According to Reuters.com, controversial American mega-retailer Wal-Mart is opening a “temporary” store right in the middle of Times Square in Manhattan. Wal-Mart officials claim that the company has no plans to maintain a permanent outlet in Manhattan. The company appears to be following a trend started by many lower-level retail stores of setting up a “pop up” store in the heart of New York to promote a specific sales event or product.

Wal-Mart has set up the outlets as part of a special promotion for the release of AC/DC’s new album, Black Ice. The band chose Wal-Mart to be the exclusive retailer of its new album and also its Rock Band videogame Track Pack.

But whatever the reason for opening up the temporary outlet, it is clear that Wal-Mart and Manhattan make strange bedfellows indeed. The Big Apple has never been particularly friendly to large retail chain stores in general — and Wal-Mart in particular. The company has come under fire in recent years for a variety of issues, ranging from the mistreatment of female employees, to substandard wages and denial of health benefits.

Cities with a largely progressive population (such as New York) have fought tirelessly to keep the likes of Wal-Mart out of their towns. While some critics say this is nothing more than big-city elitism, citizens of New York, San Francisco, Boston and other progressive metropolitan areas say that the resistance to Wal-Mart is an issue of social justice.

In fact, to many big-city denizens, Wal-Mart represents everything about America that needs fixing: low wages, gender discrimination and laughably inadequate health care coverage; not to mention the blandness of “strip mall America,” where every town looks exactly the same as the next, has exactly the chain stores — a “one size fits all” corporate mentality.

And it is this homogenization of culture and style that is particularly at odds with Manhattan. New Yorkers have always seen themselves as different; a hub of sophistication and uniqueness in an increasingly bland nation.

The introduction of strip mall retail outlets such as Wal-Mart goes against everything New Yorkers stand for, so it is no surprise that Wal-Mart’s “temporary” outlet in Times Square has already attracted protesters. The last thing many New Yorkers want is to let Wal-Mart get a foothold in their fair city. And honestly, who can blame them? The whole point of Manhattan (if there is one) is to be an alternative to the “sameness” of most American cities; that’s what makes New York, New York.

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