How the west was Walmart-icized!

The LA Times ran a piece today detailing Walmart's battle to enter the market in California, specifically Los Angeles. Thanks to Hugh for the original link. He discusses the usual suspects and their usual objections:

But the media loves to hate the giant retailer, and local small businesses always put up a predictable cry.

Once again high-volume, low-price retailing is about to sink western civilization. I've discussed this more than once and I can see the reason that some in Small-town, USA might in fact not welcome Walmart. Retail in such small burgs consists of the classic ma & pa market, Joe's hardware and the local pharmacy. In such cases, a successful Walmart operation can in fact pose a competitive risk to these operations. I do not, however, understand those arguments applied to cities like Los Angeles or even where I live, in Phoenix.

Why? Because Walmart will not do anything to ma & pa retailer that the grocery, pharmacy and hardware/home improvement and other chains already in the market aren't doing. For example, aside from a number of ethnic markets there are no independent grocers in this city (the closest thing is Basha's which operates exclusively in the state of Arizona). I know of no such "local" pharmacies or hardware stores currently operating or driven out of the market in the last several years either.

There are 3 super-markets within 2 miles of my house. There are 2 Walgreens pharmacies within 2 miles of my home. There are several Ace Hardware stores within about 5 miles of my home, as well as a Home Depot just one mile down the freeway. Add to this the four separate Walmart operations (Walmart store, Supercenter, Sam's Club and Neighborhood Market) that are all within about 3 miles of my home to the West, South and East.

So my point? In a city of 1.5 million, there are plenty of consumers around, all ably supporting numerous grocery chains, pharmacies, hardware stores and the like. Surely there exist enough such consumers available in a city of more than twice that size?