The little town where my dad and stepmom lived before they died had only a cruddy Piggly Wiggly and a very limited food selec-tion at the Dollar Store in town. The PW eventually closed because it couldn't pass health inspection.
You had to drive about 45 minutes via mostly Interstate to get to a much larger town that had a Wal-Mart, a Kroger and a fairly large locally owned market. OR, you could drive about 20 minutes to a medium sized town that had a decent locally owned store, a small, but pretty nice gourmet upscale market with a cafe, and there were a couple of Dollar stores as well, with what they normally sell as far as food items. There were a lot of niche small businesses as well, clothing, pharmacy, jeweler, chotzkis, etc.
Well, Wal-Mart decided to buy some land for 1 of their smaller stores but with a grocery, and needed to get a zoning change in the medium sized town. The hue and cry that went up was unbelievable. Most of the townspeople were against it, but there were also a lot of people that wanted it. After a very contentious fight from what I was told, Wal-Mart gave up.