***Walmart can be extremely devastating to the character of existing quiet, established communities and especially to Mom and Pop small businesses.***
And here is the reason why as explained to me by a teacher long before Walmart was ever founded.
A small town will have two grocery stores, two drug stores, two dress shops, two feed stores, ect, all to prove they have competition and a market economy.
However, these stores will make handshake deals under the table not to cut each other on prices so they can keep the prices HIGH in the small towns and keep the locals in economic slavery to their high prices. The city Fathers get involved and do what they can to keep real competition out of the town, and all get a cut of the profits.
Now, years later Walmart comes along and the City Fathers would do what they could to keep them out of town. So, Walmart would buy a piece of land outside the town and build anyway.
The lower prices gave the locals a chance to get more for their money so they would desert the high dollar stores in town and then the shop owners would complain how Walmart was running them out of business.
Case in point: A town near here had a company owned store in town and called it a “discount center”. No competition as Walmart was far away.
My mom shopped there all the time. One day we took her to the local Walmart and she went into reverse “Sticker Shock”
when she realized how the “discount center” was robbing the customers blind.
My local Wal-Mart just added groceries and expanded its beverage section. It now sells my beer at $1.77 (per 25oz can), as opposed to my local liquor store, that sells it at $2.29. I’m supposed to be loyal to the liquor store why?