There Goes the Neighborhood.

It's official. Walmart is coming to Albany.
Maybe the impact won't be as bad as I fear- after all, many businesses have already gone under. Off the top of my head, in the past couple of years, we have lost:
(GI) Joes, Gottschalk's, two furniture stores (they really DID go out of business), two new car dealerships, Big Lots, Mattress Land, Washington Mutual, Napa auto parts, and countless small salons, restaturants, and coffee stands.
I suspect that the grocery department will have the biggest impact. Albany has two discount grocery stores: Mega Foods, formerly ShopNKart, and Save A Lot. Mega Foods has carved out the Mexican foods niche in town, so maybe that business will keep them afloat... but I don't know.
What will I buy at Walmart? Yarn. Albany suffers from a terrible lack of yarn. My choices are Joann fabrics, which never has enough of the color I need, or Fred Meyer, which never has any yarn I like. The Walmart in Lebanon has 2 aisles of yarn. If they bring selection like that to Albany, I won't be able to resist.