Triumph of the chain stores

Perhaps spurred by holiday nostalgia, I was browsing through James Lileks' ode to his old hometown the other night.
Which conveniently primed me to take note of this profile of an old-time Milwaukee department store which has survived the onslaught of the big chains (though its future ain't exactly bright). Here are the grim stats:

In 1993, there were 281 single-location department stores, with collective sales of $533.6 million, in the United States; as of July of this year, there were just 53 left

Damn, that's in the whole country! Just one more thing to make you feel really old.

Posted by David on December 25, 2002 9:12 PM