Sprawl and Small Business Over the past 15 years, I have watched my once-rural hometown of Washington Township transform into a maze of single-family housing developments and strip malls. This type of growth has not been kind to the local economy, especially small businesses. Stores such as the family-owned hardware store, a local mainstay for many decades, have been forced out of business by the construction of two Home Depots and a Lowe's within two miles of the town's main street. This downside of sprawl is a trend that has repeated itself nationwide in recent years. Mega chain stores, or big boxes, are a phenomenon that has spread across the country and has exploded in popularity in recent years. Contributing to this phenomenon are large chain stores, such as Home Depot, Wal-Mart, Lowe's, Target, Kmart and Best Buy. The success of these stores depended on the saturation of the retail market in the areas where they were built. For example, Wal-Mart's store placement strategy is such that in urban areas stores are placed within a 10-mile radius of each other, and a 30-mile radius is created in rural areas. (sprawl-busters.com/hometown.html) Store placement density may vary depending on the presence of competitors in the area. By saturating the market, these stores are weakening competition and making it virtually impossible for their smaller competitors to survive, or even start in a free market economy. In addition to their market dominance planning strategy, department stores have other attributes that are difficult to compete with. These attributes are attractive to the consumer, but come at a detrimental price… middle of paper… these mainstays are becoming a dying breed. While progress cannot be stopped, we must hope that ideas like urban centers can take hold and save our small businesses. References:1. http://www.sharbell.com/washington/washmain.htm: Sharbell is the developer who is building the downtown area of ​​Washington.2. http://www.sprawl-busters.com/hometown.html: “America's Hometown Fights Back.” “A Citizens' View of Home Depot: The Orange Wars.”3. www.reason.com/9505/NICKwalmart.may.shtml: “Do Wal-Mart and Home Depot spell the end of community?”4. www.nlcnet.org: website of the National Labor Committee.5. www.tradelocal.org/arts/wrongwal.html : “What's wrong with Wal-Mart?” 19996. www.lawmall.com/rpa/chap1.html: “Surviving the Mega-Store Invasion: The Impact of Mega-Retail Discount Chains on Urban, Suburban, and Rural Economies”