We’re now almost a quarter of the way through our highly selective tour through the past two decades of local news and arts in C-VILLE. Already, we’ve touted our early jump on various bandwagons (hello, DMB; hello, green building), and this week, in light of the fight in Orange County over situating a Wal-Mart near the Wilderness Battlefield, a revered marker of Civil War history, we recall our story on Wal-Mart’s everyday low wages and the gender discrimination suit the planet’s largest retailer faced five years ago. So stay tuned, as we keep looking back at the accumulated pluck and provocations that will power this still free and still freethinking institution into the next 20 years.
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Paging through the archives
“Ironically, founder Sam Walton’s rules for building a retail business include valuing ‘associates’ and sharing rewards. Last year, Wal-Mart generated $265 billion in revenue and had about $9.1 billion in net income. Today there are 5,000 stores in 10 countries, including Argentina, South Korea and China. When Walton died in 1992, he was second only to Bill Gates for title of the world’s richest man.
“The impressive growth has come at a high price. In May, Good Jobs First, a nonprofit research center that promotes corporate and government accountability, released a report showing Wal-Mart received more than $1 billion in subsidies from local and state governments, including sales tax rebates, free or reduced-priced land, tax-increment-financing, state corporate income tax credits and property tax abatements.”
Geri L. Dreiling, October 12, 2004
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Getting covered
In this May 5, 1996 cover story, John Blackburn asserted, “We Charlottesvillians, in particular, live in a Car Town, though the automotive culture is invisible to most…” In the 13 intervening years, it’s become impossible to make the claim that we can’t perceive the car culture that, ‘scuse us, drives this town. The fight over the Meadowcreek Parkway and the nonstop complaints about driver etiquette that populate The Rant make that perfectly clear. But do we live any longer, as Blackburn claimed, in a Volvo Town? For sheer numbers, the Swedish box might outnumber the Prius, but when it comes to self-image, we would say that these days Charlottesvillians see themselves as hybrid pioneers. Here’s hoping the time comes soon when we have more potent visions of being a Mass Transit Town, or our notion of ourselves as a Pedestrian Village takes hold in reality.
