CHASING WAL-MART: Via Ed Morrison via Brewed Fresh Daily, we learn that Good Jobs First has a new report out documenting a billion dollars in government subsidies to Wal-Mart. This will not be surprising to those who follow Policy Matters Ohio, which published this two years ago.

But in the light of the Campbell Administration's ongoing pursuit of big box stores for city locations -- and the rumors I keep hearing that the city has been talking to Wal-Mart -- this new report does bring up an interesting question:

Exactly what economic development goal would it serve for the city to subsidize the location of one or more Wal-Marts (or Targets, which run their business pretty much the same way) in Cleveland?

If the goal of economic development is to spur local "wealth creation", Wal-Marts would seem to be a negative. The chain displaces local retailers, has no significant local ownership, exports its profits to Arkansas or somewhere like that, buys no products locally, is actively anti-union and pays crappy wages.

If the goal of economic development is "job creation", city Wal-Marts (or Targets) will make little or no net difference. Their suburban stores already hire city residents, and new stores are likely to simply displace other retailers and move existing jobs around (in some cases from better-paying unionized stores, which was the root of the recent California grocery strike).

I know, I know, the idea is to recapture city residents' retail dollars that are now flowing to the suburbs. Get a big, irresistible magnet store in a Cleveland location and other stores will cluster around it (including maybe some small locals) and create a newly viable retail district. But this just begs the main question. If most of the spending in the new retail cluster goes to a multinational company that sends its profits out of town, and pays lousy wages while displacing other local job opportunities -- and turns the neighborhood into a never-ending traffic jam -- who is "capturing" whom?

So why even think about chasing and subsidizing this kind of business in city locations? Who -- except for some real estate developers and maybe a couple of trash haulers and landscaping companies -- stands to gain?

With all the talk about smarter economic development, it would be nice if somebody -- maybe one of her foundation travel funders -- would ask Mayor Campbell this question before she boards the plane to another retailers' convention.