Community Incorporated: corporate retailers and the communities they serve

Abstract

Corporate retail has greatly expanded in the past 30 years with the introduction of the Big Box Store. While these chain stores brought many cities convenient retail options and cheap prices, they also left entire towns devastated after putting local mom and pop stores out of business. With a suburban and rural development strategy, corporate retail giants like Walmart and Target started to get a bad reputation for destroying small town and metropolitan communities. Due to a decrease in potential suburban development sites, coupled with the rise of urban population growth, these chains saw an opportunity to bring their large scale retail to dense urban areas Beginning in 2010, corporations took the step towards urban development. Through the study of Walmart and Target it has become clear that while these urban locations are doing a much better job than their suburban counterparts of fitting within an existing context, they are still lacking in some core urban development areas, as well as neglecting to positively impact the communities they are inserting themselves into. This thesis explores the different ways in which a big box retail corporation can enhance their existing development strategy to better fit within an urban context, while also helping to boost their corporate image by positively impacting communities.