> overall walk more

Walking more is better for your health. Or are you saying you walk too much already?

I'd rather spend time saved on bicycle, but I wasn't talking about myself but people that already spend 1-2h in commute and have kids so spending extra time on walking around shopping is probably the thing they want to do the least, hence they go to markets rather than local stores.

The quaint downtown stores were also probably open from 9-5, maybe 9-12 on Saturday, closed Sunday. That was fine in the 1950s when housewives didn't work and could go shopping during the day. Today, nobody's going to want to take time off work to go buy bread, eggs, and socks. They want to go to Walmart on Sunday afternoon, or on their way home after work.

I think the issue is more about the systematic destroying of the small town.

They open multiple Walmart's, the small town stores go out of business, then they can close some percentage of the Walmart's to consolidate into a few stores in central locations, now all of the small town people have to drive farther to get anything at all. And the small town dies.

Aye, I lived in Ithaca, NY for a while, and they had a local law that the only businesses within the town center could not be franchise stores, and had to be independently owned. Chain stores could open, but had to do so down the highway about ~2 miles away.

It is _incredible_ the difference it makes on town culture, and _how much better it was_

Downtown Ithaca most likely would have been just as vibrant without that law. It's a town with a higher median household income than the US as a whole, plus two colleges, both of which cost >$50k a year to attend. The students, especially of Cornell, are a great and continuing source of relatively price-insensitive consumers.

Chapel Hill, NC has a Target smack dab in the middle of downtown, and everyone would agree that it's an idyllic college town with a wonderful culture.

i respectfully disagree. the "wonderful culture" chapel hill is known for is a memory from the 80s and 90s. the target store that opened on franklin street is maybe the most blatant sign of the shitty generic direction the town has been going in. it's a nice memory though. here's to the squirrel nut zippers.

Ithaca is a special case as it's essentially the main town outside of Cornell University.

Not all small towns have a major research university or other dependable benefactor around - most of the small town representatives can easily be bought/bribed by a major chain.

Ithaca being a college town definitely brings more money into the town. That definitely adds to the vibrancy. But I think my statement still stands independent of that fact :)

Most town centers did not have chains open in them, but the stores in them still died because people preferred shopping at big box stores 2 miles away.

A small college town with a reputation of rich kids going to it is probably going to have an outlier amount of single people with extra money to throw around little shops. If they have families and start budgeting, they will be off to Costco and Walmart and Target to save money like the bulk of the US.

This is an understandable sentiment, but I do not think it applies in this case. In the case of Ithaca, most single young people live closer to the colleges, and drive or bus to the chain stores.

The actual town, I think, survives on the individual shop mentality because the physical layout of the town. The Ithaca town square is physically designed to be the physcial, social and cultural center of the town, which allows the shops there an advantage of being a center of the community, completely surrounded on all sides by walkable residential living. This gives them a competitive advantage, that lets them compete with the bigger box stores which require taking a bus or car a few minutes downtown to arrive at.

people often give this "just so" explanation, but it doesn't quite add up to me. if it's really so inconvenient to go to the consolidated Walmart location a few towns over, why don't you see shops start to reopen on main street? I suspect the root cause has more to do with cars than a particular megastore.

The needed capital to re-start. They have lost the critical mass. For many small towns, these stores were started many decades ago.

I guess technically, if a store can't be re-started today is kind of like also saying, if the small town can't re-start itself, then that points to question, why would a small town need to exist at all today.

Think the end of this line of reasoning is that small towns have no reason to exist, so let them go?

> Think the end of this line of reasoning is that small towns have no reason to exist, so let them go?

Correct.

Banking and financing is a big part of it too. Good luck getting Chase to give you a loan to start Monky General. I believe that’s a big part of why you see so many franchise chains. The loan officer for an out of town bank can probably find a hundred similar Subways or whatever and have a good idea of what the financials will look like. On the other hand he has no clue how well or poorly a locally owned business will do so he wants no part of it.

There's nothing great about small towns. All of this is waxing of people who don't live in small towns that think it is oh so nice to be able to go to a cute little store on vacation at 11:30am to get a muffin on Saturday. Never mind that the store itself is closed Monday to Friday.

Grew up in a small town, couldn’t disagree more. But what you’re describing is a vacation town, many small towns have become one because of the proliferation of second homes: there aren’t enough people around in the week for stores to justify staying open.

But not all towns are like that.

I live in a small town. It's great! There's a Walmart in the next town over.

The DMV experience in a small town versus a big city is night and day in the small town’s favor. That’s true for pretty much all government services from the Post Office down to the County office.

The main benefit of small towns is that social capital matters and reputation matters. Of course those are disadvantages to misbehavers.

> social capital matters and reputation matters. Of course those are disadvantages to misbehavers.

This is something that many young adults have forgotten, because it's increasingly more trendy to move around a lot in your 20s while developing your career. Nobody cares in a big city if you're an asshole, because there's a million other people to associate with and most likely the asshole and everyone around them aren't going to still be there in five years.

The downside of the small town social setting is that it can be cliquey.

