© Jim Young/Reuters The U.S. has added 10,000 of these budget retail outlets since 2001. But some towns and cities are trying to push back.
Editor’s note: This is how Dollar Tree arrived in Yelm, where Wal-Mart’s entry here knocked out QFC from this market, allowing Dollar Tree to enter in vacant QFC space.
“The dollar store backlash has begun”
“It has become an increasingly common story: A dollar store opens up in an economically depressed area with scarce healthy and affordable food options, sometimes with the help of local tax incentives. It advertises hard-to-beat low prices but it offers little in terms of fresh produce and nutritious items — further trapping residents in a cycle of poverty and ill-health.
“A recent research brief by the Institute of Local Self Reliance (ILSR), a nonprofit supporting local economies, sheds light on the massive growth of this budget enterprise. Since 2001, outlets of Dollar General and Dollar Tree (which bought Family Dollar in 2015) have grown from 20,000 to 30,000 in number. Though these “small-box” retailers carry only a limited stock of prepared foods, they’re now feeding more people than grocery chains like Whole Foods, which has around 400-plus outlets in the country. In fact, the number of dollar-store outlets nationwide exceeds that of Walmart and McDonald’s put together — and they’re still growing at a breakneck pace. That, ILSR says, is bad news,” by Tanvi Misra, CityLab .
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