I witnessed this long years ago in rural Wisconsin. Main Street was dying and the explanation was that a Wal-Mart had opened sixty miles away.
“Main Street was dying and the explanation was that a Wal-Mart had opened sixty miles away.”
Sixty miles away? I don’t think that was why ‘Main Street’ was dying ...
The premise of the article seems absurd to me. Retail business is not the economic base of small towns, but more support services that are reliant on the manufacturing, or agricultural, or mining, or fishing, or tourism, or whatever the real economic base(s) of a town is.
I still notice it in small Wisconsin towns and elsewhere especially during tourist season. It comes down to competition. The ma’s and pa’s had been price gouging for decades then along came competition. May the best man win...that’s the american way.
“I witnessed this long years ago in rural Wisconsin. Main Street was dying and the explanation was that a Wal-Mart had opened sixty miles away.”
Yeh, good observation. I grew up around small towns and being a avid hunter spend a good amount of time in and near them. There’s no doubt that the center of the US is hallowing out. Stores, businesses, schools, churches are closing. When I drive around these small towns these days I feel like I’m living a Toby Keith song. But, the reason these towns are dying isn’t because of the Walmarts and such. It’s because the culture HS changed, Internet, social media, mobility, opportunity in the urban areas. Example; what young person wants to sit a Dairy Queen in the middle of the Big Empty when he/she could be in Big D making good money, meeting new people, heck- having fun.
“Main Street was dying and the explanation was that a Wal-Mart had opened sixty miles away.”
If people are willing to drive that far then Walmart must be offering much more selection at much lower prices. In my experience they have both. This is America. Compete or die.
The biggest ‘small’ competitor to Walmart in my small town is Dollar General. If anyone thinks mom and pop general stores in this day and age are selling anything but the same cheap Chinese crap as Walmart then they are diluted.