Stop and think: how many Walmarts are within 30 minutes of your house?  Two? Three?  More?  How about Sam’s Club?

Whether you love, hate, or simply tolerate America’s favorite department store, you’ll find the following video fascinating.  It’s an animated time-series showing Walmart’s evolution since it was founded in 1962.  This graphic has made the rounds before, but now it contains Sam’s Club data points and an amazingly zoom-able map.

I’ll make no commentary on the societal or ethical impacts of Walmart’s incendiary growth, other than to point out the implications for urban and suburban sprawl and our seemingly universal desire for low-cost “stuff.”

via FlowingData

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