I am Jackson resident, married with two children, and I would not want to live anywhere else. I am also not one of those Jackson residents that bash the suburbs, simply for the sake of bashing the suburbs. People have different needs, values, expectations, and desires and I believe the suburbs provide a viable product for those that chose to live there.
Having said that, many suburban areas throughout the United States are completely ignoring a very real shift in housing demand. These areas, which are already largely overbuilt, are continuing to allow new construction at an alarming rate. There is a considerable amount of research and census data that shows the number of people moving into the suburbs is actually decreasing for the first time in 50 years. (See the below article.)
http://www.nwitimes.com/lifestyles/...cle_06860ab0-ef92-5c44-a05a-ef5aafef0143.html
Also, there is a signficaint shift in how and where people shop. Massive strip centers largely populated by big box retail are becomming a thing of the past. While many suburban areas fought for years to attract this type of development, few are doing anything to consider what will happen when a big box retailer soon will only need a couple of thousand s/f as opposed to 30,000 to 125,000 s/f.
As to the question of whether Jackson has a Wal Mart, I believe there is one on Highway 18 heading towards Raymond that is technically in the city limits. However, let's not necessarily hang our prosperity hat on the presence of a Wal Mart.
A study undertaken by the Penn State Center for Economic and Community Development found: The presence of a Wal-Mart store hinders a community’s ability to move families out of poverty. After controlling for other factors that influence poverty rates, the study found that U.S. counties that had more Wal-Mart stores in 1987 had a higher poverty rate in 1999 than did counties that started the period with fewer or no Wal-Mart stores. The study also found that counties that added Wal-Mart stores between 1987 and 1998 experienced higher poverty rates and greater usage of food stamps than counties where Wal-Mart did not build, all other things being equal. Although the study does not attempt to draw a conclusion about why Wal-Mart expands poverty, the study’s authors suggest several possible factors, including a loss of social capital that occurs when locally owned businesses close and the shift from comparatively better paying jobs at independent retailers to lower paying jobs at Wal-Mart.
