What we can learn from New Orleans' resistance to chain stores

Before I moved to New Orleans,  I saw this Facebook post by a high school friend who was already living down here. I quote:

            “Dear God, I just wanted to go to a mall where I could find a bra that made my         boobs look amazing for K----‘s party tonight, but New Orleans says nooooooo,        you need to go spend a ton of money at some lingerie boutique on Magazine.”

            There was something excited inside me when I saw this. And now that I’m here, I see what this girl was talking about. Mind you, buying a new bra for a party is never a large priority for me. But just yesterday I was taking a walk around Uptown and though I would treat myself to something delicious. I was Maple Street where there is (in a row on the same block) a PJ’s of New Orleans, an independent Patisserie, and a Starbucks. On a Saturday morning, many people were out for coffee and breakfast at all of these spots. I realized that I had walked for 50 minutes without stumbling upon a Starbucks. I use Starbucks as an example because its such a global monopoly of a coffee shop, but in Seattle it’s a local thing. The stereotype of there being a Starbucks on every corner is no joke people. But here in New Orleans, on that cloudy Saturday morning in November in the corner of Maple Street, Starbucks seemed like a deserted sad little outpost. Mind you, that day I went into the patisserie because it was making the whole street smell like butter, so how could I resist?

            I wonder what the rest of the country could learn from New Orleans’ resistance to chain stores and change in general. On a semi-related tangent of coffee I need to talk about the first time I tried chicory coffee here. To be frank, I thought I was drinking a cup of dirty water, but now I love it to pieces. I am being converted.