A Wal-Mart Becomes a Lifeline

Business Week has a good story on how Wal-Mart is the place in Columbia,Miss.:

While Wal-Mart's corporate relief effort enters overdrive -- the Bentonville (Ark.) giant says it's donating $17 million to Katrina relief and handing out free merchandise across the Gulf Coast -- the rebound in Columbia is, in many ways, a more revealing story. It's a little lesson in what oft-maligned Wal-Mart can, sometimes, mean to communities. To the 6,500 people of Columbia, a quiet place where annual income averages $20,000, it's a lifeline. "Wal-Mart's the place," says Cheryl Jacobs, a Columbia resident who found herself without power or water after the storm.