This is just plain wrong. Not to far from where I live, there's a Walmart and a Target in the same shopping center. There's a huge, clear difference in shopping between the two. The clientele at Target is clearly more affluent, the store is cleaner and nicer, the carts are nicer and roll silently unlike the beat-up squeaky Walmart ones, I could go on and on. It has nothing to do with "permits" or NIMBY when the two stores are almost right next to each other. I've seen this in other places as well where Walmart and Target were not very far apart.
As for "incidents" with shoppers, I'm not sure what you're talking about there.
Appreciate the counter-anecdote. There is definitely some individual variance between locations depending on local management, overall demographic factors, etc. It wasn't my intention to suggest that every Walmart and every Target are always equally desirable shopping experiences. The main idea is that except in places where Walmart is specifically artificially constrained, it's just as likely to have a bad store or a good store as the next massive conglomerate. :)
As for "incidents" with shoppers, I'm not sure what you're talking about there.