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Comment by mark_l_watson | Hacker News Reader

Thanks for the 95% closing stat being stores that are close together. My wife and I live in a small town in the mountains of Central Arizona and we have a Walmart store in the closest big town (60K population) that is just a 20 minute drive. We both like and rely on that store. There are no other Walmart stores within about 60 miles of that one, so hopefully it is safe. This store is a major employer in the area. It would be a bummer if those already marginalized workers lost their jobs.

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"Just" a 20 min drive.

That statmeent is the reason every bricks & mortar European retailer has failed in the US. Very interesting.

What? There are plenty of European retailers that do well in the US... IKEA, H&M, Zara, etc.

I live in Vancouver BC. To my knowledge, we don't have a Walmart within the city, the nearest location to downtown being in North Van, a suburb located across the Burrard Inlet and certainly more than 20 mins by car from downtown. 20 minutes ain't too bad.

There's a list of stores closing on their press release. None of them are in Arizona so I think you're fine.

Press release - https://news.walmart.com/news-archive/2016/01/15/walmart-con...

Closure map - https://i.imgur.com/jTgNt21.jpg

Payson by chance? Still blows my mind that Prescott/PV have 3 walmarts.

No, we live in Sedona and drive to the Cottonwood store.

  >> It would be a bummer if those already marginalized workers lost their jobs.

Unless people on average switch to buying more on-line, the local job market should just switch to different stores.

Not sure why this is a controversial statement.

Walmart is often critized for hurting local jobs - replacing successful independant business owners with lower-paid employee jobs. If this is true, Walmart leaving an area should be (at worst) job-neutral.

If Wal-Mart were to close more than just the "Express" stores, it would take a while for those local businesses to reestablish themselves and start hiring. It wouldn't likely be job neutral for a long time and in some areas might just permanently disrupt the community.

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