Its really quite amusing to me, this whole deal with Target closing their midtown store here in Omaha as they open a new one down the street 30 blocks west. The neighborhood is organizing a petition to convince Target not to close the store. For those of you not up on the news, or not from Omaha, here's the story:
Target has a store on Saddle Creek Road, roughly 50th and Dodge, which is right about in the middle of Omaha's traditional city boundary. Its the only "big box" discount retailer (Target, Wal-Mart, K-Mart, Shop-Ko, et al) in the entire eastern half of the city -- east of 72nd street. Every other store of this kind is west of 72nd. That in and of itself is amusing to me; its well known that midtown and downtown retail is dominated by locally owned businesses. From restaurants to shops, you'll be hard pressed to find a chain of any kind east of 72nd street. There's one or two McDonalds, but that's about it.
So the population east of 72nd all shops at this one Target. You get everything from college students to doctors to middle class folks. Outsiders, and even some people in the neighborhood, derisively refer to it as "Targhetto". Its not the nicest store, but its theirs, dammit. So the thought of not having the store is dreadful. Worth fighting for, even.
Yep. While neighborhoods fight to keep Wal-Mart out, going to court or to the polls to stop them, people fight just as hard to keep Target in. Am I the only one amused by this?
Of course, this just proves my point that Target is the greatest retailer ever, and Wal-Mart just sucks. I hate Wal-Mart. I'm not going to get into their business practices and how they singlehandedly drive working conditions in third-world countries to below poverty levels, because that's a serious subject that I have no intent on defending or delving into. More Kadavy's style...
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