Originally Posted by plainpat
It's interesting that most of you seem to have a lot of local stores to support.Maybe it's the area of the country we live in.
The hardware store is Lowes,the 3 groceries are all big chains,the only clothing stores left are Sears,Penneys & Walmart.Shoe stores, all chains, ditto for toy & card shops.Ditto for coffee & dougnut shops.We have a lot of chain restaurants & chain banks.Even the several rest homes are owned buy a big company of Drs.
That leaves almost nothing left in our small town to support.There's almost no choice left in peoples daily lives.Just a fact of life.
I live in a suburb of Houston ... we are lucky to have 3 nice LQS within 10-15 mi. Plus about a dozen others located all around Houston, 30-60 mi from me, so not exactly local. We have a lot of local businesses, retail, restaurants, shops etc. All the big box chains too, but a lot of smaller biz do well. I know the economy here in Texas is healthier than most, including MI.