[CitizenUSA]

Mom and pop stores are gone because they are inefficient (exception: certain niche markets). What rational person would want to pay significant markup and have less to choose from simply to keep an outmoded and inefficient business model going? Personally, I like the idea I can travel anywhere in the US (and many parts of the world) and still pick up a Big Mac when I want one.

[pollyannaish]

People who mostly stay put get to have experiences once available only to frequent travelers, and this loss of exclusivity is one reason why frequent travelers are the ones who complain.

This is a terrific article. Thanks for posting it.

[Don Corleone]

Why go anywhere?

Better weather and good golf courses!

[xjcsa]

Reference ping to a great article...

[Thud]

ping

[Larry Lucido]

Why go anywhere? Because there is only one Grand Canyon, one Santa Fe, one Mauna Loa volcano, one Mt. McKinley, one Everglades, etc. etc. You can't see all that staying in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan.

And no matter where you go, only a small percentage of the stores are chains. And thank God they are there. It's comforting to find a McDonald's for a quick breakfast on the go, alongside a local Little Rock diner where you can get real grits and buiscuits and sausage gravy with your eggs if you prefer. It's a damned myth that once city is like another. They just all happen to now offer more choices than were once available.

[Old Professer]

I've often wondered what it is like to breathe pure ozone...

[goldstategop]

Chain stores deliver economies of the scale and choice that local mom and pop stores can't match. Since mom and pop stores can't compete with the chains on price and choice they can maintain an edge on quality goods and personalized customer service.

"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." -Manuel II Paleologus

[goldstategop]

The point to national chains is that people in small towns and nedium sized cities get the same services and amenities once available only to people living in big cities. The point lost on activists who oppose chains in urban downtowns is not that chains change the character of the places they'd take root in but rather that people have to drive further to buy the things they want and need. I can't think of anything more self-defeating, as Virginia Postrel's passage at the end of her column so vividly reveals:

"To [Robert Gibbs'] frustration, he finds that many cities actually turn away national chains, preferring a moribund downtown that seems authentically local. But, he says, the same local activists who oppose chains “want specialty retail that sells exactly what the chains sell—the same price, the same fit, the same qualities, the same sizes, the same brands, even.” You can show people pictures of a Pottery Barn with nothing but the name changed, he says, and they’ll love the store. So downtown stores stay empty, or sell low-value tourist items like candles and kites, while the chains open on the edge of town. In the name of urbanism, officials and activists in cities like Ann Arbor and Fort Collins, Colorado, are driving business to the suburbs. “If people like shopping at the Banana Republic or the Gap, if that’s your market—or Payless Shoes—why not?” says an exasperated Gibbs. “Why not sell the goods and services people want?”

Why indeed not? If people like doing business with a particular company, they should be free to have that choice. The character of our communities is not determined by what's outside the sign of a business; its shaped by the local culture, climate and living preferences. For frequent travellers, all of America looks the same. That's a snap judgment from people passing through a place. For the local folks though, its always the place they call home.

"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." -Manuel II Paleologus