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Wal-Mart merchandising, the brilliantly simple concept of "everyday low price" retailing, has become such a pervasive force (2,000 stores of various kinds, 160 built each year) that it is redesigning the social structure of rural and small-town America more than any other force besides nature. Wal- Mart is beginning to nibble at the edges of large cities and giant shopping malls, many of which are weakened by the general economic malaise.
To millions, the down-home Bentonville, Ark., genius was a hero who brought decent merchandise at low prices to areas scorned by more glitzy entrepreneurs. On Wall Street, Walton was a billionaire god who made countless millionaires of others. Last month President Bush awarded the Medal of Freedom, the country's highest civil tribute, to the ailing Walton. "This is not a visit about Sam Walton's wealth," said Bush. "It's about leadership. It's about decency. As he became more and more successful he never turned his back on his roots."
But even as he was honored, some of Walton's roots were wondering about just what he had wrought. Writer Tim Larimer grew up in Salem, Ill. (pop. 7,800), which ended up in the middle of a Wal-Mart nest. On visits home he watched the storefronts go dark one by one, places where he had met and laughed with friends as a kid. One Saturday afternoon he counted four empty stores on one side of the business block and two on the other. Two cars were parked downtown. The Wal-Mart on the west edge of Salem was humming. Not long ago, Larimer wrote in the Washington Post about driving east from St. Louis and rarely being far from the sight of a Wal-Mart. He felt engulfed in a new culture reaching from horizon to horizon. "If I had kept driving on Highway 50, the same road that eventually runs through Maryland to Easton, I would have passed more Wal-Marts, in Illinois towns like Flora, Olney and Lawrenceville. Each its own town, not so long ago; now they scarcely seem distinguishable. All Wal-Mart towns now."
Steve Bishop, a Church of Christ minister who grew up in Hearne, Texas (pop. 5,400), and served a church there for seven years, fired off an essay a couple of months ago to the Dallas Morning News, declaring, "Wal-Mart killed Hearne, Texas -- twice . . . The first death was the end of a downtown that held much more than stores, it held memories, values and people who stayed long enough to make a difference in our lives. Wal-Mart's arrival ended all that. The second killing occurred in December 1990, when Wal-Mart closed its doors in Hearne. It closed because it couldn't turn a profit. Wal-Mart leaves an empty building as testimony to the '80s' greed, and it leaves a downtown of vacated shops as testimony to our rush to save a little money -- maybe not a very different kind of greed."