Dying towns/main street for wall street

[marmac]

TabulaRasa has a point.

Yesterday we had to go to a small town about 12 miles away so the wife and I decided we would get our groceries there in their supermarket.--OUCH !!!!!!!

We usually buy groceries at Walmart , which is 24 miles away.
The difference in price was so great, we ended up only buying half of what was on our grocery list and will go to Walmarts next week.

Besides, many of the women working at Walmart are farmers wives who needed extra income due to lower incomes on the farm now.

I save money--------other farmers wives have a job.
I'm not going to knock either.

[marmac]

Here are some small town businesses that --CAN--compete----------
#1------auto repair shop
#2------quality meat market

Here are some that will have a hard time competing---
#1---grocery store
#2---hardware store


The --2 --I listed that can compete, can do so by providing reputable ,outstanding, service and quality that people will make that small town a destination.
The--2-- I listed that can't compete is because VOLUME is a huge advantage in pricing.

[BrokenTap]

Originally Posted by marmac

Here are some small town businesses that --CAN--compete----------
#1------auto repair shop
#2------quality meat market

Here are some that will have a hard time competing---
#1---grocery store
#2---hardware store


The --2 --I listed that can compete, can do so by providing reputable ,outstanding, service and quality that people will make that small town a destination.
The--2-- I listed that can't compete is because VOLUME is a huge advantage in pricing.

This does not hold true here. Hardware stores are thriving in small communities. I can buy grain at my local hardware store for 3 bucks less a bag then I can at the big grain dealers. They even keep certain items stocked just for me and the few other sheep farmers in the area (this is not sheep farming country at all so sheep supplies are pretty rare).

For the contractors around here, we all laugh when we see big box stores like Home Depot and Lowes talking about contractors in their stores. Here no reputable contractor would step foot in a big box store...a call to the local lumber dealers brings a truck out tothe jobsite whether it is for a box of nails or 3 bundles of boards.

Not saying your wrong Marmac, just saying here it is far differentwhenit comes to number two.

As for number on, you are right, but I refuse to buy their hideously red dye injected meat. Ys I know beef, pork and lamb is considered red meat, but its not that kind of heavily dyed red meat!

[BrokenTap]

Originally Posted by mezzogirl

Everyone keeps referencing WalMart on here. It is not necessarily WalMart that bruises a local economy, but the other little stores that crop up following the WalMart. I have seen this firsthand. Rarely do you just see a WalMart out in the middle of nowhere. Soon to follow is a chain restaurant, a chain pharmacy and a gas station. People now realize that they can pop into WalMart for the low prices AND grab lunch and gas up afterwards. Sacrifice the quality for the convenience. Welcome to American culture, everybody! I personally LOVE closeknit communities that center around downtown and its history. It evokes a pride of town. I live in a very transient area so it is difficult to plug in and help create opportunities for others to be involved. I also know that many people feel the same way as I do, but lack the assertiveness or know-how to get something going. I am now officially motivated.

You are right of course. What angers me is the constantly shifting big box store mentality. Near me every Lowes, Home Depot and Walmart has built a store, lived there for a few years and as you mentioned...let other stores build up around it. Then a few years later they want a bigger and bad hiney store and move to a different part of town. In their wake is left these stores that are dead, and the traffic that once went to the little crop up stores, leaves. What ends up happening is this shift from one side of the city to the other.

I wish that practice would end. Its bad enough looking at a big box store...its another to look at a big EMPTY box store. I saw this a lot back in my railroad days when I tripped around the country. I just wish they would be happy being the size they are without board members thinking they must gobble up every market share in a particular area. That is from corporate greed...nothing more.

[ShadowCaver]

Originally Posted by BrokenTap

You are right of course. What angers me is the constantly shifting big box store mentality. Near me every Lowes, Home Depot and Walmart has built a store, lived there for a few years and as you mentioned...let other stores build up around it. Then a few years later they want a bigger and bad hiney store and move to a different part of town. In their wake is left these stores that are dead, and the traffic that once went to the little crop up stores, leaves. What ends up happening is this shift from one side of the city to the other.

