bust-mart

Just read an interesting slide show in Slate by Julia Christensen about retail big-box store locations that are then used as civic buildings, churches and other stores. I particularly like the Kmart location in Minnesota that was converted into a Spam museum (not the email kind).

Though one has to look far and wide to find a Wal-Mart here in Jersey (much less a Wal-Mart Supercenter; I'm not even sure we have those), Lakeland, Florida, where I went to college, was what I call a 2 Wal-Mart town. This designation applies to third-tier cities (think regional airport) in flyover country that are just big enough to sustain two Wal-Marts. And this dynamic is somehow always the same: one Wal-Mart was average and one was cruddy (yes, cruddy even by Wal-Mart standards). Curiously, in Lakeland, when the cruddy Wal-Mart by the mall closed down in favor of a new Supercenter down the road, the other one across town, which had been the nicer one, went to pot...and fast. It's like the universe balances itself someway.

But all this to say: in spite of its drawbacks, I'm now thoroughly pleased to live in a 0 Wal-Mart town.