From the article regarding Walmart opening effects on a community: "the unemployment rate goes up, the voter-participation rate and the PTA-participation rate go down, the infant-mortality rate goes up and the pollution rate goes up, because people are driving farther and spending more time on the road than if they were going to a local mom-and-pop store"

Does anyone have sources for the above claims? My cursory research on the interwebs cannot confirm them. To my skeptical ear they sound like agenda driven hand-wavery, but I have an open mind.