“Buhler’s mayor, Daniel Friesen … understood why dying towns with no shops beyond the convenience store at the gas station welcomed Dollar General out of desperation for anything at all, like Burton, just up the road, where the last food shop closed 20 years ago. But Buhler had a high street with grocery and hardware stores, a busy cafe and a clothes shop. It had life. As Friesen saw it, Dollar General was not only a threat to all that but amounted to an admission his town was failing.” If the Dollar General Store is a sign a town is failing, then this stat is damn sobering. The chain is opening up new stores at the rate of three a day. Chris McGreal in The Guardian: Where even Walmart won’t go: how Dollar General took over rural America.