Monday, August 4, 2025

Urban ecology of Walmart

If you live in a growing suburb, there are four phases: periphery, blossoming, prime, and decline. Periphery is when you must drive a long ways to get to Walmart. Blossoming is when the Walmart comes to town. Prime is when the Walmart has no competing Walmarts nearby, and is super-nice. And decline is when another Walmart moves in at the periphery, and your Walmart gets ever dingier. 

Eventually, when your store is run down, Walmart will buy a new parcel for a bigger store. And then there will be a derelict store with a vacant parking lot for a decade or so. At which point, it will be time for neighbors to make quasi-racist statements about newcomers when a developer tries to redevelop the shell of a parking lot into new multi-family housing. 

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