You’re right of course; we can only do so much and we’re not going to fix this anytime soon acting as independent consumers. I recognize that large parts of the country don’t have many options; the families-with-more-kids-than-money demographic is exactly who Wal-Mart and other megastores are targetting and most of these folks will continue to shop there because it’s all they know and all they can afford.

With that in mind, though, I think there’s still a difference to be made. Though it may sound a bit elitist, as far as the ability of consumers to affect the market goes, I tend to think of suburban America as mostly a lost cause. Big-box stores are as much a part of the suburban landscape as fast food and strip malls. This is Wal-Mart country and it’s likely to continue to be that way for quite a while, despite what liberal jerks like me write online. I think you’ll agree though that the situation in densely populated metropolitan areas can be very different – the more dense the population, the easier it becomes for independent and niche markets to grow and thrive, and the more the local marketplace will tend to reflect the tastes and sensibilities of the local residents. You’ll still have poor neighborhoods in densely populated areas of course, but even there, you’re likely to see a more diverse range of places to shop, including local mom-and-pop shops and farmers markets, within relatively easy access. (At least as easy as the megastores, who aren’t generally represented well in poor urban areas anyway – they tend to gravitate toward the land of the huge parking lot and convenient expressway access.) And pricing isn’t always as big an issue as it seems. It’s true that you can buy in bulk at megastores and spend less than you would at a local supermarket, but the differences between a local supermarket and (say) a Trader Joe’s or Whole Foods aren’t always that dramatic, especially where staples like fruits, vegetables, canned goods, and cereals are concerned. (I’ve been poor and living off Jewel, and poor and living off Trader Joe’s, and my dollars went just as far at TJs. Farther, even, since some of the less expensive things at Jewel scare me off, but I trust TJ’s product selection enough to explore their lower range.)

So I guess I’m mainly preaching to the choir, but there are still a lot of otherwise reasonable and intelligent consumers who are right on the line between the two markets, who could shop at megastores but who do have alternatives available, and as they begin to shop smarter, we can take more ground back from the Wal-Marts and give it to more progressive markets. We can’t fix everything, especially overnight, but every dollar that goes into a Wal-Mart’s till contributes to the problem, and every dollar that goes into a local alternative’s till contributes to the solution, right? It’s the perennial problem we face everywhere else, from recycling to conservation to even just picking up trash from the sidewalk. If every individual in America managed to completely eliminate their personal contribution to pollution, it’d be hardly a drop in the bucket compared to the environmental impact of the factories, refineries, agriculture, and everything else outside of our individual control. But we still recycle/reduce/reuse because it’s all we can do. Our individual votes are mostly meaningless because of the vagaries of the electoral system and corruption across the board, and in solid red or blue states the minority block makes no impact at all, but we vote anyway because it’s all we can do. I agree that ultimately the problem may not be solved on the consumer level, but the consumer level is all we can influence, so – that’s what I’m hoping to do.