Prada at Wal-Mart?

"Dear God, what if Wal-Mart sold Manolo Blahniks in the shoe section? Or stocked copies of Dwell and the New York Review of Books in the magazine aisle?"

Ok, so honestly, the real reason I wanted to post this article is because the lede above is so super-awesome that I could not resist.

But the article does actually point to a real issue as well (imagine that!): as the NY Times has been insisting class matters. The Wal-Mart that appeals to lower and middle income families by selling cheap products in bulk is not going to be able to easily transform their market and appeal to higher-class consumers as well. People with money do not shop in the same stores as poorer people, they do not live in the same neighborhoods, or send their kids to the same schools.

And while that may not be the worst thing in the world (after all, a capitalist society is going to inherently have some sort of class gap), it's not necessarily a great thing that these two groups don't associate with each other at all. There's nothing wrong with some people having more money than others, but there is something wrong with people being segregated into categories based on that distinction.

So if it takes Wal-Mart selling Prada to integrate our society, well then let's all hope Wal-Mart figures out how to do it. And until then, that lede is still super-awesome...