Copyright 2005 Ben S. Pollock
Friday, Nov. 18, 2005: What happened to the Mall?
I thought the Mall is what destroyed Downtown, not Wal-Mart.
The latest batch of Wal-Mart-bashing ignores the history of American retail. I don’t know this history in a scholarly way, only that portion I’ve lived. So this is a chip of a Brick, a Brickbat.
The people who poo-poo Wal-Mart are not the underinsured employees so much as the well-heeled who cannot believe lots of people earn so little and are rather desperate in our America. These well-to-do should remember downtowns have been dying since the 1950s (they should also remember how badly those clerks must have been compensated as well as how few federal rights the employees of small businesses are entitled to).
I wonder if the Wal-Mart bashers forget the growth of the enclosed shopping mall concept because to include that would mean boycotting Bloomies.
What the mall did to downtowns and Wal-Mart is said to be doing to downtowns (and to malls, I hope, as I have hated them for 20 years … while downtown merchants self-destruct), Internet shopping is doing to all three.
It’s called growth or evolution or free market, or the people rule. It ain’t a bad thing. -30-
