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It can

In Reply to: Can a local economy survive a Wal-Mart? posted by Darya on August 06, 1999 at 11:52:57:

If the family owned businesses in your town deliver friendly and professional service, Wal Mart will not put them out of business. Take my town for an example. We have a very busy and thriving Main Street with hundreds of small family run stores. Our Main Street is actually a small tourist attraction for people from New York City a few miles away who have no main street to call thier own. When Wal Mart opened a couple years ago, everyone thought it would be the end of the world. But Wal Mart has actually boosted sales at the local stores. People who drive to Wal Mart pass through Main Street, and the more people who passed through the more people stopped. Long Island I wouldn't doubt has more shopping centers and strip malls per square mile than any other place in the USA (well, maybe New Jersey has more, but then again, poor NJ, the laughingstock of this country, is famous for many unflattering reasons)But the point is, on Long Island you have shopping malls galore, yet much of Long Island still has small town main streets and rural areas unaffected by malls.
Another example is Tannersville, PA (in the Poconos), my second home. When Friendlys restaurant chain decided to open a store in this town the owners of other restaurants protested (its a long story-why they all protested Friendly's)In fact, this story made national news (in the national enquirer lol)as the "friendliest town in america" Anyway, the arrival of Friendly's helped the smaller restaurants in the area because people who came to eat at the chain restaurant discovered the smaller family restaurants and went there next time. Local restaurant owners admitted this.
Of course, there are cases in which the building of a Wal-Mart has been bad for local businesses. This just so happens to not be the case where I live. Good luck

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