The Land of the Walmart

[gwendally]

I'm just back from visiting a most amazing place.  I always come back from there with deep culture shock.  If you live there you don't know what I'm talking about.  You probably don't know my world exists.  But there is one four-lane divided highway within 30 miles of me.  I buy my food primarily from farmers who grew it (with possibly a dairy co-

Comments

[likethewatch]

I RAN from that world when I could, back up here. I sounds like it's pretty much the same in SC as in FL. I hated the way there are no seasons in Florida, no one walks or can bear to be outside, all the old people. Nothing against old people, but it was like drowning in a sea of old people, and the political consequences were worse than the social or even than their driving. Schools are terrible. No income tax. Permanent underclass of tomato pickers and convenience store clerks to serve the generation that still got retirements with their union paychecks. It is much much much better up here. We aren't encased in a cocoon of truly poor service workers, cinderblock, and cheap crap from China. They're too old to care about what this does to their cells or their karma.

[coercedbynutmeg]

That sounds a lot like the Phoenix metroplex.

[anonymous]

I completely "get" what you expressed. Oh do I ever. After 5 years in a job-related location where Wal-Mart is the only real local shopping option, I'm thrilled to be looking for a "real" place to move to.

In trying to figure out what my best options are, I've
been looking up various places on maps from sites such as localharvest.org and realmilk.com

Maybe I just need to figure out how to make up a "Google Map" that shows locations that are the furthest from any Wal-Mart? (I know there is much more to a community than that, but perhaps its an efficient litmus test?)

If anyone else reading/commenting has any "not Wal-Mart land" suggestions, I am all ears.

Thanks for the post.

R.

[kayjayuu]

The Growth of Walmart

I'm 45 miles from the nearest Superstore. I'm going there tomorrow for my once-a-month shopping, sadly, because lentils cost 98 cents vs. 2.25 at my local grocery. :/

Tradeoffs, I haz them.

[marveen]

We have a wallyworld in town, yes. It's thirty-five miles to the interstate from here, and when you get there you're between two walmarts that are about ten miles apart. (I was stunned when they put another one in that close)

I don't buy produce at superstores--we have a wonderful fruit stand in town that sells live apples (I never quantified it like that before, gwen, but it's perfect) and other fruit, for half the price of the grocery stores.

I do buy my other stuff at wallyworld because, well, where the hell else is there? I could go to Safeway, or to Fred Meyer, but it's all the same brands and the same crap by and large. Once the garden stuff runs out I sigh and grit my teeth and buy it.

I use this icon because I don't like being backed into a corner like this, but we aren't wealthy enough to make any other choice right now.

[rev_mac]

Lentils! They are 94 cents at Wally here in NH.

Heh, I have almost forty pound on hand right now.

Did you know that two liter PETE (soda type bottles) hold four pounds of Lentils, and the three liter hold about five pounds? They stay well as the bottles are oxygen and moisture barriers.

[exvapi]

I live in the south, about 40 miles north of South Carolina, and I don't live within 30 miles of a Walmart, or an interstate highway.
It's not all like what you describe. It is rural down here.

its spreading, quickly

[crazyburro]

when I first moved to the Boston area (out by 495 and rt 2, 25 years ago) it was fairly rural. Not totally, but... my neighbors had cattle, or grew corn, or tobacco. Nearest large supermarket was 15 miles away. There was a large multilane highway (495), but with little traffic.

I don't live there anymore, but still work out on 495.

Now there's rush hour traffic, walmarts, super duper stop and shops... farms are mostly gone (went to a bunch of farm auctions in the early 90s), or they're yuppified apple picking/hay riding farms. Most of the town centers have a fair number of empty store fronts.

[andrewducker]

Oh brave new world, that has such people and places in it.