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800 Maynard Ave S, Suite 200, Seattle, WA 98134
800 Maynard Ave S, Suite 200, Seattle, WA 98134
Of course these kind of stores are often indirectly the reason people don't have enough money, but stopping one of them won't change that.
I am not attempting to justify all of Wal-Mart's business practices, but the bottom line is that Wal-Mart is a boon to poor families. I read a report a few years ago saying that a poor family may save up to $8,000 a year by shopping at Wal-Mart for groceries and other household needs. Wish I could find a link, but I recall it being a reasonably unbiased source.
I think this should outweigh elitist and aesthetic arguements about vague feelings regarding what a community/main street should look like.
Businesses have no explicit right to conduct business, no matter what the free market monkeys say.
Here's the thing: Vermont's best asset when it comes to getting money from the rest of the world is its lack of billboards and shitty retail strips. Plenty of other states have mountains, but Vermont is a place people like to go when they want a break from chain stores and restaurants and rampant consumer culture. Without that it's just another out-of-the-way place, another West Virginia or Idaho competing in a race to the bottom. Good luck with that!
Does this differ in principle from our own hopes of reform for our land use and design review codes in order to protect future small scale local retail like our darling Bauhaus block? Localities have not just a right but an obligation to recognize, protect and promote what makes them vibrant and livable - they may get it wrong sometimes but it would be stupid to abandon the effort because it might not fit into a headline.
Top States Ranked by Percentage:
Rank State GLB Population: Percentage of State Population
1 District of Columbia 8.1%
2 New Hampshire 6.6%
3 Washington 5.7%
4 Massachusetts 5.7%
5 Maine 5.2%
6 California 5.2%
7 Colorado 5.1%
8 Vermont 5.1%
9 New Mexico 4.9%
10 Minnesota 4.7%
"Oooh! I paid a $1 for a broom that'll break after a couple uses so I'll have to buy another $1 broom! Score!!"
There are ton of them in the south, in big cities and small towns. In a lot of poor, urban neighborhoods, they or Family Dollar (very similar store) are the only stores for miles.
Not to mention all the sketchy grey market shit you can find in those things here.
You really can't blame the store for stocking things that Americans love to buy. It is not like the dollar stores have a monopoly on cheap plastic crap...go to any grocery store, department store, gas station, online retailer, or even a pharmacy.
It is a problem for us as consumers that we care solely about cost and not quality or how our buying habits affect others. The store is responding to our demand, not creating our demand.
You may as well blame Colombia because Americans keep buying their cocaine.
New Hampshire is second, of all the states? How'd that happen? Also, I wonder if there's not some reporting bias. Like, there might be a lot of gays in Tennessee who aren't putting that fact on questionnaires or surveys. But for a state to be a safe place to be out is a distinction in itself.
And really, I can blame them. Visit one of the half-dozen 99 cent stores you'll find on Mission between 24th and 16th streets, and you'll find shit that is so cheap or purporting to be something it isn't, it's not only questionably legal to sell, it's outright dangerous.
Big Lots up the road can sell a cheap hammer for $5, and any hardware store will sell you a low-end one for $10. Maybe there's still a niche for a $2 hammer with a head that's going to come flying off (which happened to me, so I may be proving both of our points) that needs filling, but I'd rather the free market didn't work it's way all the way down into that crevasse.
The Dollar General Store will compete (national/corporate/KKR[look that up] vs local) against a store that's been around since the 1850s and owned by the same family for 20 years. They employ 9 full time and 20 part time and operate on low margins. And they get involved and give a lot to the community. A lot of kids get their first experience in the world of work at the store.
DG will employ 2 ft and 4 pt and when they cut into the local grocery's margins people who get a living wage will lose jobs. (DG is minimum wage.) If the grocery goes out of business, all 3000 of us will have to drive to the next town over to shop a corporate supermarket. Gee, that's a carbon neutral, green choice.
We have a beautiful town that has industry, trades, retail and services and a dollar spent in Chester tends to stay here and have a multipli er effect. A portion of our town's income comes from this beauty and a barn like structure that's twice the size of any retailer in town at the gateway to downtown isn't going to help anybody who has a real stake in this town.
Trash what we want or think, but we know and value this place and all you do is "comment."