I know that I've discussed Walmart here before, but the argument of Walmart is not over until people stop shopping there. When asked about my shopping preferences, I always point out that I will not shop at Walmart; furthermore, I will not use goods purchased at Walmart unless there truly is no other option. I think I've been in a Walmart about two times in my life, but that's partially a happy coincidence of never living near one. Since I was raised mainly in the suburbs (another evil in and of itself, but that's for a different post), I didn't have the rural association that Walmart generally has.
There's a few reasons why I really don't like Walmart. First of all, it creates a large environmental footprint; the stores and parking lots take up tons of room. Parking lots, as a general rule, are fairly isidious places. The amount of water that runs of a parking lot during a rain must collect into storm drains that port the water into local streams. This raises the level of streams quite quickly during a heavy rainstorm, which can create a local flash flood that is highly detrimental to stream quality in the area (loosens mud and rocks, which makes the stream less clean for water breathers; knocks away branches that create valuable habitat; I could go on forever about this). It's much healthier for water to percolate through the ground and slowly reach streams, but this would be bad for the parking lot (think sinkhole).
Secondly, Walmart has a negative effect on the local economy. It pulls dollars from the local economy and sends a huge bulk of them to the Bentonville, AK, and the Walmart Headquarters. Furthermore, Walmart doesn't create new jobs. NPR said that for every job created at Walmart, 1.5 jobs were lost in the general community, while Wal-Mart Watch is took out the complication decimal and simply stated that 3 jobs were lost in the community for every 2 jobs at Walmart. Walmart has a high amount of sourcing from offshore companies, for those interested in that stat, which also serves to pull dollars from the US economy rather than add them.
In general, as far as the economy goes, we have a linked web. It's kind of like the foodchain (gotta connect the biology). For every dollar added into the US economy, more money can be produced. Pulling dollars out of the US economy (by, say, paying offshore workers with money you earned from Americans) leads to an overall detrimental affect on the economy. Part of the reason our economy is currently depressed is that we continuously remove our dollars to other nations that do not cycle the money back to us again. The best way to improve the local economy in your town, state, or country is to BUY LOCAL. Wait, let me repeat that again: BUY LOCAL. It's good for the environment (lower shipping impact), good for the economy (let me take my money I earned here and hand it over to someone else here who has a higher potential of recycling that money back to me than some guy in India), and it's just nice overall.
If you want more reasons not to shop at Walmart, or if you're interested in why people would ever dislike such an amazing store, check out Wal-Mart Watch. Check out this, and this, and this. There's even more out there; just google it.
Seek out local alternatives OR large companies that have a reputation for being better than average (COSTCO!!! my local happy company).
There are a few exceptions to my hard and fast rule about Walmart. If you live in an area where the only store within, say, an hour radius is Walmart . . . shop at freakin' Walmart. If it takes you a ton of gas to go anywhere else, Walmart is not as evil as the locations where you get to pick between Walmart on one side of the street and Target on the other. But if you have options, the socially conscious thing to do is to avoid Walmart at all costs.
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