Whether it's popular to admit or not, this is the thinking behind why a lot of people I know--including myself--shop at Target instead of Wal-Mart. I'm from th

Whether it's popular to admit or not, this is the thinking behind why a lot of people I know--including myself--shop at Target instead of Wal-Mart. I'm from the U.S. South; my hometown has a Target and a Wal-Mart facing each other across a canyon of two parking lots and a six-lane street. The difference is stark, from the merchandise to the cleanliness of the store to the customer base. Wal-Mart can do as well or better than Target. There's a "flagship" Wal-Mart on the Dallas North Tollway in Plano (Texas) that is everything a Target can be and more. It's even open 24 hours, like seemingly every other Wal-Mart in the region. (That was a little bit of culture shock when I moved to Puget Sound. The Wal-Marts in the top-left corner of the map used to be open 24 hours but stopped in early 2015 for some reason.)