

Cars, Breasts and Homes: Why America Likes Big  - bhavin
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,2029899,00.html

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tcskeptic
From the article regarding Walmart opening effects on a community: _"the
unemployment rate goes up, the voter-participation rate and the PTA-
participation rate go down, the infant-mortality rate goes up and the
pollution rate goes up, because people are driving farther and spending more
time on the road than if they were going to a local mom-and-pop store"_

Does anyone have sources for the above claims? My cursory research on the
interwebs cannot confirm them. To my skeptical ear they sound like agenda
driven hand-wavery, but I have an open mind.

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k3dz
this movie had some facts - [http://www.amazon.com/WALMART-HIGH-COST-PRICE-
Format/dp/B000...](http://www.amazon.com/WALMART-HIGH-COST-PRICE-
Format/dp/B000AYNG1G/)

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nickpinkston
Yea, if by "facts" you mean cherry-picked situations without showing the other
side's benefits.

Try these facts out as well:

<http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2006/iap-walmart.html>

Quote: "For families with incomes less than $10,000 annually, a super center
makes a 30 percent difference in what they can buy. "The marginal utility on
the poor is greater," he noted."

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jdminhbg
I am not sure what is the worst thing about this interview: Offhandedly
blaming Walmart for infant mortality (!) or the unbearable smugness of
describing your own personal preferences as "right-sizing."

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indiejade
_Also, going to the country's largest landfill showed me a lot about how much
waste we create in our search for the next thing. We throw away a lot of stuff
that works perfectly fine simply to get the bigger and better model._

The landfill problem is interesting in context (as the interviewee mentions
Wal-Mart). First of all is the combination of Wal-Mart + rural America + lack
of recycling education (in rural America). Wal-Mart got big by basically
exploiting small town USA's country bumpkin mentality.

Second of all: Rural America does not recycle. . . it's actually kind of
infuriating. Case in point: after I moved to Utah from Florida, I spearheaded
a paper recycling program at my high school. Most of my elementary and middle-
school years I'd been drilled with the very liberal environmental studies
education, so I was pretty astonished that people in the country didn't
recycle _anything_. . . one garbage bin by the curbs, and all of the trash
into a landfill. Shortly thereafter the local Wal-Mart moved to the end of
town and opened up as a brand new "Super Wal-Mart". The trash cans stopped
being big enough, so the city bought people newer and bigger ones.

What it ultimately boils down to is Corporate Social Responsibility. Wal-Marts
could do more to address the issue by offering recycling facilites and
education. But for the most part things that get purchased in bulk /
supersized containers from the Wal-Marts and Sams Clubs across middle America
will never get recycled.

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allenp
You are on the right track but I think slightly misguided. The responsibility
does not rest on the corporate shoulders but on the shoulders of government.
If the people value reduced/recyclable packaging they can pass laws to mandate
it in a variety of ways. Look at the outlawing of plastic shopping bags in San
Francisco and other locales.

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jcromartie
And meals.

