Career of Evil

Not what you think, boyos.


This has to do with Wal-Mart, or Big Box Mart if you need a bit of a primer.


It will probably come as no surprise that as a fuzzy thinkin librul, I don't hold any liking for Sam Walton's little venture; it abuses it's workers through institutionally regressive employment practices, they actively exploit less-employable workers like the elderly and disabled, and their treatment of female employees is just shabby; as a small business owner, I find their exporting of trade and support of Third World exploitive companies to be repugnant and their strong-arm trade tactics toward their suppliers to be offensive.

Not to mention as a designer, I find their greenfield development approaches to be the worst example of environmentally destructive, automobile oriented sprawl, coupled with their liking for buying off local zoning and approval boards to be noisome and bullying. Not to mention that their 'big box' buildings are the cheapest and ugliest amongst a crowd of the cheap and ugly.

But now there's a new offense. As a licensed architect, who daily strives to provide accessibility, or universal design to the built environment, especially converting older buildings to usability by a wider range of people, it is revolting that Wal-Mart has been discovered to incorporating discrimination against the disabled as corporate policy.

It may come as a surprise that one in 5 Americans have a disability. Part of the reason this is not apparent is the inhospitability of the built environment toward the disabled. Try a day, just a day, in a wheelchair yourself and see. Now try a day blindfolded. Now deaf. (disclaimer: My office is in a small building that is inaccessible to wheelchairs. self-serving mea culpa: I am constantly lobbying the Owner to provide full accessibility). This prevents the disabled from getting out as much as the fully-abled do; unless you have someone in your family with a disability, you just don't have as much contact with disabled people.

Here's an excellent example: Recently, the National Spinal Cord Injury Association built a small respite building in an unused corner of the Summerfest grounds. The building was to provide relief from claustrophobia (try maneuvering through a packed crowd at 4' head height) and overheating (many para- and quadriplegics also lose the ability to regulate their heat. This type of building had no precedent, so no one really knew what to expect.

The building became an instant success, being used at all hours of Summerfest; moreover, the addition of this facility (as well as provision of generous amounts of other accessible features) has roughly tripled the number of disabled visiting the festival, to the point where the increase in numbers was
noticeable to casual visitors in the crowd.
In a crowd of 80,000 people, that's significant.

It was so remarkable that we teamed up with them to design a similar facility for the State Fair site, except it was triple the size. It was an incredible learning experience, since many of the people making up the Board of the NSCIA are disabled; their critiques of our design not only improved the building, but gave us invaluable insight into the realities of living as disabled person, and the constant frustrations that are experienced; that can't be written into the building code or described in a diagram.

In this environment, it is reprehensible in the extreme that the greedy bastards running Wal-Mart find it expedient, even profitable, to incorporate written description of discriminatory practices toward this segment of the population into their business. It also says more than a little about the business environment, and unwillingness of the government, OUR government, to protect American citizens from this kind of predatory behavior. And that Wal-Mart feels safe in committing this behavior to writing.

Many people are of the opinion that by enacting the Americans with Disabilities Act, Bush 41 placed an incredible burden on businesses and construction; however, I was a practicing professional at the time, and I performed a code analysis of the requirements for the firm I worked for and I can say that it did not add any kind of undue burden to the industry. Most states already had some form of accessibility codes in place; the ADA did not make any wholesale changes and very few minor ones. As a matter of fact, there were several areas where Wisconsin code was ALREADY more stringent than Federal Guidelines. The creation of the ADA did two things, however; it established a baseline level for Accessible Design across the country; but maybe more importantly, it established the right of a significant number of Americans for redress of discrimination.

In the face of such inhumane, even inhuman behavior, I have hope that it may serve that purpose in this case.

However, I also fear that our country has devolved to the point where corporate behavior always trumps individuals.


[Edit: Shakespeare's Sister has a Rant.]