That's just a set of anecdotes though. Maybe mom and pop stores came in all kinds of varieties, some were better and some were worse. Maybe we shouldn't automat

That's just a set of anecdotes though. Maybe mom and pop stores came in all kinds of varieties, some were better and some were worse. Maybe we shouldn't automatically praise them but maybe we shouldn't also automatically assume that because some of them weren't good most of them weren't good. I doubt anyone has the data to advance a definitive view of mom and pop vs walmart. What I do think we can say definitively is that any market that has few competitors over time will atrophy. Having the store landscape reduced to a few big chains with little variety is not healthy for that market.