>"Walmart didn’t just compete with the small town. Maybe it didn’t exactly compete with it at all, per se. Rather, it replicated it. And, in stripping the frill

>"Walmart didn’t just compete with the small town. Maybe it didn’t exactly compete with it at all, per se. Rather, it replicated it. And, in stripping the frills and ornamentation of the indoor mall, it managed to replicate it quickly, cheaply and at scale." The author's focus seems to be more on Walmart's walkability indicating a desire of the public for walkable areas, but I wonder how much of the difference between Walmart and Malls is due to decreased costs versus the monolithic bargaining power of Walmart. As the author points out, malls were originally modeled by Victor Gruen off of shopping areas like Ferstel Passage in Vienna, with the intent to have the mall be a part of an overall urban space with parks and apartments nearby, but the urbanism never came. Malls became versions of these "shopping arcades" replicated quickly, cheaply and at scale. Instead of being one step down the ladder of cost, and closer to a small town layout, the greater distinction between a mall and Walmart seems to be customers and suppliers only having one potential avenue to go through with Walmart.