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I lived in a small town in Northeast North Carolina for years and watched the local Wal-mart turn a vibrant downtown there into a bunch of empty shops, then cre

I lived in a small town in Northeast North Carolina for years and watched the local Wal-mart turn a vibrant downtown there into a bunch of empty shops, then create another giant empty building when they relocated miles outside of town to capitalize on the interstate traffic, where they used their financial power to force the town to create an annex so they could get government services or they would move to the next town and take all the low-paying jobs with them. The people there have no choice, nowhere to go. They're conquered. Back in suburban Northern Virginia, when a Wal-mart down the street from me closed up, the local (mostly immigrant) community converted it into a mall. They setup dozens of shops separated with curtains, a huge thrift-shop, and an amazing indoor playground. It's become a wonderful community resource and it thrives despite all the big-box stores just up the street. I don't see how you could do this with every empty store, but where communities have the resources and will, this is a great idea.

AJ007 10y ago
Your reprieve may be coming. Leverage has allowed retailers to grow faster than normal, but it can also swing back and shrink them at an even quicker pace.
chiph 10y ago
There's a Walmart that closed near me, and I've been thinking about the idea of an indoor bazaar in the location. But I don't have the funds to do it.
brudgers 10y ago
People have observed a correlation between the arrival of a Walmart and changes to local downtown retail. I'm skeptical of assigning causation and even more so of assigning blame because retail was undergoing massive structural shifts in places where a new Walmart didn't matter or where there were no Walmarts. Way back when Walmart was mainly in Arkansas, I lived in Northern Virginia. The Springfield Mall opened bringing department stores outside the Beltway. Department stores have been in decline ever since. Malls have stopped being a thing just as downtown shopping had stopped being one before them. Through the 80's and 90's I watched department stores go belly up in the Orlando malls. Nothing to do with Walmart. The Publix was the nearest grocery store to the house I grew up in in Orlando. George Jenkins still set its tone from Lakeland even though it had begun growing across state lines. The tone old George set was 9-5 Monday to Thursday, 9-5:30 on Friday, 9-12 Saturday, Closed on Sunday. Stock boys got a nickel raise every six months. Tipping of the bag boys was encouraged. Tipping the cashiers [all women] was not. The other place women would work was the bakery. Around 1980, the Albertson's bought the corner lot next door. Hours: 9-11 every day. Heathens could shop on Sunday. Working people could buy groceries after work. It was practical for the California company to open in a cross country market for the same reason it was practical for the Jenkins's company to expand out of state: the deregulation of interstate trucking. It took a few years, but not all that many, for Publix to better serve the public. My beloved's family is from Kussuth County, Iowa. The small towns in their townships have been dying since German POW's encamped there abouts were repatriated in 1946. Tractors and modern mortgages and Monsanto and college educations are better candidates than Walmart. And local retail? Well piss off the owner of the only quicky mart in Lone Rock and the option is to buy your $3.00 can of beenie weenies and $2.00 roll of toilet paper in the next town over. People vote with their feet. Whatever it's negative impact, Walmart tends to take people as they are. It doesn't subject them to the whims or moral judgements of its owners. That's a broader change in retail that Walmart embodies. A man can by Legos for his daughter at midnight even if he's sweaty and stinky from an evening shift on the loading dock. His partner doesn't need to put on a pillbox and white gloves and take an afternoon off to shop downtown.
- AdmiralAsshat 10y ago
  The Springfield Mall fell into deep decline and eventually died when everything but the Target left. It was recently renovated and "resurrected" as a high-end, WASP-y competitor to Tyson's Corner. I preferred the old one, to be honest.
alistairSH 10y ago
Where is the converted WWalMart? I live in NoVA, but haven't seen or heard of it.
- ideonexus 10y ago
  This is in Woodbridge. If you have young kids, I highly recommend looking up the "Beehive Park" playground located in the building. It's cheap and filled with all kinds of different moonbounce playgrounds. Right now the shops in the building are all very ethnic, with one restaurant. Half the building is occupied by a BThrifty store. There was an amazing used game shop in there up until two months ago that had many old arcade games for sale and for playing on. There was also an incredible electronics shop run by a wonderful old Asian lady that had anything you could imagine hidden away on her shelves, but it also vanished without a trace. I'm hoping something comes in to replace them. This is all right down the road from the Potomac Mill big-box shopping area. It's marked as the "Depressing Retail" area of this "Judgemental Map of Northern Virginia": http://judgmentalmaps.com/post/77817188327/northernvirginia http://judgmentalmaps.com/post/77817188327/northernvirginia
  - alistairSH 10y ago
    Ah, other side of NoVA. I live in Ugly Regular Houses and work between Single Nerds and Overpriced Stores.
kogus 10y ago
Roanoke Rapids? I used to live near Ahoskie, but the downtown there could not have been described as "vibrant" at any time since about 1980.
- ideonexus 10y ago
  Elizabeth City, NC. It's a small waterfront town of about 38,000 people. Almost like a mini-Norfolk... which is like a mini-Inner-Harbor. Very quaint, and I use the term "vibrant" in the scope of it once having really impressive fine-dining, outdoor music, and other offerings for what a small town can offer. It should be noted that the town is building it back... but with tax-dollars. They've opened a small science center, a huge museum, and a stage theater in an attempt to bring the businesses back to the downtown.
  - kogus 10y ago
    Ok, I have been to Elizabeth City before. A former employer held a job fair at ECSU once and I volunteered to man our booth. So much of Northeast NC is in a beautiful setting, but economically crippled. We lived in Murfreesboro until about 7 years ago. I passed through last summer and it hadn't changed a bit.
pasbesoin 10y ago
It's been a few months and some of the details have grown a bit fuzzy in my mind, but in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan -- and throughout Michigan, Indiana, and elsewhere regionally that the story touched upon -- erstwhile big box retailers have started controlling ownership and leasing to PREVENT any sort of effective competition from taking over and using the "boxes" they abandon. Even after they move out of one, they effecively prevent the local community and private developers from putting it to good use. As far as I'm concerned, the FTC should be investigating and looking to break them up. In cities, they form an incomplete oligarchy. In smaller communities, they've become a very effective monopoly, and they demonstrate overt, brazen business practices squashing competition to further consolidate and perpetuate this. In other words, they are not simply competing on "price", anymore. (Where that pricing was already disadvantageous due to political influence with respect to taxes, international trade, et al.) They are purchasing and exerting outright political and legislative favor to disable competitors including by separating them from otherwise available resources.
ArkyBeagle 10y ago
I once lived in a town that told WalMart to go pound sand. There was an existing WalMart that closed. There was WalMart 10 miles down the road, however. 20+ years later, there is a WalMart roughly in the town.

