Wal-Mart's Low Prices Are No Bargain

Wal-Mart, which has grown so big so fast that many scholars now regard the company as the newest signature of American capitalism, wants to build 10 “supercenters” in Michigan this year, part of a national campaign to add 300 more stores and 50 million square feet of retail space in the United States, or roughly enough to cover two square miles under one roof.But the aggressive bid to accelerate what has been an astonishing two-decade-old colonization of suburban and rural retail and grocery markets in Michigan and nationwide is facing surprisingly stiff resistance in big and small towns alike, including in Charlevoix, a northern Lake Michigan resort city of 3,000 people.