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Living the American Dream


monsoon

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What's scary is the sheer number of Americans who have grown up with trashed built environments and degraded and demeaned public realms as seen here, and consider it "normal." Cultural bankruptcy is the term I use to describe the speech impediments who find nothing wrong with Sprawlmarts, parking lagoons, and strip mall gulags.

As Kunstler would say, in the past sixty years Americans have pissed away their national wealth on a human habitat that has no future. We will be punished eventually for our lack of vision, foresight, and extreme lack of taste, for allowing bilge like this to essentially comprise everything that's been built since 1950.

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What's scary is the sheer number of Americans who have grown up with trashed built environments and degraded and demeaned public realms as seen here, and consider it "normal."  Cultural bankruptcy is the term I use to describe the speech impediments who find nothing wrong with Sprawlmarts, parking lagoons, and strip mall gulags.

As Kunstler would say, in the past sixty years Americans have pissed away their national wealth on a human habitat that has no future. We will be punished eventually for our lack of vision, foresight, and extreme lack of taste, for allowing bilge like this to essentially comprise everything that's been built since 1950.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

So true...

The coolest thing to do around here for people my age is drive up and down the disgusting four-lane suburban highway between all the strip malls and big-box stores and hang out in the huge parking lots. I hate suburban life.

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So true...

The coolest thing to do around here for people my age is drive up and down the disgusting four-lane suburban highway between all the strip malls and big-box stores and hang out in the huge parking lots. I hate suburban life.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I'm so glad we had a Main Street where I grew up.

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So true...

The coolest thing to do around here for people my age is drive up and down the disgusting four-lane suburban highway between all the strip malls and big-box stores and hang out in the huge parking lots. I hate suburban life.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Indeed the high-school kids in my college town do essentially the same thing: loiter in the parking lots of Wal-Mart and Kroger.

As for the photo, :sick:

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The pic of Sprawlmart is a prime example of what used to be thought of as the so-called American Dream; now it is an American Nightmare. *puke* To make matters worse, this had to be the example suburbia sets: letting this be the place where children and our future children play. :( SHAME!!!!!!

God Bless America!

God don't like ugly. There used to be dense cities back in the day well centered, but truth be told if I am not biased, the Devil wants suburbian life and lots of it. End result: The End of the World as we know it if not sooner.

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The pros for a Walmart is that it provides jobs for the local community. Granted the counter argument is that they are paying below minimum wage or the least competitive rates possible and with zero benefits.

The debate continues in Chicago -- both sides have strong arguments for their case and I see it from both sides. There are plans to build a Walmart on the southwest side of the city. Currently, business is being taken out of the city to the suburbs where the Walmarts and mega stores are found and not being kept in the area. Walmart proposed construction will be in communities that need jobs and are starved for any type of business development. Jobs jobs jobs .. despite the fact that they suck .. people STILL need them. Having any job is better than none.

Although, Chicago City Council is giving Walmart a really hard time here and after so many rules imposed on potential construction, they have already nixed one of the proposed sites (there were originally going to be two within the Chicago city limits)

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It always depresses me to hear people say things like "Wal-Mart creates jobs". No, they simply replace jobs that were already in the community. The people who shop at Wal-Mart are all former shoppers of other establishments. Establishments that generally go under leaving the post-apocalyptic Main Street seen in many small towns and cities.

Your typical small town or small city now has few "mom n pop" stores and is instead dominated by chain retailers who pay their workers very little, offer no benefits to most employees, destoy the landscape of their "host" (the picture in this thread), and take their profits to headquarters leaving little for the host community. If business conditions are not favorable, the big box chain stores close and leave a community devoid of wealth or small businesses.

Wal-Mart and their chain store/restaurant ilk are literally parasites that suck the wealth out of communities (excepting the one containing the headquarters). Wal-Mart offers a bargain (cheap goods and minimum wage jobs) to a community, with the community expected to forfeit any competing non-minimum wage jobs or community-minded employers that might care about offering benefits or anything else besides the bottom line. Wal-Mart's oft-touted efficiency makes them very able of executing the bargain.

I am arguing that Wal-Mart is an agent of destruction for jobs and communities. People are figuring out the scam and Wal-Mart is now having to resort to battles (and even skullduggery) with their hosts to build their stores.

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You people are so lame it's not like you don't shop there weekly. The Wal-Mart her in Memphis is the top 11 Wal-Marts that make the most money every year, Right now it's a super center but there going to build a even bigger one in two years. Did you know that some of the Wal-Marts in Los Angeles are 3 stories!

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