Craigslist and Wal-Mart

Tim Redmond of the San Francisco Bay Guardian questions Craig Newmark's community-building schtick and says:

"When Craig comes to town (and he's coming to just about every town in the nation soon), the existing community institutions – say, the locally owned weekly newspaper – have a very hard time competing. In many ways, he's like a Wal-Mart – yeah, landlords get cheaper real estate ads, and consumers find some bargains, but the money all goes out of town. And he puts nothing back into the community: He doesn't, for example, hire reporters or serve as a community watchdog."

Put that together with this. Driving home the other night I heard a statistic on NPR: More than 50 percent of all adult Americans shop at Wal-Mart at least once a week.

(Thanks to Romenesko.)