oldbones - 3/9/2014 19:04

Pokey-
Agree, and will add this.
Small towns (I'm talking under 1000 pop) can't survive without retail businesses- grocery stores, gas stations, auto and implement dealers, drug store, lumberyard, hardware store, and others. But they have to be cheaper than the neighboring towns, normally bigger towns that have chain stores, shopping centers, and mega-dealers. They can't compete at the same prices as the bigger towns, as they don't have the volume, so they have to have higher prices to keep the doors open.
Read most any post on here pertaining to pricing of anything, and you'll see the problem. Dealer A is higher than dealer B, who is an hour or ten away. So we'll go to dealer B, but expect dealer A to keep his doors open in case we might have forgotten a part from B. Or the internet store (that doesn't pay taxes in our town, county, or state) can't get it out to us in the next hour, so we want A to be there to help us. Small town businesses can't win, so they just close up the store. Been going on for decades, and not going to quit. People are too mobile now for small towns to survive. Just a modern fact of life. Small towns (around rural Iowa, anyway) within 30 miles of a larger town are just "bedroom towns"- people work in the big towns, but want to live outside the city, and it's only a half hour drive to work.
Then, it's easy to stop on the way home and pick up a gallon of milk, etc. And, hey, my tank's on half so I'll stop at the chain type convenience gas station and fill up, 'cause gas is 2 cents cheaper than home. Soon, the local gas station will close. Even though the owner donated money to the local school and other organization fundraisers for years, his gas is still a couple of cents higher, so...............
Vicious circle.
just my 2 cents