Re:Walmart Didn’t Kill the Small Town, It Is the Small Town
by scoofy on Friday July 28, 2023 @03:30PM
(#36912047)
I think the problem with this thesis is that Walmart can combine the downtowns of many small towns into one Walmart in between them. It's actually only in the cities where you have enough concentration of wealth to kept niche departments alive.
In the cities the only reason why the big-box model works is exactly because it inverts the urban paradigm with a suburban one. Walmart's model would never work in an urban core exactly because the costs of property (and taxes) to build such on inefficient marketplace would be way too high, and could never compete with the cheap, edge-of-town model that they have built.
The irony, of course, is that much of the value of the suburban model is exactly in the form of subsidy capture. So while folks are happy to get discounts at Walmart, they will likely have to pay the difference 30 years later in taxes on an inefficient suburban wastewater system that must be developed to support this type of infrastructure.
Urbanism is more efficient, thus it should be cheaper, but it's the second, and third order effects that will eventually cause the rustbelt-ification of much of the United States. At least this is the thesis of books like Strong Towns that focus on the acceleration deterioration of finances and bankruptcies in many american municipalities.
In the cities the only reason why the big-box model works is exactly because it inverts the urban paradigm with a suburban one. Walmart's model would never work in an urban core exactly because the costs of property (and taxes) to build such on inefficient marketplace would be way too high, and could never compete with the cheap, edge-of-town model that they have built.
The irony, of course, is that much of the value of the suburban model is exactly in the form of subsidy capture. So while folks are happy to get discounts at Walmart, they will likely have to pay the difference 30 years later in taxes on an inefficient suburban wastewater system that must be developed to support this type of infrastructure.
Urbanism is more efficient, thus it should be cheaper, but it's the second, and third order effects that will eventually cause the rustbelt-ification of much of the United States. At least this is the thesis of books like Strong Towns that focus on the acceleration deterioration of finances and bankruptcies in many american municipalities.