>anyone wants a walmart built right next to their house.

If given the choice almost no one wants anything right next to their house, they'd prefer a buffer area of nature. So that's not a Walmart or apartment building specific thing. Dude in the article is mad he's losing his nature buffer. If it was a ranch house being built there he'd still be pissed and complaining, but no one would care or quote him in an article.

Me, if somethings got to go next to where I live, I prefer the Walmart. At least it's useful to me and Walmart won't regularly drag heaps of trash into the open to burn on their lawn like multiple single family home-owners have done near me in the past...