Dollar General, Dollar Tree and Family Dollar (now owned by Dollar Tree) are the three biggest dollar stores in their industry. Between them they have approximately 33,000 stores across the United States. Julia McCarthy, of Columbia University, notes on grow.acorns.com: "There are more dollar stores than the top 10 grocery chains in the country combined…more than half of the U.S. population lives within a five-minute drive of a Dollar General." Clearly, since their start in 1939, 1959, and 1986, respectively, the big three have found their appeal to many U.S. consumers by being accessible with a wide selection of cheap consumable products. On the one hand, according to John Strong (College of William & Mary) on grow.acorns.com, dollar stores "fill a need in providing value in markets that have been historically underserved: rural America, inner cities, poorer suburbs, and metro fringe areas." On the other hand, as argued out by the Institute For Local Reliance in their fact sheet, dollar stores "are not merely a byproduct of economic distress. They're a cause of it. In small towns and urban neighborhoods alike, dollar stores are triggering the closure of grocery stores, eliminating jobs, and further eroding the prospects of the vulnerable communities they target."

With this project we attempt to help you visualize, in 3 interactive maps, the presence of the big three dollar stores in the United States from the beginning to the end of the Great Recession (2008-2017). Our first map illustrates the increase in the number of the three chain stores in 45 metropolitan areas. The second map illustrates the change in the number of stores per 100,000 people in each of the US states. Our third and final map allows the user to choose one of 5 basemaps as a geographic indicator of underserved populations and see how that relates to the number of stores in US states and counties.

Sources:
Becker, Sam, Acorns - "Even 'middle-class customers ..." (2019)
County Health Rankings (2017)
Institute for Local Self-Reliance - "Dollar Stores" (2019)
Institute for Local Self-Reliance Fact Sheet (2018)
Shannon, Jerry - National database of SNAP authorized retailers, 2008 - 2020
Scientific American - "High and Dry in the Food Desert" (2012)
US Census Bureau
US Department of Agriculture Economic Research Service

Created by Michael Hasinoff, Cherie Bryant, and Nicholas Roberge.