Word: marts
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...brothers prospered. Sometimes when the square was filled and bustling, friends trading with friends, families greeting families, James thought "it looked like an old postcard." This was a life he cherished. Nobody got really rich. Their wealth was in the closeness and vitality of the community. Then came Wal-Mart...
...Mart merchandising, the brilliantly simple concept of "everyday low price" retailing, has become such a pervasive force (2,000 stores of various kinds, 160 built each year) that it is redesigning the social structure of rural and small-town America more than any other force besides nature. Wal- Mart is beginning to nibble at the edges of large cities and giant shopping malls, many of which are weakened by the general economic malaise...
...even as he was honored, some of Walton's roots were wondering about just what he had wrought. Writer Tim Larimer grew up in Salem, Ill. (pop. 7,800), which ended up in the middle of a Wal-Mart nest. On visits home he watched the storefronts go dark one by one, places where he had met and laughed with friends as a kid. One Saturday afternoon he counted four empty stores on one side of the business block and two on the other. Two cars were parked downtown. The Wal-Mart on the west edge of Salem was humming...
Steve Bishop, a Church of Christ minister who grew up in Hearne, Texas (pop. 5,400), and served a church there for seven years, fired off an essay a couple of months ago to the Dallas Morning News, declaring, "Wal-Mart killed Hearne, Texas -- twice . . . The first death was the end of a downtown that held much more than stores, it held memories, values and people who stayed long enough to make a difference in our lives. Wal-Mart's arrival ended all that. The second killing occurred in December 1990, when Wal-Mart closed its doors in Hearne...
Kenneth Stone, professor of economics at Iowa State University, began five years ago to study the Wal-Mart phenomenon in his state after he noted the commercial life of many towns being hollowed out by the huge intruder. Few scholars had paid any attention. Now Stone is in demand all over the U.S., lecturing on the nature of Wal-Mart and how to deal with it. Stone estimates that Wal-Mart's stores -- a combination of general merchandise, groceries and wholesale clubs -- could, if growth in the 1990s equals that of the 1980s, gross $200 billion annually...