A Drowning Man Will Reach

even for the point of a sword in order to survive.

-- Yiddish saying.

From Crain's:

Wal-Mart backers rally for 2nd city store

By Samantha Sleevi and Monée Fields-White
July 29, 2009
(Crain’s) — Hundreds of Wal-Mart supporters rallied Wednesday morning across the street from City Hall as members of a City Council committee tossed around a controversial plan that would pave the way for the retailer’s second outpost in the city.

The City Council Finance Committee is expected to consider an amendment, introduced by Alderman Howard Brookins Jr. (21st) in April, that would alter a development proposal to allow Wal-Mart Stores Inc. to build a store at 83rd Street and Stewart Avenue.

Mr. Brookins, who has been fighting to add a Wal-Mart in his Chatham neighborhood ward since 2004, told supporters at Wednesday’s rally that the council needs to move on this issue.

“Now is the time for action,” Mr. Brookins said. “It is time to be mad. I have a plan that puts hundreds of people to work . . . without asking anybody for an increase in tax revenue. I have a plan that is going get people back to work now.”

Wal-Mart’s single store in the city, on the West Side, opened in September 2006 amid a political firestorm.
...

I happened to be at the Hall that day and, for a brief moment, it was best damn floor show for the price anywhere in town. Not that they behaved like a sober, deliberative governing body or anything (most of the ruckus consisted of the Old Bulls strutting and hectoring Alderman Brookins on his breach of clubby, aldermanic protocol in not getting their blessing first because "that's not how things work here") but it was just about the first time since the days of Harold Washington and Council Wars that the usually Recumbent Incumbents acted like something other than Da Mare’s hand-made hemorrhoid pillow.

That being said, this is one issue where both sides have a point.

Yes, the Wal-Mart business model is based on letting predatory douchbags use their commanding market position to drive wages down so low that no one can afford to shop anywhere but Wal-Mart.

Yes, they are a patient, persistent, opportunistic virus of a corporation.

But even though everyone knew this virus was lurking out there in the weeds waiting for the right moment to strike, the City still did far, far less than the minimum necessary to inoculate its poorer neighborhoods against it. Yawning food deserts still exist. Development is still maldistributed. City attention, resources and all of those lovely little sweeteners that attract businesses are still skewed towards the downtown.

Chatham is one of many Chicago neighborhoods that has been living for years on the promise that revitalization projects and good jobs in sustainable industries would be coming their way by and by.

But the cavalry never came, and they are tired of waiting.