It feels like eons ago, but there was a time when liberals would shriek if a new Walmart planned to come to their area. Now, ironically, they are shrieking because the Walmarts are leaving.
Store closings are not necessarily rare; we found 160 in the past couple of years. A retailer with 5,000 stores across the nation has to be flexible and go where the business is. But there is a revealing pattern. In the suburbs of Chicago, three underperforming stores will close almost simultaneously. The company declined to give specifics to local media, but this is a reminder of the Chicago area’s decadelong decline. Its population and tax base have been shrinking for nine straight years. Crime has soared, too, in part because the area is close to adopting universal no-cash bail and making it impossible for police to enforce the law against thieves. Businesses don’t like that.