What?! This runs completely counter to my experience living in a small town. A town small enough that the post office doesn’t do to door delivery, you’ve got to go pick it up and the closest DMV is an hour away in the city. Small towns don’t generally have services like that at all.

Of course, everyone's definition of a small town, and the kinds of small towns that they've experienced, are going to differ. I'm not too far (just a county over) from a quaint little town with under a thousand people; the post office there delivers to homes, and the nearest DMV is a 15-minute drive away, in a "city" of almost 15k.

Come to think of it, in my own county, which is not highly urban by any stretch of the imagination, you'd be maximum a half-hour drive away from the nearest DMV starting from any main road. Obviously, that doesn't hold if it takes you 15 minutes to get down your own driveway ;-)

I could easily see some of the much more remote Western small towns being further away from anything.

Right but the issue is that people want to go there, if nobody went there it would not be a problem. There is th emoney aspect of course, but supermarket (of any type really) is convenience vs having to go to a bunch of smaller stores.

Yeah. The 8 stores are far better. There's competition. There's variety. Employees can move around. I can get to know the shop owners. I can take a wonderful stroll.

Instead. You get to enjoy one corporation, that does anything it wants, pays horribly, employees have no choice, you have no choice in what garbage you buy. And your downtown now consists of 8 banks.

Yup. You're living the dream!

Fundamentally, consumers and producers are at odds with each other in certain ways. For instance, it's best for customers if every shop was open 24x7, but absolutely horrible for the employees needed to make that happen.

Walmart is the extreme end of satisfying consumers above all else. Customers get a single, climate-controlled location to take care of nearly all their shopping, with good prices; but it comes at the expense of the employees, local community, and factory workers. Unfortunately, most customers don't know or care about those downsides because the experience is catered so heavily for them, and it's hard to get people to sacrifice material comfort for benefits that appear so abstract.

And from a typically American perspective one doesn’t have to walk. They’ll even provide motorized carts to use when you are buying gallons of cola.

If you're somewhere like Irvine then downtown can be owned by a single corporation in full control of everything, with a superficial veneer of choice and competition.

Not to mention that the product you get from dedicated merchants will invariably be better. The worst bakery in my city is leagues better than the best bread available at Wal Mart

> The worst bakery in my city is leagues better than the best bread available at Wal Mart

You're lucky to have a dedicated bakery that actually makes bread, or maybe you just live in a big city? There's probably twenty bakeries in my midsize city, but they all bake cakes, muffins, confectioneries, and whatnot. None of them actually bake bread.

Walmart bread is truly awful, with the only thing going for it being that it's cheap and consistent. My preferred choice in my area is the sourdough bread from Aldi, which at least only has the ingredients that bread should have, with no sugar or soybean oil or other junk.

Walmart was the competition that lowered prices. Those 8 stores may have had more variety, but not lower prices.

Recently I needed to replace my car's battery (size 24F; I opted to upgrade to an AGM battery). In my town of 45,000 (medium-small?) there is one Walmart superstore (sans auto shop), a bunch of chain auto parts stores, and some non-chain stores. Shopping online, I determine:

   Walmart:  Everstart $180, 4 year "free replacement" warranty.
   Napa:     house brand $250, Odyssey $371  (both 3 yr warranty)
   OReilly:  house brand $250, Optima  $290  (both 3 yr warranty) 
   AutoZone: house brand $250, Optima  $290  (both 3 yr warranty) 

Walmart gets my business in this case as it does in most others. The few employees I interact with there don't seem to be unhappy, and their return policy is awesome (and is consistently applied). Walmart hasn't forced the competition out of business, but I see no reason why I should shop elsewhere in order to pay $70 (38%) more for an equivalent battery with 1 year less warranty.

Yes, Walmart is evil./s

> There's competition. There's variety.

That does not follow. Small stores carry the same shit as big chain stores. Because of their smaller scale and more limited purchasing power those items are more expensive than a chain and they can only afford to carry high throughput items. The only way small stores can deal with long tail items is if they're super specialty and neat a large enough metro area to have enough sales to survive.

I'm not saying small stores are bad but there's a decided small store tax. Without economies of scale they have a very hard time competing against chains. They have an even harder time competing against online sales.

> Small stores carry the same shit as big chain stores.

Not always. Go to a dedicated board game store and you'll see such a wider variety than the branded Monopoly sets on sale at big box stores. Plus they usually have an area dedicated to actually playing games, something you'll never find at a chain. This community charm is paid for by the small store tax, but the benefits far outweigh the cost.

And those stores have a very hard time competing with online sales. Not only is their stock much, much more limited they are often significantly more expensive because the stores have to mark them up. There is so much variety in board games these days those stores have no hope of competing outside of Magic The Gathering events. I suspect those are moving more toward online play as well because honestly those events aren’t very pleasant to attend in person. We’ve lost roughly half of our board game stores in a city of around 120k people. The only ones that are left are 90% TCG stock with a small selection of modern board games. Honestly the stock at Target and Barnes and Nobel especially are just as good these days.

> Go to a dedicated board game store and you'll see such a wider variety than the branded Monopoly sets on sale at big box stores.

