[cloudmountain]

This country is famous for OVER-building, OVER-buying, OVER-speculation and OVER-the-top consumption.
This can't come as a surprise to anyone.

We can't spell FRUGALITY let alone practice it on any level.

[Alberta's Child]

Over-building is a big thing.

Not to dismiss all of the points in this article out of hand, but if you go back over the last 50 years and look at the ratio of retail space to population in this country, you'll see a huge increase in the retail space that started in the 1980s and continued for about 20-25 years. It all came crashing down in the late 2000s because there was never a "need" for all these retailers in the first place.

[Black Agnes]

All of the middle class jobs have been shipped out of the country or automated out of existence.

[oh8eleven]

We can't spell FRUGALITY let alone practice it on any level.
So, Americans should live a frugal life because you think there's too much consumin' going on out there?

[TomGuy]

About 14 years ago, my town of 14k (10k then) had Walmart and one Dollar General. The DG was tucked away in a strip shopping center. It did enough to stay in business but never had any crowds.

A couple of years later, the Walmart closed the existing store and opened a supercenter across town — about 4 miles from the old location.

Several years later, the void started being filled by the DG moving to a new shiny strip shopping center, another DG opening just across the state line, a Family Dollar opening on the corner opposite the old Walmart, a Dollar Tree opening in the old Walmart building, and a Fred’s Discount opening in another strip shopping center.

Most of the new stores get a moderate trickle of traffic. None, even during the holidays, are crowded. Walmart still owns much of the shopping.

The Fred’s closed about 5 years after it opened. I expect that the Family Dollar will close, beause it never has more than a couple of customers.

The town has also had 3 grocery stores close, one of which reopened in a different location. Walmart has a full grocery line and an Aldi’s opened across the highway about 10 years ago. Walmart is opening one of those Market (grocery) stores across the highway from the old Walmart location.

About 8 years ago, Walgreens opened to compete with the 5 other pharmacies. A couple of years ago, the Walgreens chain bought out one of the existing small drug chains, thus eliminating one local competitor.

All in all, small towns like mine have difficulty. A dozen or more restaurants have opened and closed in the last 10 years.

Even now, none of those new stores draw crowds.

[mountainbunny]

Fourteen years ago, there were five full-sized grocery stores within two miles of my home. Plus pharmacies, three large drug store chains, and several smaller stores. Two are now empty, two have rebuilt in the same area, and one remains more-or-less unchanged.
We are still over capacity. This is going to take time to fix, and it is going to hurt.