I wish that practice would end. Its bad enough looking at a big box store...its another to look at a big EMPTY box store. I saw this a lot back in my railroad days when I tripped around the country. I just wish they would be happy being the size they are without board members thinking they must gobble up every market share in a particular area. That is from corporate greed...nothing more.

And what drives those corporate folks to do such? => stocks... durn near every NYSE, etc. American company is insanely infatuated with the Quarterly profitability - NOT the long term strategy; the bigger picture gets ignored, due to the 'instant gratification' of the board of directors demanding quarterly returns on their investments, etc. Oh, other reasons why they move on occasion is changing traffic patterns and changing demographics, and as you said market share.

As to main street of the smaller towns, in my thoughts, part of their problem, as I've said before, is take a look at their hours of operation - WM, for example in most areas, is open 24/7... downtown stores, again mostly, in the smaller burgs are a 8-5 M-F, and then maybe half day Saturday, and usually not much at all on Sunday. Now w/ that in mind, what do a lot of people that work do for their shopping needs? How are they supposed to shop at the local downtown stores if they ain't open when they are able to visit?

lol, as to the red dye injected meat complaint, sadly, have seen the same thing in local mom/pop grocers too

[TabulaRasa]

Originally Posted by mezzogirl

Everyone keeps referencing WalMart on here. It is not necessarily WalMart that bruises a local economy, but the other little stores that crop up following the WalMart. I have seen this firsthand. Rarely do you just see a WalMart out in the middle of nowhere. Soon to follow is a chain restaurant, a chain pharmacy and a gas station. People now realize that they can pop into WalMart for the low prices AND grab lunch and gas up afterwards. Sacrifice the quality for the convenience. Welcome to American culture, everybody! I personally LOVE closeknit communities that center around downtown and its history. It evokes a pride of town. I live in a very transient area so it is difficult to plug in and help create opportunities for others to be involved. I also know that many people feel the same way as I do, but lack the assertiveness or know-how to get something going. I am now officially motivated.

Definitely true in my experience. First there actually was just WalMart, out in the middle of nowhere (or more specifically, on a tract of former farmland past city limits that was annexed and rezoned from ag to commercial). Then, steadily over the next ten years, WalMart was joined by, off the top of my head, Menards, Home Depot, Steak and Shake, Wendy's, Jimmy John's, two major regional grocery chains, Target, Applebee's, Red Lobster, Bob Evans (which has since left and the building now an IHOP), three or four interstate-quality midrange chain hotels, then Target got an in-store Starbucks, then Starbucks opened a stand-alone (one of their few rural outposts), then Kohl's went in, then the old original WalMart abandoned their store to build a new WalMart SuperCenter about a mile up the road, and the former WalMart became a Hobby Lobby....etc., etc.

This is all along a formerly farmland interstate highway exchange in the ag belt. No big town nearby whatsoever, the cluster of chains and box stores clumped up around the interstate exchange are flanked by two small communities of under 10,000 each, and a half-dozen surrounding towns of between 2,000 and 8,000 or so, and finally, a sprinkling of villages of a few hundred apiece. All of these have had their local retail and other small businesses pretty much decimated due to the explosion of the chains and boxes, out on a cloverleaf in the middle of nowhere.

[marmac]

------in the middle of nowhere--
A location that is flanked by 2 communities of under 10,000,a half dozen surrounding towns of between 2,000 and 8,000-------wouldn't be considered " in the middle of nowhere in many states ( mine included)

[TabulaRasa]

It is, though, when each of those communities is then surrounded by countless square miles of corn and soybean, as far as the eye can see. The county I grew up in had for its largest town by far/county seat a village of under 1,000 people. Trust me, I've lived rural, I know rural.

[nicname]

tabularasa -

where is this?

I'd like to google earth it.