URBAN SPRAWL, SOCIAL CAPITAL AND ECONOMICS:

HOW DEVELOPMENT PATTERNS AFFECT COMMUNITIES

DANIEL TURNER 2013 Introduction

“Suburbia is the collective effort to lead a private life”

—Lewis Mumford

In 2000, Robert D. Putnam released his seminal work, Bowling Alone, which detailed changes in the social and political habits of Americans in the twentieth century. The primary subject of this work is what Putnam and others define as “social capital,” a term that Putnam says was invented independently six times over the twentieth century.

(Putnam, 2000, p. 19) Social capital, in general, refers to the benefits provided to society through strong social ties.1 Putnam uses measures of political, civic, and religious participation, connections in the workplace, volunteering, and philanthropy to measure social capital. By these measurements, Putnam found that levels of social capital have been on a significant decline in the United States since the 1960s.

In Bowling Alone, Robert Putnam explores the causes and consequences of the decline in social capital. Among the causes that Putnam explores is the effect that has had on American communities and, by extension, social capital. Putnam seeks to establish a causal link between the built environment, or urban form, and the social world, including social capital. Although the exploration of this connection constitutes just a single chapter in Bowling Alone, it served as the inspiration for this report. Using research from a variety of sources, this report explores the relationship between urban sprawl and the

1As Putnam notes, however, traditional examples of social capital can often have negative consequences on minority groups. Social capital often refers to the benefits that can be derived through strong communities; however, these benefits are often not attainable for those outside of the community. Examples of social capital, therefore, can be exclusionary and negative. This discussion is worthy of an entire study and will not be discussed further in this report.

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American community. In particular, this report explores how sprawl affects the local economy and local business, and how both the built environment and the economic structure that it propagates has an effect on the physical and social structure of communities.

What is Urban Sprawl?

Urban sprawl typically refers to the type of auto-oriented, low-density development seen in the United States post World War II. In the book, Sprawl Costs: Economic Impacts of

Unchecked Development, three traits are used to define and identify sprawl (quoted verbatim): (1) unlimited outward expansion into undeveloped areas, (2) low-density, and

(3) leapfrog development. (Burchell, Downs, McCann, & Mukherji, 2005, p. 12) Additional quantitative characteristics used to measure sprawl include (as defined by economist

George Galster): concentration of development, compactness of development, centrality of residential and/or nonresidential development to a central business district (CBD), nuclearity, diversity of land uses, and proximity of land uses to one another. (Williamson,

2010)

Thad Williamson, writing in his book, Sprawl, Justice, and Citizenship, establishes that in order to truly understand the effects of sprawl, its definition must not be just quantitative but qualitative. Williamson uses the five components of sprawl identified by

New Urbanist planners Andrew Duany, Elizabeth Plater Zyberk, and Jeff Speck., to illustrate a more complete picture of a community that is characterized by sprawl. These include housing developments, shopping centers, office parks, civic institutions, and roadways.

What makes these components (which might seem like necessary components of any

2 | Page community) emblematic of sprawl is that sprawling communities often feature these components separated from each other in single-use structures. The traditional community, however (as opposed to the sprawling community), would often feature these components as focal points of the community. In the sprawling community, rather than featuring a “main street” or traditional downtown, shopping centers tend to comprise the majority of retail establishments. These shopping centers are generally located along highways or arterials roads, accessible primarily by automobile, and form no cohesive or central community downtown.

Establishing both the quantitative and qualitative aspects of sprawl sets the stage for understanding the effects this development pattern can have on a community.

Establishing the qualitative character of sprawl is particularly important in this report because, whereas many studies of sprawl focus on its effect on the environment and on resource consumption, and therefore on its quantitative characteristics, this report focuses on community, social capital, and economics.

