Not in Washington but on main street. The issue isn't welfare reform or taxes but rather bigness and diversity. Or more accurately, the role of superstores in our future local economies. Retail superstores are washing over us like a planetary tsunami. Some superstores have under one roof as much retail space as entire downtown business sections.
Several studies show that when superstores are built they undermine the existing local economy.
Sales to local businesses drop and money that used to stay in the community is siphoned off to remote corporate headquarters. That may have been the old Wal-Mart. The citizens of Sturbridge, Massachusets, in a non binding referendum, voted 600 to 100 against a proposed superstore. Wal-Mart decided to press ahead anyway. Three out of four residents of East Aurora, New York signed petitions opposing a change in the zoning law that would have permitted a Wal-Mart.