In light of yesterday’s post, which at the end touched on themes of local commerce as opposed to global industry, I found this post at the Where blog to be very interesting:
Time to Reassess the Boxscape
The author of the post weighs a recent argument they read about big box retail influencing local markets (the author is concerned with urban markets in particular) in a positive way with his general aversion to Big Box stores such as Wal-Mart. It seems to boil down to a lowest-price v. highest-[moral?]value trade-off. I still go through this struggle personally at least once a week: favoring the ease of purchasing something from a chain store to trying to search out a local vendor or merchant. Often it is simply easier and cheaper to find something at Jewel or Borders than their independent local counterparts. But does that justify the action? What makes a purchase necessarily right or wrong? If I believe one thing and act in another largely due to convenience and availability, do I become culpable?
Posted by theshortestverse 