Sprawl, Community, and Social Capital

What is a community? Is a community simply a group of people linked by the space in which they live? Is a community defined by a group of people with common characteristics and traits? Or does community refer to a group of people with shared interests and responsibility? Social capital is a method of both measuring and describing a community beyond spatial characteristics but rather by quantifying what might be termed as “sense of community.” The term “sense of community” is one often used to describe the social aspects of a community. Noted psychologist Seymour Sarason defined sense of

3 | Page community as “the perception of similarity to others, an acknowledged interdependence with others, a willingness to maintain this interdependence by giving to or doing for others what one expects from them, and the feeling that one is part of a larger dependable and stable structure.” (Sarason, 1974, p. 157)

The massive process of suburbanization that occurred in the United States, largely from the mid-to-late twentieth century, has created a sprawling urban landscape and unquestionably changed the spatial characteristics of communities from prior century’s standards of urban form. This altered built environment changed not only the spatial makeup of communities but also the social characteristics of them, often referred to as

“sense of community.”

In Bowling Alone, Robert Putnam traces the changes that occurred in suburban development during the twentieth century, both in terms of urban form and social priorities. Early post-World War II were often places of great civic involvement and public participation. Highlighted by suburbs such as Park Forest, Illinois, these early suburbs were notable for their residents’ active involvement and propensity to join groups.

However, the suburbs were defined then, as they still are today, by the level of separation they engender, not only between various uses (e.g., residential or commercial) but between different types of people (e.g., income and race). Unfortunately, as suburbanization continued beyond the 1960s, suburbs became more fragmented, and “finely distinguished

‘lifestyle enclaves,’ separated by race, class, education, [and] life stage.” (Putnam, 2000, p.

209) The 1980s saw the rise of “common interest developments” and “gated communities,” which created new physical and psychological barriers between communities.

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Increasing stratification of communities has had a negative effect on the civic and public participation that briefly defined early suburbs. Political scientist Eric Oliver’s research found that greater social homogeneity in a community leads to lower levels of political involvement. (Putnam, 2000, p. 210) Oliver noted that “by creating communities of homogeneous political interests, suburbanization reduces the local conflicts that engage and draw citizenry into the public realm.” (Putnam, 2000, p. 210) Historian of the ,

Kenneth T. Jackson, aptly sums up the effect of modern suburbanization on community by writing:

[A] major casualty of America’s drive-in culture is the weakened “sense of

community” which prevails in most metropolitan areas. I refer to a tendency of

social life to become “privatized,” and to a reduced feeling of concern and

responsibility among families for their neighbors and among suburbanites in

general for residents of the inner … The real shift, however, is the way in

which our lives are now centered inside the house, rather than on the

neighborhood or the community. With increased use of automobiles, the life of

the sidewalk and the front yard has largely disappeared, and the social

intercourse that used to be the main characteristic of urban life has vanished…

There are few places as desolate and lonely as a suburban street on a hot

afternoon. (Putnam, 2000, p. 211)

The changing spatial layout and travel patterns of suburban communities has contributed to the desolate quality of suburban life. While residents of early suburbs largely continued to travel into the central city for work and shopping, as employment and

5 | Page commerce also moved to the suburbs, residents of suburbs after the 1960s more often traveled between suburbs for these purposes. Development patterns contributed to and responded to these patterns by filling in the space between existing communities with increasingly sprawled and separated developments and uses.

In Sprawl, Justice, and Citizenship, Thad Williamson wrote about the relationship between the character of the built environment and the social life of that place. Williamson wrote that although many scholars are skeptical of spatial determinism (i.e., the built environment determines behavior), it is reasonable to believe that the character of the built environment is “linked to individual actions and attitudes in predictable ways.”

(Williamson, 2010, p. 40) Williamson highlighted four mechanisms that can be predictive of behavior. The first one of these is the physical design of a place, which may facilitate or inhibit particular behaviors. For example, contrasting with publicly shared, accessible urban space (such as a sidewalk in a downtown), a four-lane highway or a privately held mansion cannot function as the type of urban space where chance interactions among residents might take place.

The second mechanism at play is that certain places can be linked or defined by the sorts of behaviors that are socially acceptable within them. For example, some locations are acceptable venues for political speech while others are not. The closely related third mechanism makes the second mechanism relevant to this discussion. The third mechanism is that modes of social control differ in different places. For example, the front lawns of privately owned homes or the lobby of a privately owned and operated mall are not places conducive for free expression and the property owners of these locations have significant ability to control what activities occur on their premises. Therefore, places with a higher

6 | Page percentage of these types of privately owned and controlled spaces, and concurrently a dearth of public or unmanaged space, are not places conducive to free expression and interaction.

