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. "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.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.
I completely agree. My personal anecdote comes from a town of 2000 people. We had two grocery stores and there was one in the next town down, but it looks like only one is left now. We were the biggest city for twenty miles in any direction. The nearest McDonald's was twenty miles away. I remember when Pizza Hut came in; it was a big deal. Making a trip to buy anything besides hardware and groceries meant making a trip. Like you said, fact of life. But looking at a map of Kimball, WV reminds me of visiting Newcomb, NY in December. I was day hiking and needed dinner each night. There was one restaurant twenty miles away open Thursday-Monday in the off season or another 25 miles the opposite direction. The second advertises on their website "ATT and Verizon service," and eating there was the first time my phone connected to a tower in 36 hours. The closest Walmart or Home Depot or Best Buy is about an hour away. Newcomb is another mountain town. I suspect it mostly survives on tourism and people weekending or retiring up from Albany.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.
Wow. I didn't know Wal-Marts could be found in towns so small. For towns that size, they really are behemoths. I can see then, how they could be convenient for so many people. I can also see how their presence, or lack of, could have such a big economic impact. Even if they employed only 50 people, that's a huge chunk of the population even when you factor in that they'll probably attract people from neighboring towns. They're also probably a boon for local municipalities and counties as far as taxes are concerned too.
A huge chunk. There's also a federal pen (FCI McDowell, 1600 inmates) and an overflow facility (200 inmates) within 15 minutes drive of it. Prisons are the second "oh my god we're dying" industry of depressed economic areas. If your town is thinking of putting in (A) a Walmart (B) a prison or (C) a casino, you're fucked. That means there's weakness and someone with deep pockets wishes to use the externalities of subsidized construction to funnel what's left of your local economy's money right into their pockets. That's because none of them are actually good for your town - they won't go there unless you subsidize the shit out of their existence. Walmarts will generally demand a tax holiday of 10 years or more and require all public works (water/sewer/gas, roads, electricity, you name it) to their new spot to be provided at taxpayer expense. They're notorious for shutting down in one location and opening another shortly before that tax holiday expires.