What you say cannot possibly be true. I have been told time and time again that the arrival of a Walmart always spells doom for adjacent businesses, and the people who told me that seemed very sure about themselves.
(I think your sarcasm is appropriate given the histrionics that surround Walmart)
I've seen really impressive growth around a truly rural Supercenter opening but it's mostly been limited to chains that satellite the Walmart. Starbucks, Lowes, Jack in the Box, CiCis, Chilis and a handful of other shops that are nationally or regionally owned businesses that would have probably waited out opening in the area had the Supercenter been fought off. There is almost a symbiotic relationship between these concerns and a Walmart or Target super store that opens that is evident if you've ever been to the suburban southwest.
I can't speak to the real economic impact of such a situation (maybe it's great!), but I do suspect that there are real cascading effects to small businesses in this scenario. Pizza places, chinese food places, your random donut shop, the lumber yard... they all take a hit. I don't know, maybe all these places were terrible in quality and service in the face of the efficiency of national chains, but it still seems intuitive that there is a wealth flight around this situation and one has to wonder if it's for better or worse.
"Using an instrumental variables approach
to correct for both measurement error in entry dates and endogeneity of
the timing of entry, I find that Wal-Mart entry increases retail employment
by 100 jobs in the year of entry. Half of this gain disappears over the next
five years as other retail establishments exit and contract, leaving a
long-run statistically significant net gain of 50 jobs"
One more interesting indicator would be the relative economic change within the area in question. Meaning, how much as the tax base and property values increased within the area of the store. I think the real question is, "Is a Walmart a net gain for a community." Lots of data points, but I'm sure there's some dude reading this with Hadoop skills and a case of boredom and some leftover Jolt Cola that could hammer it out this weekend.
That list of brands sound like just the sort of totally generic suburban shopping center on a highway that I hope to never set foot in again for the rest of my life. Anodyne on the surface, but a soul-crushing complete lack of culture of any kind. It's the "local flavor" of rural and suburban America. Everywhere. It fills me with anomie just to think about it.