The fourth mechanism discussed by Williamson is that different types of places attract different types of people. This phenomenon, commonly referred to as “self- selection,” describes the process by which certain segments of the population might be more or less drawn to a place, often in relation to the three mechanisms described previously.

Williamson utilizes the four mechanisms to discuss why place can have an influence on behavior. But how does sprawl influence social capital? In Bowling Alone, Robert

Putnam highlights “political participation” as one of the measures of social capital. Thad

Williamson addresses this variable in “You Can’t March on a Strip Mall” in Sprawl, Justice, and Citizenship. This chapter looks at the “effect of sprawl-related variables on basic awareness and interest in politics” (Williamson, 2010, p. 217) as well as more specific measures of active participation such as: “participation in local reform organizations, attendance at political meetings and rallies, [and] participation in protest-type activities.”

(Williamson, 2010, p. 217)

According to many of the sources quoted in this chapter, recent literature suggests that “at least some contextual variables affect individual-level social capital and political participation.” (Williamson, 2010, p. 219) Many of these sources also conclude that the characteristics of sprawl, by often emphasizing private over public space, set the context, and therefore affect residents’ activism and involvement in their community and political structures. However, quoting the 2000 report, The Cost of Sprawl, Williamson notes that

7 | Page some research has found that civic participation can be viewed as a benefit of sprawl, as it

“groups citizens into smaller spaces, where participation might be seen as more efficacious.” (Williamson, 2010, p. 221) This discrepancy brings to light how important it is to correctly and specifically define the various dimensions of sprawl. Although communities of a smaller size can positively influence political and civic participation, these communities tend to be relics of early outward expansion from in the early-to- mid twentieth century. The recent history of sprawl has been largely characterized by disintegration and communities lacking centers or public space, and therefore this example of sprawl might be more relevant to more recent studies.

Williamson uses the Social Capital Community Benchmark Survey (SCCBS) to further investigate the link between sprawl and political consciousness. Using regression analysis, Williamson found that sprawl-related variables (e.g., length of commute, level of automobile dependency, suburban vs. central city resident, and so on) have a small effect on overall interest in politics but a significant effect on the following two measures of political awareness: basic knowledge about politics and the habit of newspaper reading. In short, Williamson found that greater levels of sprawl are connected to reduced political knowledge and newspaper reading.

Williamson also considered the effect of sprawl on three low-intensity measures of political participation: voting, signing petitions, and attending political meetings. Using a multivariate analysis and controlling for individual and contextual factors, Williamson found that spatial differences are not a significant predictor of voting patterns but living in a traditional is a predictor of higher levels of petition signing. Residents of lower-density areas, on the other hand, are more likely to attend community meetings.

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Williamson looked at the relationship between sprawl and four forms high-intensity political participation. These include membership in a political organization; membership in a group involved in local reform; attendance at a political rally; and participation in a march, demonstration, or boycott. A multivariate analysis of this relationship revealed that

“three of the four sprawl-related variables—central city residence, automobile dependence, and neighborhood age—are consistent, independently significant predictors of high-intensity political participation.” (Williamson, 2010, p. 228) Additionally, the sprawl-related variables are a strong predictor of political activism (a single-index measure of high-intensity political participation).

Spatial Patterns and Commercial Development in the Modern Suburb

The relationship between the suburb/sprawl and the automobile is symbiotic, with the automobile not only facilitating sprawl, but sprawl necessitating the automobile. One effect of widespread automobile ownership and highway/road construction is that development is no longer bounded by the transportation constraints that once necessitated more compact development in urban environments. Automobile-oriented development has caused suburban residents to spend an increasing amount of time commuting, which, according to Robert Putnam, is “demonstrably bad for community life.” (Putnam, 2000, p.

214) This is due to not only the time spent in the itself, “but also spatial fragmentation between home and workplace.” (Putnam, 2000, p. 214)

A major characteristic of sprawl noted by New Urbanist planners Andrew Duany,

Elizabeth Plater Zyberk, and Jeff Speck is the rise of corporate shopping malls and auto- oriented retail and the concurrent decline of traditional downtowns and locally owned

9 | Page commercial establishments. These corporate establishments, which Robert Putnam refers to as “impersonal,” are designed for the singular purpose of directing the consumer to buy a product, and do not act as a community center or encourage interaction among residents.

