I should have been clearer. I'm deeply hopeful for the renaissance of small towns and small shops that feed them. However, none of the articles I've read about the effect of failing Walmarts on the small towns they parasitized has taken an ecosystem-wide view of the problem, and that's my beef with this article.

Indeed, in a place so diminished, Kimball’s Walmart had risen like a vision of bountiful modernity, stocked with anything one could ever need. And its disappearance is typical of the rest of the stores that Walmart announced it was shedding.

"A vision of bountiful modernity" is not a phrase usually lobbed at a Walmart. And if you look up Kimball, WV, you'll discover that less than 200 people live there. I recommend you look up the Walmart in Kimball, WV, and click "street view" - the place is like an idyllic shangri-la, which is also language never lobbed at Walmart- there's probably more cars in the parking lot than in the surrounding two-mile radius around it. Once you've done that, zoom out until you see... civilization. You might even look for a Walmart in Princeton, WV (population 7,000) and determine that you can get to the Princeton Walmart from the Kimball Walmart in under an hour.

Now - I grew up in a small town. If I wanted Little Caesar's it was half an hour away, through two reservations and across the Rio Grande. If I wanted Olive Garden it was two hours away, through 14 reservations and two mountain passes. There wasn't then but there is now a Walmart next to the Little Caesar's. I'm here to tell ya - driving an hour to get to a Walmart is not a hardship when you live in a town of 200 people. It's a fact of life. And that town of 200 people? It's below minimum viable by a fair amount.

Walmarts are like an opportunistic infection - they thrive where the host is already weakened. The strain isn't as potent as it used to be, which is part of it. But a rural town with 200 people that happens to be an hour away from another Walmart isn't a place that needed a Walmart at all.