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A comment on Walmart Didn’t Kill the Small Town, It Is the Small Town. Parent comment

Re:Walmart Didn’t Kill the Small Town, It Is the Small Town by scottLobster on Friday July 28, 2023 @10:46PM (#36916306)
I was responding to a guy saying anyone under 50 has probably never walked down a Main St. Which I took as yet more "old man yells at cloud" sentiment. It's not just where I grew up either, the town where I went to college had a literal "Main St" with privately owned shops/bars/etc, and a permanent population of ~35,000. All of the ~20,000 students walked down it at some point because that's where the University book store and most of the popular bars/restaurants were.

The suburb I live in now has a literal "Main St" as well. Maybe it's an east coast thing, but saying he doesn't get out much was more a statement of fact. I can't think of anyone I've ever met who has never experienced a Main St, and the only people I can think of who might possibly meet that criteria are people who live in tiny rural towns that they never leave, aka people who don't get out much.

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Re:Walmart Didn’t Kill the Small Town, It Is the Small Town by newswasboring on Saturday July 29, 2023 @06:54AM (#36918930)
> Which I took as yet more "old man yells at cloud" sentiment.

This is the uncharitable assumption which you didn't have to make. Someone was describing something they observed, you can counter them without making silly snide comments.

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Re:Walmart Didn’t Kill the Small Town, It Is the Small Town by scottLobster on Saturday July 29, 2023 @03:19PM (#36923529)
I don't think it's uncharitable at all. Anyone who makes a statement like "most people under 50 have never experienced a Main St" is making assumptions so large, so unexamined and so obviously incorrect that it has to be emotionally driven, especially when it's phrased along the lines of "kids today don't understand X".

If it is a legitimate observation, they must really, literally, not get out much and I would recommend driving to the nearest town with a population north of 10,000 and look around a bit to broaden their horizons. That's the generous interpretation.

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