AJ007 10y ago

Your reprieve may be coming. Leverage has allowed retailers to grow faster than normal, but it can also swing back and shrink them at an even quicker pace.

chiph 10y ago

There's a Walmart that closed near me, and I've been thinking about the idea of an indoor bazaar in the location. But I don't have the funds to do it.

brudgers 10y ago

People have observed a correlation between the arrival of a Walmart and changes to local downtown retail. I'm skeptical of assigning causation and even more so of assigning blame because retail was undergoing massive structural shifts in places where a new Walmart didn't matter or where there were no Walmarts. Way back when Walmart was mainly in Arkansas, I lived in Northern Virginia. The Springfield Mall opened bringing department stores outside the Beltway. Department stores have been in decline ever since. Malls have stopped being a thing just as downtown shopping had stopped being one before them. Through the 80's and 90's I watched department stores go belly up in the Orlando malls. Nothing to do with Walmart. The Publix was the nearest grocery store to the house I grew up in in Orlando. George Jenkins still set its tone from Lakeland even though it had begun growing across state lines. The tone old George set was 9-5 Monday to Thursday, 9-5:30 on Friday, 9-12 Saturday, Closed on Sunday. Stock boys got a nickel raise every six months. Tipping of the bag boys was encouraged. Tipping the cashiers [all women] was not. The other place women would work was the bakery. Around 1980, the Albertson's bought the corner lot next door. Hours: 9-11 every day. Heathens could shop on Sunday. Working people could buy groceries after work. It was practical for the California company to open in a cross country market for the same reason it was practical for the Jenkins's company to expand out of state: the deregulation of interstate trucking. It took a few years, but not all that many, for Publix to better serve the public. My beloved's family is from Kussuth County, Iowa. The small towns in their townships have been dying since German POW's encamped there abouts were repatriated in 1946. Tractors and modern mortgages and Monsanto and college educations are better candidates than Walmart. And local retail? Well piss off the owner of the only quicky mart in Lone Rock and the option is to buy your $3.00 can of beenie weenies and $2.00 roll of toilet paper in the next town over. People vote with their feet. Whatever it's negative impact, Walmart tends to take people as they are. It doesn't subject them to the whims or moral judgements of its owners. That's a broader change in retail that Walmart embodies. A man can by Legos for his daughter at midnight even if he's sweaty and stinky from an evening shift on the loading dock. His partner doesn't need to put on a pillbox and white gloves and take an afternoon off to shop downtown.

