Talk:Centerville, Iowa

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[edit] Added to History re local retail

Last Dec I had added a sentence on the local retail economy in Centerville, Iowa, mentioning that many local shops had closed after the opening of a Wal-Mart on the edge of town. After a few months, this was deleted by a user IP logged as 69.66.231.1.

I still do think it's important to mention this change in the retail sector. That there has been a great change is unarguable. I grew up in this town as perhaps 66.69etc. did, and if so you may remember when the square still was a vibrant retail district with many locally owned stores selling household items, clothes, pharmaceuticals, hardware, toys, etc. It was sometimes hard to find a parking place on the "World's Largest Square". I have again written about this but I tried to make it a bit more positive in hopes of avoiding an edit war:

In the latter decades of the 20th century, Centerville, like many other small American towns, experienced a change in its retail economy as many long-established locally owned shops closed, due in large part to loss of business to large nationally owned retailers. Many of the former stores have been replaced by specialty gift shops and antique stores, catering to tourists as well as locals.

In case it was the specific mention of Wal-Mart that 69.66.231.1 objected to I did not yet include that name although I think it is important; no other company has affected the local economy to that degree. I will wait to see if there is a comment, and I hope another editor will not delete what I've added without first explaining here why this information should NOT be included in an encyclopedia article (as opposed to a Chamber of Commerce / local booster website.) Wichienmaat 19:43, 30 August 2007 (UTC)