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It's not just purchasing scale that prevents smaller businesses from competing; the infrastructure that supports those big box stores is heavily subsidized at t
by InitialLastName 1y ago
It's not just purchasing scale that prevents smaller businesses from competing; the infrastructure that supports those big box stores is heavily subsidized at the municipal, state, inter-corporate and federal levels in a way that is unattainable for local businesses.
- potato3732842 1y agoIt's not that it's subsidized so much as that 1-500k of hoop jumping makes financial sense when your goal is to turn a forested lot on the side of the highways into a Costco or Target or some other Mecca for people with lots of money to spend. The amount of hoop jumping is the same if you're putting in a family mini golf with a restaurant and bumper cars. But you'll never make it back so the development never happens...
- InitialLastName 1y agoMunicipalities and states frequently offer tax abatements, pay to build the road and utility infrastructure to the middle of nowhere, and rebate sales taxes in ways that they never would for even a non-brand-name store, much less a store that could fit in the middle of the town.
- aaronbaugher 1y agoTrue. My town did that for Walmart 30 years ago, and recently did it again for Amazon. Meanwhile, small businesses that have served the area for decades get no breaks. They also tried to stick a massive apartment building in a nice nearby residential neighborhood to house the cheap workers Amazon will bring in, but the residents caught wind of it and managed to get it stopped. For now.