We’ve seen “Walmart is a virus” videos before, but this interactive map showing the proliferation of Walmart from the early 1960s until 2007 is especially cool. Zoom in and out as the Walmart infection grows…
Watching the Growth of Walmart Across America [Flowing Data](Thanks, synergy!)
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@alexander: WalMart was the company to lead the way to sweatshop labor. They flex their corporate muscle and others fall in line and follow suit.
@h0mi: They weren’t afraid of loosing market shares, they were afraid of collapsing. WalMart, like a drug dealer, sucks you in and then you’re SOL. They become your biggest client and companies are forced to open new facilities to keep up with demand, then WalMart says “do this or you’re out” and since the companies are so dependent on WalMart, they cave. Other stores try to do this as well, like Home Crapo, but they aren’t quite as successful as WalMart is. HD tried it with Pella windows, and Pella told them to go take a flying f@#k!
@nonzenze: That’s only when they HAVE competition. If they’ve driven out other stores, then they magically start raising prices… nothing new to retail, but don’t try and say they are trying to be beneficial to their communities. They could give a rats ass about the communities.
@rellog: umm, hello? The whole idea is to put your competition out of business idiots! Who wouldn’t want to do that? Even your small business owners would love to be the only hardware/grocery/whatever store in town. Why? So they can RAISE PRICES! They don’t like competition because then they have to LOWER PRICES, and I’m sorry the simple supply and demand = the more you buy the more you save so places like wal-mart buy big quantities and can afford to sell it cheaper. I love the southpark about wal-mart. I live in bfe, and Wal-mart has not put ONE SINGLE grocery store out of business. In fact, the locally owned grocery stores expanded and grew bigger to the point where it feel just like any other super center. I don’t wear there clothes because I like my name brands, but food is food. I’ll eat whatever is cheapest or on sale. totino’s pizza’s at wal-mart- $.99, same pizza @ kroger = $1.50; Bar s hotdogs at wal-mart- $.50, same hot dogs at kmart- $1. Don’t tell me that wal-mart is not really cheaper, I know better. Where I live Wal-mart, K-mart and kroger are all less than a mile from eachother. I go to all 3 all the time and every single time wal-mart is the cheapest. When someone else offers cheaper stuff, I’ll ditch wal-mart and shop there instead. My wallet discriminates against high prices. When your income for your house hold becomes less than 25k per year (gross mind you) I’ll bet you’d shop there too, if you don’t already.
While Wal-Mart is definitely not my favorite store, I am amazed at how inaccurate the positioning is on these maps. This would have gotten me fired day one when I did GIS work for CAST at the University of Arkansas.
Living within five miles of the Wal-Mart home office, I can see that A) store #1 is almost in Beaver Lake when it is no where near it in reality, B) store #100 which is across from the Wal-Mart Home Office is shown south of the Bentonville, AR municipal airport no where near the main offices, and C) the newest store in the Rogers, AR area is located on the map where Rogers High School resides.
Seriously, neat concept but shitty GIS work.
Wal-Mart is bad for the economy and bad for the environment. As Milton Friedman said, only a large crisis will bring about real change. When the “race to the bottom” which is led by Wal-Mart finally hits bottom, real change will come after a lot of pain and misery for all. Bring out the guillotine and prepare to storm the bastille!
@snoop-blog: One of the favorite tricks that Wal-Mart does is that they site between two localities then play them against each other until they get a tax holiday for 5 years plus tens of millions of tax-paid “improvements” that only benefit their store.
Once they coerce these, they move in, competing against the local businesses that lack these hidden benefits – you know, they have to pay local taxes and fees. So consumers are paying to subsidize Wal-Mart at the expense of existing retailers.
The kicker is, in year four, month ten, right before Wal-Mart has to pay taxes like everyone else? They chose shop and do it again. Leaving a wasteland in their wake, since you and I paid to destroy the local businesses that thrived there previously.
> Over the long haul, no one wins but Wal-Mart. And they cheat.
Go shop at Walmart, I don’t care. Just don’t bring it to my town. Support factory closings so you can get the cheaper Walmart crap from overseas. Buy your contaminated veggies and unsafe Chinese goods. It’s all about the price, right? Well, Walmart shopper who bought a big-ass SUV, voted for Dubya and got a mortgage with a crappy income, keep doing the American thing and flush this country down the toilet. Just not in my town.
@postnocomments: Wow, I guess you make sure everything is American made and that every piece of food you put in your mouth is certified organic (just not by the USDA as they can’t be trusted…damn Republicans).
Just about every store in this country buys Chinese made goods, sells contaminated food. And it isn’t the working class and poor who are buying SUVs and receiving bad mortgages. It is those who hate Walmart and buy all American.
