Seems to me the Walmarts drove out the local business, and now Amazon are driving out the Walmarts. I knew I should have invested in delivery company stocks years ago.
Walmart definitely does take customers from local businesses and cause them to close down. But I don’t think it’s Walmart thats destroying small towns in the US. Very few Walmarts fail and close down. It’s globalization in general and the movement of manufacturing plants to cheap labor nations that’s removing the economic and job base of many towns that then begin to lose their populations.
It is easy to forget that all those small businesses that were driven out by Walmart first drove out other small businesses in order to establish themselves.
I like having goods delivered to my door and ordering online
Why doesn’t the author also complain about the decline of the blacksmith and the cobbler?
” It is easy to sneer and say that they should have thought about supporting local businesses while they had the chance, “
If they have no money to spend at Walmart, then they would have had no money to spend supporting local businesses.
Capitalism favors efficiency. Globalism is more efficient than local dependency. WalMart was more efficient than mom & pop. Amazon is more efficient than WalMart. Rail against the wind all you want, the wind ain’t changing.
I don’t think a Wal-Mart can provide sufficient employment to support a town.
I’ve been reading this same story for years.
You have to find WalMart’s weak spots (yes, they do have some) and compete there.
Mark Angelides needs to look at history as this is a recurring cycle over time. It will
continue to change as new innovations are developed to replace outdated methods or equipment.
Safeway and Krogers put a lot of mom and pop grocery stores out of business. Nobody blames them for “killing towns”. But then grocery stores are mostly unionized, Walmart isn’t, so the left hates them.
I remember when Home Quarters came to town and shut down all of the mom and pop places.
Then i remember when Home Depot came to town almost right across the street and shut down Home Quarters.
Well, Home Depot is still there......for now.
Ten years after HQ shut down they finally torn down the empty building, now we got yet another self storage place there now.....joy
Globalization is indeed killing American small towns. And it is an open and direct intention to do so, depopulating rural America.
So what needs to be done is for states to incentivize the public to move to rural areas. Making it attractive to them to put down stakes there, and raise their families there.
Possible methods (use by other states after each idea):
1) A state “homestake” law, basically that if you purchase a lot over a certain size, but no smaller or larger, and live in a residential building on that land at least six months and a day each year (AK), you pay no property tax and your property and home cannot be taken from you in bankruptcy (FL).
2) Small town small business incentives. Small town agricultural incentives. Small town animal husbandry incentives.