Comment: The Dollar Store Conundrum

Dollar stores are everywhere. Unlike big-box stores like Walmart or Target, these small box stores slot neatly into local downtowns, urban and rural alike. Because of the ease with which these stores can set up shop, the majority of Americans live less than five miles from a dollar store franchise. Opening at an impressive and alarming rate across the county, localities have stopped to question whether the dollar stores are worth their dollar price tags. Many local zoning boards have decided that the answer to that question is undoubtably no, coming to several important conclusions. Dollar store entry leads to their local grocer’s exit, resulting in a loss of both jobs and access to produce and other fresh food. Crime rates climb steadily upwards in the immediate vicinities of where the shops open. In the wake of these realizations, scholars have conducted studies to determine if these conclusions are empirically supported. The majority of these studies have answered that inquiry affirmatively, bolstering the local conclusions further. Beneath the obvious and increasingly statistically proven negative trends lies something more sinister. This Comment argues that dollar stores are part of our country’s longstanding history of local race-based exclusionary zoning. That history resulted in today’s affordable housing crisis, which has cemented both race-based and income-based inequality nationwide. This Comment aims to demonstrate the parallels between the affordable housing crisis and the dollar store invasion, arguing that the two crises are cut from the same cloth. Dozens of local zoning boards across the country have passed zoning ordinances aimed at stopping the dollar store spread. This Comment argues that the solution lies in statewide action and legislation, attacking the problem from a necessarily higher level. Although the actions of localities are commendable and potentially impactful, the solution to the dollar store invasion cannot come wholly from local zoning—the very process that arguably gave birth to the dollar store rise to begin with. The host of issues associated with dollar stores are only becoming more pressing, demanding a statewide response. This response is necessary not only to address the immediate concerns of the dollar store spread, but also to remedy the decades-long injustice caused by exclusionary zoning. Just as states have belatedly stepped in to address the affordable housing crisis, states must take action to cure the dolla