the local businesses are incredibly negative.

LoBill management has really nothing to do with another store wanting to open up; no-one asks them if other businesses can sell cigarettes, cereal or can goods so why should they have to be asked now? Are they judge and jury of this city? Do they run Portland? Portland used to have two groceries and they both survived nicely before LoBill, so why can’t we have two again? As for the prime locations people built their businesses in, these spots always change as places grow or shrink so it would be unrealistic for the businesses to think that they would always be in the prime spots. To the question if Portland support a Super Wal-Mart and thus two groceries, other cities do and people going out of this area to shop in neighboring cities indicate that this city wants it and desperately needs it.

Things like extra traffic is an issue for the city and should not stop growth. It is a continual problem due to shifting demographics, so to refuse an incoming business because the hassles added to commuters is a petty excuse. Drainage is a fair enough concern but it should be a concern for the city to solve with the builders, but to think they will make an already bad flooding problem with Haynes Park much worse is also a petty consideration when it may help since something has to obviously be done in the area.

There is a good point hit upon in the article, what happens in one, two or even five years from now? Portland can say no to the Super Wal-Mart and they go somewhere else. Other cities will grow where Portland won’t because businesses get refused.

People will start to shop elsewhere, local businesses will close due to lack of cash and people move away. If Portland says yes to incoming businesses such as a super Wal-Mart then it would be naive to think businesses won’t be affected and some may close, but the benefits to Portland will definitely outweigh the disadvantages and that should be the biggest question.

People in Portland and near by towns will stop running to places like Muncie to shop because they will be able to get more here, the prices will be forced lower so people will spend more so there will be more money floating around the economy of Portland therefore projects will be completed, with people shopping locally more often then the spin-off effect for the local merchants will be there with people already be shopping so they will eat locally more often, this surge in activity will encourage people to move to this area or stay here which leads back to people shopping here and the cycle continues.

Large cities have super stores and small retailers and they can not survive without both of them, they are not mutually exclusive but co-exist.

If people are so concerned about the donations that might be lost from small retailers then consider a community card (I got the idea from a town called Hastings in Victoria, Australia), you get the card swiped every time you shop and 2 percent of your purchases gets donated to local schools, charities and for city improvements. The store in Hastings that does this has funded several improvements to that town and donated in excess of $60,000 to the community, so why can’t an agreement be reached where Super Wal-Mart does this so people realize the store will benefit the city and will give the people an added incentive to shop locally.

Finally, there is a concern about the store Wal-Mart will be moving out of. If they own it (I am not aware if they do or not) then they could either put something in there for the community or sell it to the city so they can do something with it. If they do not then the owner of the space could do something with it. Small business that want to grow but couldn’t due to lack of space could expand into a part of it, therefore a few stores could move in there and Portland will have a small mall which will again stimulate growth. Maybe the space could be used for skating rink with an arcade place and a mini food court, this would give the community a desperately needed place of activity for people (especially teenagers) to go to and have fun on a daily basis.

The point is, if I have not made myself clear, that it sounds like you are ready to bury businesses before they have even been given a chance to compete. This is wrong and negative, this is a time for amazing opportunities and looking forward.

Patrick R. Sullivan

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