
A Town That Lost Its Walmart - prostoalex
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/24/business/walmart-edna-texas.html
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simonsarris
The high level of narration makes me suspicious that this might be reading
into things a liiiitle too much. I think this is mostly a non-story that got
written up anyway. Let's investigate their investigation.

As they mention briefly, it was a tiny Walmart, in a land pockmarked with lots
of huge walmarts. There's, I dunno, maybe 20 Walmarts in the area:
[https://imgur.com/a/M6mX97Q](https://imgur.com/a/M6mX97Q)

The closest Walmart is now a 23 minute drive away. For most people in New
Hampshire a 23 minute drive is nothing, I can only imagine its even less of an
issue in Texas. I suspect a lot of the employees _still have jobs with
Walmart,_ just working at different stores. And of course its the biggest
employer in the town, it probably still is!

So I think the premise is a bit of a canard and the writeup is weak.

> Some former workers from the Edna store have told friends that the drive to
> their new jobs has been wearing on their cars and the cost of gas was eating
> into their wages.

Eehhh. I suspect most people in tiny Texas towns commute lots, just like in
NH.

> This fall, Edna received a pleasant surprise. Sales tax revenue did not drop
> the way city officials feared it would after Walmart left. To many, the
> numbers showed that Edna’s retail stores had filled the void.

> “People learned they need to shop at home,” said Mr. Hermes, the former
> mayor.

Oh hm, wait a minute, maybe there is a story here!

> The revenue numbers also likely include the purchases Edna residents made on
> Amazon and other large e-commerce sites.

Oh, never mind!

~~~
RickJWagner
Thanks for using the word 'canard', which I did not recognize. I looked it up,
enriched my vocabulary by one word. Gracias!

