Buying Local – The Race to Homogeneity

Think about Seth Godin’s lamentation the next time you shop at a chain.

They’re shutting down Jimmy Wang’s store. Shutting down a succesful (sic) little business.

Walgreen’s is moving into town, my town, a town with three or four small drugstores and plenty of places to buy stale cookies, thank you very much.

I’ve written about Brother’s market before, an anchor in my little town. The only place to get hand-picked fresh food, pretty much, and the sort of market you could imagine moving to town just to be near. Remember those little markets where they actually care about the produce they sell? In a world filled with bitter cash register jockeys, Brother’s was different. A smiling face, a family member mentioned, a don’t-worry-about-the-pennies sort of interaction.
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One by one, store by store, the chains expand, earning a few more dollars a share and further insulating themselves from the communities they used to serve. No, my neighbors and I don’t need another drugstore, we have plenty. That’s not going to change Walgreen’s mind, and it’s not going to help Jimmy and his team, either. My heart goes out to them. Thanks for everything you did for our community, guys.

Admittedly, many of the chains are locally-owned; but they aren’t as locally-owned as true locally-owned stores. Think Mudhouse (archived: 2012) and Starbucks. CVS and Parkway Pharmacy in Crozet. The Markets and 7-11. Harris Teeter and Great Valu in Crozet. Groupon and CvilleSAVER (no longer available) (more on CvilleSAVER (archived: 2011)).

At what cost do we not support our local businesses?

In a related story, the developers at Stonefield are finding that their stores may be welcome but their architecture is not.

People move to and stay in Charlottesville because we’re not like those other places – the ones with the shopping centers that could be Anywhere, USA.

We don’t have an Olive Garden, and that’s OK. Frankly, I don’t want one. I wouldn’t trade Charlottesville’s Italian restaurants for an Olive Garden.