Now once again small towns are threatened with becoming desiccated islands cut off from the high precision magnificence of American retail. In some cases, they might even become “food deserts”, cut off even from reasonably priced grocery items. This includes not only small towns but some hard-luck suburbs near major cities.

No surprise then that some communities now resent Walmart for having essentially invaded Main Street, laid it to waste, and then abandoning it. Some places where Walmart have come in, such as Whitewright, Texas, a town of 1,600 in the northern reaches of the state, saw the retailer come in just last year, drive out of business some long-standing local stores, notably the long-time local grocery, and now, as part of its strategic change, leaving the town with little in the way of retail options.

Tales of “the Walmart effect” on small towns, of course, are legion. In exchange for access to more affordable goods, communities sacrificed much that was unique—the local haberdasher, the mom and pop mini-department stores, the one-of-a-kind hamburger joint. In the 40 years after the first Walmart opened in Rogers, Arkansas in 1962, the number of specialty retailers declined by 55 percent nationwide. In the same time period, the number of retail chain store locations , including Walmart, nearly doubled. Research conducted at Iowa State University in the ’90s found that, after a Walmart opened in a town, sales at specialty stores—sporting goods, jewelry, and gift shops—dropped by 17 percent within 10 years.

Yet, fortunately, this may not prove to be the disaster that many predict.