Walmart Didn’t Kill the Small Town, It Is the Small Town

Re:Walmart Didn’t Kill the Small Town, It Is the Small Town by johnnyanmac on Saturday July 29, 2023 @05:42AM (#36918517)

TBH loitering killed malls more than a centralized checkout. They became one of the few places for teens to hangout and teens don't have much money. No coincidence that the remaining malls tend to be in high income areas.

But I digress. The removal of hangout spots in the country (especially post pandemic) can be its own topic.

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Re:Walmart Didn’t Kill the Small Town, It Is the Small Town by frumper on Saturday July 29, 2023 @12:08PM (#36921596)

Except that doesn’t make sense. Malls were teen hangouts for 2 decades and thrived. What killed our mall was that all the anchor stores were getting killed by Walmart and target.

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Re:Walmart Didn’t Kill the Small Town, It Is the Small Town by mbg721 on Saturday July 29, 2023 @12:22PM (#36921759)

The areas that were "high-income" (cheap for white commuters aspiring to the upper-middle-class) a generation before got more and more developed, and at some point in trying to attain big-city convenience, gained the big-city problems they were trying to avoid.

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Re:Walmart Didn’t Kill the Small Town, It Is the Small Town by frumper on Saturday July 29, 2023 @02:54PM (#36923304)

Our mall lost 2 major department stores when we got a Walmart and target. They lost 2 more after Amazon got big. The target and Costco a few blocks away are thriving with the affluent families. The mall isn’t economically competitive anymore.

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Re:Walmart Didn’t Kill the Small Town, It Is the Small Town by mbg721 on Saturday July 29, 2023 @04:03PM (#36923972)

There are malls that are competitive...one near me survived by anchoring itself to a Nordstrom's and then aiming higher. But that isn't "the mall".

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