Stores like Target carry far more board games than just branded copies of Monopoly. Shit they sell Cards Against Humanity at Target. Barnes & Noble carries and even wider selection of board games and pen and paper role playing games. So big chains are definitely not limited to Monopoly.

While small game stores can carry a wider selection than big chains, most make their nut selling the bigger brand games or toys. There might be Black Swan stores able to specialize in Ticket to Ride or Carcasone expansions but that's not the common case.

I know the owners of quite a few small game stores. They are to a store struggling to keep the lights on because their costs are butting right up against their revenue. Charm is great and all but it doesn't pay the bills.

Again I'm not arguing against small shops but there's not much they offer above and beyond what can be found in big chains or online. The things they can offer, like a game play space, aren't easy or even possible to monetize.

Not to mention, all profits go directly out of town.

Deal with 8 different potential return policies. Have 8 different conversations. Deal with whether all 8 take Amex or not.

Let different people shop at different stores depending on their preference for return policies or credit cards. Heh, let one store try to differentiate itself by accepting crypto payments. Or sell only products produced within 100 miles of the store. Or only employee people shorter than two meters.

Just because there are 8 stores doesn't mean that everyone has to use all 8 of them. It does mean that anyone could use any of them. Sounds like a win to me.

I should point out that the presence of Walmart does not preclude the existence of seven other local stores. Walmart didn't drive all the moms and pops out of town with a shotgun. They competed on price, return policy, credit card choice, quality, and everything else. If the store that only employed people shorter than two meters left town, it was probably because that wasn't a priority to consumers in that town.

In the end, consumers get to choose to support Walmart exclusively or to support a variety of businesses. Walmart doesn't get to make that choice. If you are unhappy with the outcome, is it right to blame Walmart?

>Let different people shop at different stores depending on their preference for return policies or credit cards.

to be fair, the people did choose. I know it's out of vogue to blame the general populace for the actions of coporations, but at the end of the day corps can do this because it works. Every single time.

Not sure if anything can be done, but I think it's also worth considering WHY people don't consider much past their immediate convenience when shopping.

So you are advocating for large monolithic monopolies? Reduce the complexity by reducing choice?

Would you really be going to 8 shops every time though? Realistically I would go to a grocery store or supermarket and maybe one other store (like clothes or sports supplies, maybe a butcher or something if the town has that and I want something really special that week)

I guess what Americans are missing from how smaller towns work in other countries is that they tend to be more dense, with more mixed zoning. Not as overfilled with way too big parking lots, way too wide “stroads”, and endless suburban sprawl. So the trip to town is shorter/faster, you go into town more often, for more different kinds of activities, and so you don’t have to buy everything all at once.

Take a look at the Strong Town initiative and the YouTube channel “not just bikes”.

Being in town - to me - is a part of living life. It’s where you’d have a third place, where you’d do various activities, meet people and discover new things. If you’ve felt the need to optimise your life to maximise your time at work and in your house.. that feels really sad to me.

> I guess what Americans are missing from how smaller towns work in other countries is that they tend to be more dense, with more mixed zoning. Not as overfilled with way too big parking lots, way too wide “stroads”, and endless suburban sprawl. So the trip to town is shorter/faster, you go into town more often, for more different kinds of activities, and so you don’t have to buy everything all at once.

Well I'm not american and I lived in village and in small town. If I have supermarket in "range" I will go to supermarket, choice is bigger and prices are lower.

Sure, if I have store nearby and want to get an icecream or something, or forgot to buy something on weekly shopping trip I'd buy it there.

> Being in town - to me - is a part of living life. It’s where you’d have a third place, where you’d do various activities, meet people and discover new things.

...when going on grocery shopping ? And for some reason you're prevented from speaking to people in supermarket ?

> If you’ve felt the need to optimise your life to maximise your time at work and in your house.. that feels really sad to me.

I dunno from which arse you've got that conclusion. Do you have nothing more interesting to do in your life than going around shopping ?

Groceries are chore not a fucking adventure, regardless of shop size. And saving money means I can spend it on things I actually enjoy and places I actually want to go to.

>I guess what Americans are missing from how smaller towns work in other countries is that they tend to be more dense, with more mixed zoning.

Probably, I live in a California Suburb. There really is no such thing as "walkable" here in the same way some older eastern US cities and other countries have them.

>Being in town - to me - is a part of living life. It’s where you’d have a third place, where you’d do various activities, meet people and discover new things.

Yeah, that doesn't exist here. We don't really have a "community" in my town. Or perhaps I'm too old and too young for that part of community. No kids to bring to activities but way too old to simply show up for "community activities".

>If you’ve felt the need to optimise your life to maximise your time at work and in your house.. that feels really sad to me.

well the cool thing about land in the US is that it's also huge. I'm in a 1600 ft house, so if you have friends it's great for arranging get togethers and house parties.

Part of me hates Walmart and part of me loves it. I love that I can go to one place and get 80% of whatever I'm looking for. But I also like the specialty stores my town has. N of one but since Walmart moved in ~20y ago I haven't noticed much changing with the makeup of small businesses. Since Walmart moved in there have been more of the other big box stores, though.