I’ve been gone the last two days, so I am only now able to respond to Drew’s post yesterday on Wal-Mart and it’s Inglewood, Calif. referendum loss.
Drew wonders how many Inglewood residents who voted against the measure(Inglewood, although seemingly located in the heart of Los Angeles, is a separately-incorporated city — home of all of L.A.’s winter professional sports teams!) shop at other Wal-Mart locations that are within 50 miles of Inglewood. My guess is: very few.
I used to live there (I moved to North Carolina in late 1995), and to travel anywhere beyond a few miles (less than 10, I would say) is extremely undesirable. A 50 mile radius is way too large. If you look at the map that Drew links, the only store that probably gets any business from Inglewood residents is the #1 listed in L.A., which is three miles away. All the others — 12 miles away or further — believe it or not are too far away. I could go into the reasons why, which would bore you, but basically the traffic and geographical hurdles are huge. But I believe there are economical reasons for Inglewood residents not to travel that far also — it is a largely poor, black community and most are likely to shop close by.
Also, the Inglewood store was to be constructed as a Supercenter with a full grocery section, which all the stores listed on Drew’s map are not. Wal-Mart’s goal is to infiltrate California more with its Supercenters and to take away supermarket share there.
Wal-Mart has had a tough time of it in L.A. When we lived there they were nowhere to be found. Target dominated the discount department store market. We lived in the San Fernando Valley, which is within the L.A. city limits but above the Santa Monica Mountains — a huge obstacle for those south of the mountains. The only store in the Valley, in Panorama City on Drew’s map, was not there when we left. That area is so densely populated that I believe Wal-Mart could easily place 10 to 12 stores there and still be underserving the market. No wonder Wal-Mart, after ceding customers to Target for so many years, is beginning to fight hard for L.A. and California overall.
