I do that as much as I can. I fully support the local shops, mom and pop stores, small restaurants (non-chain) etc.. I believe in vibrant local business' at the heart of strong communities.
I also believe in starving the beast (Government) so when and where I cannot find what I want locally, I buy online to avoid sales tax, and often couple that with free shipping offers.
It's a balancing act.
The big coporate interests need big box stores to sell their made in China stuff, so they need a large population within a driving radius. The shopping malls seem to have a symbiotic existence with the big home builders. Big home builders build hundreds of new homes at a time, which attracts people from the older neighborhoods as well as people from far away as well as other states. This means lots of new mall shoppers. I would love to know some of the political affiliations of some of the countries biggest home builders. I know that one of the biggest mall builders—Simon Malls is a big Obama contributor.
These balooning metro areas that follow the highways change the character of the area and gives big businesses the upper hand. They also seem to be bringing liberal dum-dums from the liberal areas to conservative states.
Then I think these big builders over build and take their money and run. I believe they contribute to the boom and bust pattern of housing that we have seen for the past. thirty years.
Could Agenda 21 be partly motivated by collecting people from smaller communities and bringing them into the radius of big box stores?
Big corporations have the money and access to Washington. The small local businesses do not.