Sam Walton points out in his autobiography that big cities are changing all the time, yet somehow people expect that small towns will not.
He's completely missing the point, but I suspect he knows that
Walmart didn’t kill the small town, it is the small town
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Re: Walmart didn’t kill the small town, it is the small town
#32Sam Walton points out in his autobiography that big cities are changing all the time, yet somehow people expect that small towns will not.
Small towns should be able to change and adapt, but Walmart being the corporate small town core is another version of enshitification (Walmart being your IRL ecomm platform), with your town's core dictated and governed by Bentonville, Arkansas.
Build strong, local communities and economies instead: https://ilsr.org/ | https://www.epa.gov/smartgrowth/how-small-towns-and-cities-c...
(it will not be extremely economically efficient, but you are trading efficiency for resiliency and local governance and control)
Re: Walmart didn’t kill the small town, it is the small town
#33It’s price and the ease the price enables. Low price demonstratably rules in everything from plane tickets to groceries to basic services to clothing as it enables a life of abundance and mental ease. A friend loves Walmart as it means he no longer has to maintain his lawnmower. He just throws it away and buys a new one annually at the start of the season. He can still mow his lawn while abandoning the need to mainta…
> A friend loves Walmart as it means he no longer has to maintain his lawnmower. He just throws it away and buys a new one annually at the start of the season. He can still mow his lawn while abandoning the need to maintain mechanical knowledge.
It's hard for me to respect this as a valid choice. Waste and consumption concerns aside, the justification of not knowing (or wanting to know) how to perform simple maintenance is alien to me. Why even own a lawnmower at this point-- just pay someone to mow your grass for you. The milk and honey has flowed so freely for so long that when the tap turns off, people really won't know how to take care of themselves.
Re: Walmart didn’t kill the small town, it is the small town
#34It’s price and the ease the price enables. Low price demonstratably rules in everything from plane tickets to groceries to basic services to clothing as it enables a life of abundance and mental ease. A friend loves Walmart as it means he no longer has to maintain his lawnmower. He just throws it away and buys a new one annually at the start of the season. He can still mow his lawn while abandoning the need to mainta…
Sorry but this attitude towards material goods, while quite common in America, is quite depressing.
Re: Walmart didn’t kill the small town, it is the small town
#35Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I have never once strolled down a Main Street You know it doesn't have to be named "Main Street" to be a Main Street
Yes, I meant shopping while walking around an old school downtown with a clothing store next to a grocer next to a shoe store next to a diner next to hardware store etc. I only ever remember going to Walmart, Home Depot, Costco, Best Buy, malls, Kroger, etc.
The Hudson Valley has something analogous to bedroom communities, scenic small towns which have vibrant downtowns with all sorts of little shops for weekenders to stroll around.
Re: Walmart didn’t kill the small town, it is the small town
#36Earlier quoted context omitted.
I would be surprised if most people under 60 or even 50 know what strolling down “Main Street” means. In my 30+ years, I have never once strolled down a Main Street. I have always gone to big stores and malls (and now online shopping).
I consider it the fact that Walmart for a long time had a mostly rural and suburban strategy that skews demographics to people 40+. It’s a Sam Walton hold over that I think is being slowly replaced. What WalMart hates the most is that they can’t get people of affluence who want to save money to shop at one though. When I worked there the complaint out of HQ I heard the most is that Michelle Obama and Oprah would shop…
The harsh lighting and reflective white paint literally hurts my eyes in Walmart. Like there's a low-grade sting and I'm slightly squinting for the duration of my shopping trip. Target doesn't have this problem, and I'm willing to pay a slight premium if it's convenient.
Maybe they can fix that first.
Re: Walmart didn’t kill the small town, it is the small town
#37Author is delusional. A bunch of small stores close is nowhere near similar. I just want to go to one shop, get the stuff, and leave, not to go to 8 shops, pay 8 times, pack groceries 8 times and overall walk more edit: that is not to say opening big supermarkets is great, just that once they are there that's why people skip local stores and go to the big supermarket
Yeah. The 8 stores are far better. There's competition. There's variety. Employees can move around. I can get to know the shop owners. I can take a wonderful stroll. Instead. You get to enjoy one corporation, that does anything it wants, pays horribly, employees have no choice, you have no choice in what garbage you buy. And your downtown now consists of 8 banks. Yup. You're living the dream!
Not to mention that the product you get from dedicated merchants will invariably be better. The worst bakery in my city is leagues better than the best bread available at Wal Mart
Re: Walmart didn’t kill the small town, it is the small town
#38The layout is entirely by design to feel like you’re strolling down “Main Street” Americana. I learned this decades ago when I worked for Walmart setting up stores and training folks. It was explicitly made clear to us this is what the layout was designed to elicit
I would be surprised if most people under 60 or even 50 know what strolling down “Main Street” means. In my 30+ years, I have never once strolled down a Main Street. I have always gone to big stores and malls (and now online shopping).
Interesting.
I've lived in cities since I've been an adult and every neighborhood I've lived in still has a main street for our small community inside the city. Granted this is only 4 different places, but most cities have many smaller communities inside of them with their own "main streets"
The neighborhood I currently live in, is considered by its residents to be its own little town inside of the city with everything being walkable along the main street.
We even talk about leaving our neighbourhood to go to other places within Toronto.
Re: Walmart didn’t kill the small town, it is the small town
#39Here’s a podcast that talks about how Dollorama (and Walmart) is changing city design.
https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/the-strong-towns-podca...
Re: Walmart didn’t kill the small town, it is the small town
#40Earlier quoted context omitted.
I would be surprised if most people under 60 or even 50 know what strolling down “Main Street” means. In my 30+ years, I have never once strolled down a Main Street. I have always gone to big stores and malls (and now online shopping).
Sounds like you don't get out much. I'm 35, grew up in a sterile DC-area bedroom community and even I walked down main streets when I went 10 minutes down the road on shopping trips. Then again there are a lot of cities/towns on the east coast that predate the car, so there's probably an increased concentration of "main streets".
I think the key is DC area. Having grown up in a small town, we didn't have a main street anymore, only a Walmart.