Back in 2005, there were about 80 radio stations in the Chicago market, and Chicago Public Radio ranked dead last in the percentage of listeners who shopped at Walmart. Still, in the three months before this segment aired on May 16, 2005, 51% of Chicago Public Radio listeners had shopped at Walmart. So Worldview turned to Nelson Lichtenstein, a professor of history at the University of California, Santa Barbara, to ask: Is Walmart good for the U.S.? Lichtenstein argued that Walmart was setting the agenda for social policy throughout the United States — and not always in the most positive ways.

Special thanks to the WBEZ Archives Team for cataloging 25 years of Worldview and making this segment possible.