Discussion»Questions»Politics» In my VERY liberal city, there's NO Walmart, DQ, Appelbee's, Sonic's, or ANY of "those kinds" of places. Are we a tad elitist?
So if they are eating at Ruth's Chris and shopping Nordstroms, they are not likely to eat at DQ or Sonic, nor shop Walmart. It is good business sense for those companies not to build there. And be thankful for not having Walmart. Last year they closed over 1000 stores because there wasn't enough profit. These stores were in rural places that survived quite well with mom & pop stores. Walmart came in and put them out of business, often with the small business owners losing everything. Now they pull out and there is no place for the people to shop. They screwed thousands of people and lots of small towns.
That's a pretty judgmental assumption you've made, regarding where eating and not eating, and where shopping and not shopping. A wrong one, at that, in many cases, no doubt.
That is an observation from having lived in such places. I lived in a large suburb that had two Walmarts. One on the north end and one on the south end. No one like going to them. The one at the north end was is a working class neighborhood and that is how it survived. The south end one was near the highway, so those who worked nearby went to it. It had four Targets. Places like Applebees, TGIFridays, and the like would come in last a year and go under. The high end restaurants thrived and were decades old.
You can't equate that to liberalism being dominant in your area. I come from a very liberal city in liberal state and those things are all around. Where you wont find them around here are in the mostly Red, affluent, ritzy suburb areas that have zoning laws against them and /or laws about community appearance that makes their design incompatible with the building codes for the towns.
If you don't have them I would surmise it's likely from zoning laws and community laws about them being there. Nothing to do with being liberal or conservative. So yeah, I would say y'all may be arguably a slightly bit elitist in that regard. However a little snoodiness and elitism isn't always a bad thing if it means keeping that crap from taking over your community. A strong pride in preserving the aesthetic, quality, and uniqueness of a town and community might be a little elitist, but that doesn't mean it's a bad thing or has to be anyways. Pride in preserving a community may come off that way to some extent. I'd say keep it up though, just be careful with it and keep it perspective.
We've got DQ and Applebee's, but that's it. We also have Target on the fringe of the city, and even though this city fought hard to prevent Target from coming here, gee, it's always extremely busy every time I go!
Gatorblu 