(Putnam, 2000, p. 211) Beyond the social effects, this style of commercial development has had very tangible effects on the economies of many suburban and rural communities.

Sprawl and the Local Economy

The modern suburban shopping center, typically strip malls or “big-box” stores, has had a very tangible effect on traditional urban and suburban downtowns. This effect has been a primary area of study for urban planners and economists since the 1950s. Beyond the locational differences between strip malls and traditional downtowns, there are tangible economic effects derived from the type of businesses located in strip malls or suburban shopping centers. As Oliver Gillham wrote in The Limitless City, whether a strip mall is populated by “Denny’s or diners” can have a significant effect on the economic benefits or costs of such a development. This is due to the inherent differences between locally owned versus corporate or chain retail. As Gillham wrote, corporate retail chains tend to be characterized by high-turnover, low-paid employees, standardized product offerings, and a lack of a commitment to a specific location. (Gillham, 2002, p. 146)

What are the specific impacts of a chain versus local retail business on a local economy? According to an economic impact analysis conducted by Civic Economics titled

“Economic Impact Analysis: A Case Study,” locally owned stores hire more local labor, purchase more goods and services from the local market, and lead to a greater economic return to the local economy than do chain retailers. (Civic Economics) This study focused

10 | Page on the estimated economic impacts of a Borders bookstore (a chain) versus two local book retailers on the study area of Austin, Texas. It was determined that for every $100 a consumer would spend at Borders, approximately $9 would remain in the local economy.

The remainder of the money spent would be transferred out of the city in the form of administrative costs from elsewhere in the company, wholesale expenses, and profits. An industry standard multiplier was applied to determine that $100 spent at Borders would yield only $13 in local economic impact. On the other hand, for every $100 spent at the local bookstores, as much as $30 would be directly injected into the local economy, mostly in the form of employee salaries but also through administrative expenses and profits.

Applying the same industry multipliers, it was found that $100 spent at the local book retailers would yield over $45 in local economic impact.

Another study, conducted by The Urban Conservancy, “Thinking Outside the Box: A

Report on Independent Merchants and the Local Economy,” researched the economic impact of a Super Target store located in New Orleans compared with fifteen locally owned businesses. (The Urban Conservancy) This study found that of the money spent at a Super

Target, only 16 percent stays in the local economy compared with 32 percent for local retailers. The primary cause of this difference was the purchasing habits of the local businesses versus the Super Target. Whereas local stores purchase many of their goods and services from local businesses, the Super Target does not. This report looked further at the economic impact of the local stores versus the Super Target, finding that if consumers shifted 10 percent of their spending to local business there would be an additional $235 million generated in local economic activity. Conversely, a 10 percent shift in the opposite direction would result in a $235 million economic contraction.

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Not only are retail chains, such as Borders or Super Target, emblematic of suburban sprawl, but they are facilitated by it. These retailers rely on their size (both in number of stores and footprint of stores) to lower prices and outsell smaller competition. Although sprawl is not the singular contributing factor in the rise of this business model, it is a major component. As development shifted out of cities, retail businesses moved to cheap land along highways and arterials, catering to increasingly auto-oriented residential developments. In many cases, gaps in municipal boundaries allowed retail business (among other types) to avoid municipal building regulations.

While the available footprint is a large contributor to the success of many chain retailers, the economic benefits of these types of businesses as it relates to building footprint size are much smaller than for a variety of independent retailers utilizing a similar footprint. The Urban Conservancy study reviewed the relationship between land footprint and economic impact in their study area and found that a four-block stretch of

Magazine Street in New Orleans (a traditional business district) includes 179,000 square feet of retail space, hosts more than 100 different businesses, and generates $105 million in annual sales, of which $34 million remains in the local economy. Conversely, a 175,000 square foot Super Target would generate only $50 million in annual sales with only $8 million remaining in the local economy. In addition, a store of this size would require an additional area of 300,000 square feet for parking.

