Pavel314 wrote:
I just ran a search on the Yahoo! Yellow Pages and found that there
are seven Lowe's stores within 15 miles of my house, three of which
are within seven miles. For Home Depot, there are nine within 15
miles, and again, three are within seven miles.

It seems to me that they may have over-extended in the good years,
trying to saturate an area by building many stores to capture the
market. Now that things are tightening up, they're trimming the dead
wood.

Conversely, they may all be booming to accommodate those who are DIYing
rather than hiring contractors or dumping their dump and buying a new home.

It used to be said that in tough times the two businesses that do well are
religious bookstores and shoe repair. The former for hope and the latter
because it's too expensive to change.