Watching the Growth of Walmart Across America

Beautiful (and scary at the same time) visualization of the growth of Walmart from 1962 through 2007. It’s like a virus that spreads across our country. Compare the Walmart viz with another Nathan just posted for Target today. From Nathan’s post describing the Target work:

You might guess that Target and Walmart expanded similarly (I did, at least), but you’d be wrong. Both started in Central United States, and both were officially founded in 1962 by two men who both owned stores under a different name before the Target and Walmart boom. However, besides more rapid growth, Walmart first expanded outwards from its home state before going country-wide while Target seems to have gone wherever opportunity knocked…