Word: ward
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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When Emma Mitts, an alderwoman in West Chicago, was appointed in 2000, retail in her 37th Ward consisted of corner stores. Mitts vowed to upgrade the options. In 2003, at a conference sponsored by the International Council of Shopping Centers, Mitts met with Wal-Mart officials who informed her that they had tried once before to put a store in Chicago but had been stiff-armed. "The unions stopped them," said Mitts. "But the unions weren't an issue...
...summer afternoon in Chicago, Margaret Garner, CEO of the Chicago construction firm Broadway Consolidated, took a ride to Chicago's poverty-stressed 37th Ward. Dressed immaculately in a multicolored blouse, black pants and red steel-toe work boots, she had an appointment with a field of dirt and dreams. Garner surveyed the 11-acre site, where an old factory had recently been demolished, and proclaimed the future: "This will be Wal-Mart No. 5,402. But I can guarantee you, it won't be anything like Wal-Mart...
Chicago is a union town. But in Mitts' ward--and among many poor blacks--some unions rank only a couple of notches above the Ku Klux Klan. Black leaders in Chicago have repeatedly charged that the building-trades unions, traditionally controlled by whites, are keeping a grip on jobs. While 37% of Chicago is black, only 10% of all new apprentices in the construction trades between 2000 and 2003 were black, according to the Chicago Tribune. The unions that most vociferously oppose Wal-Mart are not in the building trades but represent retail workers, such as the United Food...
What Wal-Mart also found in West Chicago was nothing short of a natural extension of its corporate philosophy. Wal-Mart built a $285 billion corporation by going where its competitors are not. That used to be small towns or underserved suburbs. Chicago's 37th Ward, with its scant retail options, is an urban village, a first cousin to the sorts of communities Wal-Mart had always targeted. Combine the lack of jobs and stores with a strong antiunion streak, and the West Side is perfect for Wal-Mart. "If you're going to pick a spot, why wouldn...
...staid townspeople of Danbury, Conn., have diagnosed a cancer on their city's body politic. Formerly upstanding houses have degenerated, residents say, into raucous dens of illegal alcohol sales, gambling, even prostitution. "This used to be a nice place to live," laments schoolteacher Corlis Ward, who has been on the same quiet street for 30 years. "It's sad, but now I'm thinking about moving...