AdmiralAsshat 10y ago
The Springfield Mall fell into deep decline and eventually died when everything but the Target left. It was recently renovated and "resurrected" as a high-end, WASP-y competitor to Tyson's Corner. I preferred the old one, to be honest.

alistairSH 10y ago

Where is the converted WWalMart? I live in NoVA, but haven't seen or heard of it.

ideonexus 10y ago
This is in Woodbridge. If you have young kids, I highly recommend looking up the "Beehive Park" playground located in the building. It's cheap and filled with all kinds of different moonbounce playgrounds. Right now the shops in the building are all very ethnic, with one restaurant. Half the building is occupied by a BThrifty store. There was an amazing used game shop in there up until two months ago that had many old arcade games for sale and for playing on. There was also an incredible electronics shop run by a wonderful old Asian lady that had anything you could imagine hidden away on her shelves, but it also vanished without a trace. I'm hoping something comes in to replace them. This is all right down the road from the Potomac Mill big-box shopping area. It's marked as the "Depressing Retail" area of this "Judgemental Map of Northern Virginia": http://judgmentalmaps.com/post/77817188327/northernvirginia http://judgmentalmaps.com/post/77817188327/northernvirginia
- alistairSH 10y ago
  Ah, other side of NoVA. I live in Ugly Regular Houses and work between Single Nerds and Overpriced Stores.

kogus 10y ago

Roanoke Rapids? I used to live near Ahoskie, but the downtown there could not have been described as "vibrant" at any time since about 1980.

ideonexus 10y ago
Elizabeth City, NC. It's a small waterfront town of about 38,000 people. Almost like a mini-Norfolk... which is like a mini-Inner-Harbor. Very quaint, and I use the term "vibrant" in the scope of it once having really impressive fine-dining, outdoor music, and other offerings for what a small town can offer. It should be noted that the town is building it back... but with tax-dollars. They've opened a small science center, a huge museum, and a stage theater in an attempt to bring the businesses back to the downtown.
- kogus 10y ago
  Ok, I have been to Elizabeth City before. A former employer held a job fair at ECSU once and I volunteered to man our booth. So much of Northeast NC is in a beautiful setting, but economically crippled. We lived in Murfreesboro until about 7 years ago. I passed through last summer and it hadn't changed a bit.

pasbesoin 10y ago

It's been a few months and some of the details have grown a bit fuzzy in my mind, but in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan -- and throughout Michigan, Indiana, and elsewhere regionally that the story touched upon -- erstwhile big box retailers have started controlling ownership and leasing to PREVENT any sort of effective competition from taking over and using the "boxes" they abandon. Even after they move out of one, they effecively prevent the local community and private developers from putting it to good use. As far as I'm concerned, the FTC should be investigating and looking to break them up. In cities, they form an incomplete oligarchy. In smaller communities, they've become a very effective monopoly, and they demonstrate overt, brazen business practices squashing competition to further consolidate and perpetuate this. In other words, they are not simply competing on "price", anymore. (Where that pricing was already disadvantageous due to political influence with respect to taxes, international trade, et al.) They are purchasing and exerting outright political and legislative favor to disable competitors including by separating them from otherwise available resources.

ArkyBeagle 10y ago

I once lived in a town that told WalMart to go pound sand. There was an existing WalMart that closed. There was WalMart 10 miles down the road, however. 20+ years later, there is a WalMart roughly in the town.