Western Montana ‘Mom and Pops’ get creative to play with big-boxes

Pat Nichols looks up and down Main Street Mineral County, looks at the vacant storefronts – so many missing teeth in what would be an otherwise attractive smile – and ponders hard on how to keep local business local.

"If you want to see your neighbors," she said, "you go to Costco in Missoula because they’re all there."

The president of the Mineral County Chamber of Commerce is not alone in her Main Street lament. A report released in 2000 by the Center for Applied Economic Research at Montana State University-Billings concluded that big-box stores in metro retail trade centers have a "strong impact on employment rates, sales and the environment of small towns. ‘Main Street America’ and ‘Mom and Pop’ stores are slowly becoming a thing of the past."

By MICHAEL JAMISON of the Missoulian

Full Story: http://missoulian.com/articles/2005/06/28/news/mtregional/news06.txt

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The Main Street Program from the National Trust http://www.mainstreet.org/

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