Question

Suppose Walmart is planning on locating a new neighborhood store in downtown Richmond. Suppose the city has hired you to report on the net economic and cultural impact of allowing this Walmart in the middle of downtown. Online, you come across many cities reporting traffic statistics in downtowns with a Walmart location. In every large city with a Walmart, traffic statistics indicate considerable congestion. Should you use that data in your analysis? What are the risks in doing so? Could the data be used to skew opinions one way or the other?

Answer 1

It is said that the research objective here is to study the net economic as well as the cultural impact of building the new Walmart location, and so the data regarding traffic congestion should be included. Traffic congestion can lead to the need for traffic engineering or roadwork which costs money and so it is a part of the net economic impact. Moreover, the traffic can change the cultural traditions of the city, more particularly if that cultural tradition includes pedestrian traffic.

The risk in doing so is that the city could decide to vote against allowing Walmart to build the new store.

The data can definitely be used to skew opinions one way or the other as all data have the capacity to be used inappropriately. It is up to the researcher to present the information in an unbiased manner.