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Shop: Walmart and Its Discontents (Featherstone, Piven, Sorkin, Sutton)

425 views · Published 28 September 2012 · 1:39:23 · Indexed 21 September 2026

Channel: Columbia GSAPP · 2012 · Education

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Monday, September 17, 2012
Wood Auditorium

Shop: Walmart and Its Discontents

Liza Featherstone, Adjunct Professor, Columbia University SIPA, author of Selling Women Short: The Landmark Battle for Workers Rights at Wal-Mart
Frances Fox Piven, Distinguished Professor of Sociology and Political Science, The Graduate Center, CUNY
Michael Sorkin, Distinguished Professor of Architecture, Director of the Graduate Program in Urban Design, Bernard and Anne Spitzer School of Architecture, The City College of New York, CUNY
Stacey Sutton, Assistant Professor of Urban Planning, Director, Community and Capital Action Research Lab (C2ARL), Columbia University GSAPP

Does New York City need Walmart? The Bentonville, Arkansas-based multinational is famous for big boxes and bargain-basement prices that allow consumers to "Save money. Live better." It is equally renowned for low wages, sex discrimination, worker abuse, union busting, and corporate malfeasance in the US and abroad. Now, the world's largest retailer plans to grow even more, with rumors for an imminent debut in Gateway II (a 630,000-square-foot shopping center by The Related Companies) in the East New York section of Brooklyn. 

In this conversation, interdisciplinary experts discuss the economic, political, and spatial impacts of Walmart on New York City.

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