In the late twentieth century, no company has come to represent the character of retail chains described above more than Walmart. Walmart is the largest employer in the

United States, the largest grocery retailer, and the third largest pharmacy. (Dube & Jacobs,

2004) As such, Walmart is an industry leader and trendsetter. Case studies dealing with the

12 | Page economic and social impact of Walmart will be used in this report to illustrate the general effects of chain retailers versus local businesses and their divergent impacts on the economics, social capital, and urban form of the communities in which they are located.

Case Study: Walmart

A report by the University of California Labor Center titled, “Hidden Cost of Walmart

Jobs: Use of Safety Net Programs by Walmart Workers in California,” studied the effect that

Walmart had in California on public services. (Dube & Jacobs, 2004) This study found that more than half of the public assistance funding in California went to the working poor.

Reliance on public assistance programs by Walmart employees totaled over $86 million annually in California. Additionally, Walmart employees utilized tax-payer funded healthcare 40 percent more often than the average employee of other large retailers and other public assistance programs 38 percent more often than did employees of other large retailers.

Walmart has also been found to have other significant effects on the labor market.

According to a report by the Economic Policy Institute titled, “The Walmart Effect,”

Walmart accounted for 9.3 percent of total U.S. imports from China between 2001 and

2006. (Scott, 2007) During these years there was a 181 percent increase in imports overall in the United States. This report found that due to the volume of Walmart’s imports, the vast market share that Walmart represents and the widespread impact of its actions, more than 197,700 United States manufacturing jobs have been displaced as a result of

Walmart’s trade deficit. More than one-third of these displaced workers were found to have

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13 percent.

Social Capital and Economics

The relationship between social capital and local economics is symbiotic. Walmart continues to be an interesting and relevant subject in the discussion of community economics. A 2006 report in the American Journal of Agricultural Economics titled

“Walmart and Social Capital” found that there is a direct relationship between social capital and economic wellbeing, and the presence of a Walmart in a region leads to significant reductions in social capital. (Goetz & Rupasingha, 2006) This study utilized the number of social-capital generating institutions per 10,000 residents (e.g., civic organizations, bowling alleys, labor organizations, and so on) as well as voter turnout (national and local elections) and participation in the U.S. Census as variables in measuring social capital.

As stated before, this study found that the relationship between economics and social capital is direct, meaning that a depressed economy generally leads to reductions in social capital and that these reductions in social capital can lead to further depressions in the economy. This study found that the presence of Walmart in a community leads to reductions in social capital because of a profound but certainly not unique effect it can have on communities in which or near where one is located. One major reason for the observed reductions in social capital was stated succinctly in the report:

“Wal-Mart does not employ the services of [the] local firms that form the

backbone of local social capital. Instead, the chain’s enormous efficiency lies in

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its ability to concentrate back office and supporting functions in one place.”

(Goetz & Rupasingha, 2006, p. 1307)

In addition to the types of agglomeration effects mentioned in the quote, the study found that the presence of Walmart leads to reductions in social capital because of the type and volume of businesses that generally fail once a Walmart is located in their customer catchment area. In other words, if a Walmart moves next door to a town and sells the same items as those being sold at 15 competing businesses in the next door central business district, and does so at a lower price, these businesses will likely fail. The failure of these businesses has profound effects on a place in a variety of ways. When traditional central business districts disappear, so do traditional community meeting points, reducing the number of daily interactions between community residents. Additionally, when one corporate-owned business replaces 15 locally owned businesses, a community loses 15 business owners and perhaps 15 members of the local chamber of commerce.

These actions (i.e., community interactions in a downtown and participation in a chamber of commerce) are examples of social capital, and as such provide not only a measurement of social ties and economic strength, but also a predictor of future economic success. As is referenced in “Walmart and Social Capital,” social capital matters for economic growth and reductions in poverty.

In Bowling Alone Robert Putnam wrote heavily about the tie between social capital and economics. (Putnam, 2000, p. 319) According to Putnam, a great and growing body of research suggests that levels of trust and number of social networks in a community align with the prosperity of individuals in that community and for the community as a whole.

