Boston says no to Wal-Mart. At least, according to an article in the Globe this morning, which represents the latest installment in coverage on the efforts of the company to establish stores in the city. I don't feel that strongly about this, partly because I don't live in Boston, and partly because I've grown to accept Wal-Mart as a fact of life. But, and I want to emphasize this, I don't regard Wal-Mart as a permanent phenomenon, and I think that some people who object to Wal-Mart invest it with more symbolic power than it actually has. Ultimately, its business model will be supplanted by something else, or if they are intelligently managed, they will change into something that people prefer more.
The notion that a city should be infused with a robust variety of independent shopkeepers is a nice idea, but it can be nostalgic, and potentially dangerous. If a city government rejects any type of improvement in a specific area because that improvement doesn't meet some gold standard of quality or conform to an aesthetic notion of planning, then nothing will ever happen.
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