美国国家公共电台 NPR How Dollar General Is Transforming Rural America

 

STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

Now we have a story of a brick-and-mortar retailer² that is succeeding. The Internet is hammering many, of course, but with some exceptions, independent bookstores have seen growing sales. And then there's Dollar General, thriving in rural communities. Frank Morris reports from our member station KCUR.

FRANK MORRIS, BYLINE³: The last grocery store in Cawker City, Kan., closed a few years ago, leaving folks here six miles from the nearest place to buy food. But things are looking up.

UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #1: Nine-fourteen, please.

MORRIS: Linda Clover says this new Dollar General offers sustenance⁴, household goods and companionship.

LINDA CLOVER: It's a place where you go and see your friends and people from other towns around. Everyone calls it the Cawker City mall (laughter).

MORRIS: If you've never been to one, Dollar Generals are basically little discount stores stuffed with inexpensive items. It's the biggest of the so-called dollar-store chains, and Chris Merrett, who heads the Illinois Institute for Rural Affairs, says it's the one transforming the rural landscape.

CHRIS MERRETT: For many communities, it's the first new commercial investment in many years, and it represents progress of a sort.

MORRIS: Dollar General is set to open a thousand stores this year, pushing its total past 14,000 more outlets⁵ than McDonald's has in the U.S. That includes plenty of urban locations, but the chain's bright yellow-and-black signs have sprouted⁶ every 10 miles or so along some remote state highways. Dollar General got its start in small-town Kentucky, so, like Walmart, it's got rural DNA⁷. And Al Cross, who runs the Institute for Rural Journalism⁸ at the University of Kentucky, says Dollar General competes with the world's largest retailer on price and convenience.

AL CROSS: They serve a big part of the country that Walmart doesn't serve directly. You have to maybe drive 20 miles to get to a Walmart. You might only have to drive five miles to get to a Dollar General.

MORRIS: Dollar General refused to comment for this story. But retail¹ analyst⁹ Mike Paglia says the chain succeeds by selling everyday items at recession-era prices.

MIKE PAGLIA: In a lot of rural areas, times are still very, very difficult, and a lot of shoppers are still struggling to get by.

MORRIS: Even before the recession, it was tough to run a store in rural America.

KENT BAKER¹⁰: Half the grocery stores in Iowa closed between the years of 1995 to 2005. Half of the grocery stores in this state closed.

MORRIS: Kent Baker publishes the weekly paper in tiny Moville, Iowa. His front windows look across Main Street at a block of empty buildings. But when Moville lost its grocery store, townspeople fought back, donating $600,000 worth of cash and property to build a new one.

UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #2: Five-thirty-five.

MORRIS: Chet Davis manages Chet's Foods.

CHET DAVIS: We were doing real well. We were making a profit, and we were keeping our customers satisfied. And then in come Dollar General.

MORRIS: Right next to the grocery store. Davis saw his sales plunge¹¹. He may have to close, though this store does have devoted¹² customers like Brian Paulsen. He's buying frozen pizzas and likely paying more than he would next door because he wants to support this store.

BRIAN PAULSEN: So use it or lose it. It's like all the rest of the small towns. They never use theirs and theirs are gone, and I'd rather come here than Dollar General.

MORRIS: But even Kent Baker, who helped save the grocery store here, admits that Dollar General offers items that people haven't been able to buy in this town for decades. And ultimately, it's consumers who will decide whether all that Dollar General brings to rural America is worth what it likely takes away. For NPR News, I'm Frank Morris in Moville, Iowa.

1 retail   

v./n.零售；adv.以零售价格

参考例句：

• In this shop they retail tobacco and sweets.这家铺子零售香烟和糖果。
• These shoes retail at 10 yuan a pair.这些鞋子零卖10元一双。

2 retailer   

n.零售商(人)

参考例句：

• What are the retailer requirements?零售商会有哪些要求呢？
• The retailer has assembled a team in Shanghai to examine the question.这家零售商在上海组建了一支团队研究这个问题。

3 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

4 sustenance   

n.食物，粮食；生活资料；生计

参考例句：

• We derive our sustenance from the land.我们从土地获取食物。
• The urban homeless are often in desperate need of sustenance.城市里无家可归的人极其需要食物来维持生命。

5 outlets   

n.出口( outlet的名词复数 )；经销店；插座；廉价经销店

参考例句：

• The dumping of foreign cotton blocked outlets for locally grown cotton. 外国棉花的倾销阻滞了当地生产的棉花的销路。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• They must find outlets for their products. 他们必须为自己的产品寻找出路。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

6 sprouted   

v.发芽( sprout的过去式和过去分词 )；抽芽；出现；（使）涌现出

参考例句：

• We can't use these potatoes; they've all sprouted. 这些土豆儿不能吃了，都出芽了。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The rice seeds have sprouted. 稻种已经出芽了。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

7 DNA   

(缩)deoxyribonucleic acid 脱氧核糖核酸

参考例句：

• DNA is stored in the nucleus of a cell.脱氧核糖核酸储存于细胞的细胞核里。
• Gene mutations are alterations in the DNA code.基因突变是指DNA密码的改变。

8 journalism   

n.新闻工作，报业

参考例句：

• He's a teacher but he does some journalism on the side.他是教师，可还兼职做一些新闻工作。
• He had an aptitude for journalism.他有从事新闻工作的才能。

9 analyst   

n.分析家，化验员；心理分析学家

参考例句：

• What can you contribute to the position of a market analyst?你有什么技能可有助于市场分析员的职务？
• The analyst is required to interpolate values between standards.分析人员需要在这些标准中插入一些值。

10 baker   

n.面包师

参考例句：

• The baker bakes his bread in the bakery.面包师在面包房内烤面包。
• The baker frosted the cake with a mixture of sugar and whites of eggs.面包师在蛋糕上撒了一层白糖和蛋清的混合料。

11 plunge   

v.跳入，(使)投入，(使)陷入；猛冲

参考例句：

• Test pool's water temperature before you plunge in.在你跳入之前你应该测试水温。
• That would plunge them in the broil of the two countries.那将会使他们陷入这两国的争斗之中。

12 devoted   

adj.忠诚的，忠实的，热心的，献身于...的

参考例句：

• He devoted his life to the educational cause of the motherland.他为祖国的教育事业贡献了一生。
• We devoted a lengthy and full discussion to this topic.我们对这个题目进行了长时间的充分讨论。