I hate hypocrites. I can’t wait to buy my own island, move there, and not let any stupid people on it!
@rellog: Most of those stores that are driven out of business were either 1) close to that way anyway, 2) not willing to do what it takes to compete ie. lower prices, etc, and/or 3) not even close to being able to compete. Some also are completely clueless to what it takes to run a business and then are just shocked when that little thing called competition walks in the door. Then they sit and pout and blame the competition for their woes instead of doing what is needed to keep their businesses intact.
The other day I was driving through some country roads in Wisconsin and I came upon this small, little town. On one side of the street, there are two small little grocery stores, maybe about half a mile apart, both with empty parking lots and closed signs on them.
Looking across to the other side of the street, you see a parking lot about the size of the other parking lots put together, completely packed full. A Wal-mart Supercenter, towering over this small town. It’s the only grocery store within about 20-30 miles of this town.
I don’t like Wal*Wart simply because of the atmosphere in the store. I feel depressed even setting foot into the store. There’s just something about it… it’s like it’s sucking the life out of me or something. Similar thing with K-Mart and, to a slightly lesser extent, Target.
@MelL: Same story in my hometown, too. The factories and businesses had already closed. Downtown was dying. They came in with a store and distribution center and pumped tax dollars and traffic back into town. Downtown started filling up again.
Some places are so poor that Walmart is actually a step up.
People who hate Wal-Mart:
a. are not poor
b. don’t care about poor people
c. don’t believe in the free market
d. all of the above
Wal-Mart effectively does more good than any welfare program ever did – raising the quality of life by making dollars go further. Poor people don’t shop at Whole Paycheck like you.
I like that. It looks like when the WOPR computer is simulating launching the nukes at the end of Wargames.
@KarmaChameleon: For what it’s worth, apparently the last episode of the current season will be about the bullshit of Bullshit! That is, admitting to areas where they were wrong or misguided on previous episodes. Should be fun if it happens.
I honestly think people hate wal-mart because it associated with the rednecks, poverty, and low quality, throw away goods (whether or not its true). I am not denying its effect on communities though (good or bad).
@tankertodd: Yup, you’re right. I hate to admit it, but the thing I hate most about Wal-Mart is walking around with other people that shop there. I’ve been living in Germany for about a year, and I went home to CT about a month back for a long weekend. It was a great time until I went to Wal-Mart. I’ve never thought of myself as an elitist, but as soon as I walked into Wal-Mart I wanted nothing more than to escape back to Europe. Looking at the crap being peddled by Wal-Mart and seeing scores of people riding around on automated shopping carts disgusted me. In my eyes for all the good Wal-Mart does it does just as much bad by making unnecessary items accessible for America’s working poor. Instead of eating healthy and saving their money for things they need there people waste their money on shitty food and cheap crap made in China. I’d continue, but I already look like enough of an elitist D-bag.
If you think that Walmart is doing good for the poor, you’re being very short-sighted. Look at what has happened to the state of manufacturing in this country. America used to manufacture most of what we bought, until Walmart put the screws to its suppliers and demanded continually lower prices. The only way to meet Walmarts demands was to close their factories here and move them to China.
A friend had a family owned grocery store in a small town 30 miles from the nearest town. When the town became home to a Walmart Supercenter, they lost 50% of their business within TWO WEEKS. Their small town store’s prices were reasonable, but there’s some mysterious draw about being able to buy everything in one place. Most people are sheep. Just because the majority of people choose to shop at Walmart doesn’t make it the right thing to do. Remember, the majority also elected this disaster of a President TWICE.
I don’t make a lot of money, but I’ve been boycotting Walmart for years and I get by just fine by taking advantage of sales at local stores. I pay the same or less than people who shop at Walmart and I’m supporting the local economy.
@EtherealStrife: ya rly. Look at that map again.
Only one of those stores is actually in L.A. itself. And none of the others are remotely close. I think there’s an ordinance that prevents Wal-mart from opening any of its super-stores which has somehow been discouraging them from opening any more.
@brother9: No kidding, I bet there are a LOT more STarbucks – and they aren’t offering the deals Walmart is. That would be a funny one b/c you could have them growing, then shrinking. I bet you won’t get that with Walmart’s map.
It’s been that way in Germany for years. Actually, here it’s 150cm (4’11″) or 12 years old, whichever comes first. Most booster seats here are simple heavy-duty styrofoam jobs with cloth covers. Inexpensive, and are about as wide as the average slightly overweight American or German adult. Note that Germans tend to think the Golf/Jetta is a mid-sized car, suitable for a family of five.
If you want to go fancy, nicer cars often have integrated boosters that look like they’d make it more comfortable all-around for kids too big for child seats, but not quite adult height yet.
Oops… that was supposed to go with the MA child booster seats story. Mods, feel free to delete it.