This is true for a variety of reasons. For one, social connections have a large effect on one’s

15 | Page life chances, influencing who gets a job or promotion, as well as helping people with advice and job leads. This trend is true not only between ethnic and economic groups but within them.

Beyond the individual, social capital can also have a significant effect on the economic well-being of neighborhoods and communities. Social capital can be a marketable asset to homeowners. Areas with high levels of social capital, such as levels of voting and number of neighborhood associations, maintain high housing values. Although this trend might be interpreted as merely showing that areas that are more economically well off also have higher levels of social capital, Putnam contends that social capital can be a means to an end, rather than purely an indicator of existing conditions.

One example that Putnam uses to prove this point is the story of Tupelo, Mississippi, where over the course of 50 years, through the leadership of an active community leader, the county lifted itself out of poverty. (Putnam, 2000, p. 323) Through his desire to develop a sense of community and improve the economic prospects of his home, this local leader,

George McLean, got local business leaders to contribute to the purchase of needed town assets and to disband the elite local Chamber of Commerce and establish a Community

Development Foundation in its place. This foundation started community organizations, built a medical center, and established a vocational education center. The county, which was in the throes of poverty in 1940, has been become a model for economic success garnered through cooperation and community engagement. This story is just one example of the positive and determinative effects that building social capital can have on the economic prospects of a community.

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Conclusion

Urban sprawl has left an undeniable imprint on the American landscape in the past half century. The effects of this imprint surpass aesthetics, however, influencing the social behaviors and economic prospects of the residents of sprawling areas. A considerable body of research shows that urban sprawl leads to reduced social and political participation, and the types of commercial retail establishments typically accompanying sprawl can depress the economic viability of an area, which in turn has negative effects on social capital.

The topic of urban form and social and economic behavior is an important one to explore because of the immense change that occurred in the nature of development patterns in the United States in the early- to mid-twentieth century, and the relative ubiquity of development patterns that has propagated over the American built environment. Sprawl has been and will continue to be a development pattern of convenience, and not necessity, to developers and consumers.

Robert Putnam concludes Bowling Alone by questioning whether the old measures of what constitutes social capital are obsolete and whether the modern age requires new media for communities and individuals to socialize and be involved and new methods to measure that socialization. While Putnam’s book considers a number of factors that have influenced the decline in social capital beyond what is discussed in this report (e.g., , income, and so on), it is clear from his research that the built environment has, and will continue to have, a demonstrable effect on group and individual behavior. It is clear, therefore, that unlike the influences of technology and mass media, which might indeed render certain forms of social capital obsolete, the modern built environment, which is largely characterized by sprawl, is in no way an irreversible progression into

17 | Page modernity. To reverse the trends of development that have torn into the fabric of what for centuries constituted the foundation of communities, modern American communities and their representatives must look to the best practices of the past and innovative methods of today to return the built environment to one that facilitates and encourages communities that value cohesion, cooperation and mutual interest.

As psychologist Seymour Sarason said, “the feeling that one is part of a larger dependable and stable structure” is part of a sense of community. The built environment should reflect the characteristics that define a strong sense of community; that is, the built environment should encourage interaction among its residents as well as encourage the ability of residents to build and maintain a prosperous local economy. The methods for achieving these goals are not clear and represent a significant component of the challenges of urban planners and other policy makers across the United States.

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Civic Economics. Economic Impact Analysis: A Case Study. 2002: Liveablecity.

Dube, A., & Jacobs, K. (2004). Hidden Cost of Walmart Jobs. Berkely: U.C. Berkeley Labor Center.

Gillham, O. (2002). The Limitless City: A Primer on the Urban Sprawl Debate. Washington, D.C.: Island Press.

Goetz, S. J., & Rupasingha, A. (2006). Walmart and Social Capital. American Agricultural Economics Association , 88 (5), 1304-1310.

Jargowsky, P. A. (2002). Sprawl, Concentration of Poverty and Urban Inequality. In G. D. Squires, Urban Sprawl: Causes, Consequences & Policy Responses. Washington, D.C.: The Urban Institute Press.

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Scott, R. E. (2007). The Walmart Effect. Washington, D.C.: Economic Policy Institute.

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