Unjust Deserts
City Journal,
by
Steven Malanga
Original Article
Posted By: Pluperfect,
1/4/2020 5:03:33 AM
About 20 years ago, academic researchers began describing poor urban neighborhoods without supermarkets as “food deserts.” The term captured the attention of elected officials, activists, and the media. They mapped these nutritional wastelands, blamed them on the rise of suburban shopping centers and the decline of mass transit, linked them to chronic health problems suffered by the poor, and encouraged government subsidies to lure food stores to these communities. Despite these efforts, which led to hundreds of new stores opening around the country, community health outcomes haven’t changed significantly, and activists think that they know why. The culprits, they say, are the dollar-discount stores in poor neighborhoods that—
Reply 1 - Posted by:
chumley 1/4/2020 6:04:34 AM (No. 278261)
I've seen quite a few articles that disagree. Grocery stores leave these "urban poor neighborhoods" not because of cheap dollar stores. They leave because of unchecked shoplifting and robbery. Profit margins are not high in good circumstances. When one has to pay for bulletproof glass, camera arrays, loss prevention people, unreliable employees from "the hood", and suffer the losses from theft and robbery, it aint worth it.
The purpose of business is to make money. When that's not happening, you must close down and go elsewhere.
50 people like this.
Reply 2 - Posted by:
F15 Gork 1/4/2020 6:09:06 AM (No. 278262)
In short, “We are the gubmint and we know what’s good for you”
14 people like this.
Reply 3 - Posted by:
jeffkinnh 1/4/2020 6:15:23 AM (No. 278266)
"Combatting the ill effects of a bad diet involves educating people to change their eating habits. That’s a more complicated project ..."
It also places the blame on the people who are not eating well. We can't have a personal responsibility solution, the dems don't want and can't sell that. Plus, as the article suggests, fixes that require personal change are hard for liberals to implement, don't have glitzy optics, and you can't blame "big nasty business".
The one thing about business, if there is a good (and safe per #1) market, they will come. And they will sell the customer what the customer wants.
14 people like this.
Reply 4 - Posted by:
HammerDax56 1/4/2020 6:55:04 AM (No. 278275)
Really flawed reasoning! The availability of fresh produce is exponentially higher than ever and so is obesity. I was raised in pre- food stamp America and morbidly obese people were as rare as fresh radicchio. This is total Marxist communist drivel.
You can grow your own vegetables you know.
17 people like this.
Reply 5 - Posted by:
udanja99 1/4/2020 7:05:04 AM (No. 278283)
You can build all the supermarkets you want in bad neighborhoods, and even if they don’t get robbed blind, they can’t force people to eat what they don’t want to eat.
The “poor” gave up personal responsibility (of any kind) when they moved back onto the demonrat plantation.
18 people like this.
Reply 6 - Posted by:
Bur Oak 1/4/2020 7:55:39 AM (No. 278325)
What the left would like to see are government run kitchens to control what and how much the people eat because they know what's best.
10 people like this.
Reply 7 - Posted by:
southernboy 1/4/2020 8:06:58 AM (No. 278333)
If the store doesn't sell chicken it doesn't have any customers!
4 people like this.
Reply 8 - Posted by:
Daisymay 1/4/2020 8:08:33 AM (No. 278335)
What a bunch of Baloney. Why pick on the Dollar Stores, they have nothing to do with what people eat. They, in fact, they allow the poor to come into their stores and buy much need things like laundry soap, shampoo, toilet paper and on and on. Yes, they do carry some frozen food, canned foods and fresh foods. But the people are the ones who determine what they buy! I live in a huge senior community in Florida. The people here are not poor, and mostly not Black. But, the Dollar Tree is flourishing. New ones are being built in this community because Seniors know a good deal when they see one. I always buy fresh bread if I'm in their store because it's the great bread and it's $1 as opposed to Publix where it's over $3! I buy all of my gift bags, tissue, paper products and I love their Plastic storage containers and glass products. If I'm entertaining and I need a few more glasses or dessert plates, Dollar Tree is my store! Don't make it sound like Dollar Tree is dragging down inner city areas, they're not. It's the people who live there who abuse the stores that are the problem.
27 people like this.
Reply 9 - Posted by:
TennDon 1/4/2020 8:23:51 AM (No. 278348)
#1 is right on the mark, but, as is equally true...
Leftist-Libtards gonna libtard — it’s what they do.
7 people like this.
Reply 10 - Posted by:
Newtsche 1/4/2020 8:23:55 AM (No. 278349)
A mostly dishonest and schizo article filled with bad thinking and misdirection.
9 people like this.
Reply 11 - Posted by:
BirdsNest 1/4/2020 8:45:36 AM (No. 278379)
I buy a lot of items in the dollar stores, but rarely do I buy their frozen items. So many are from China, India,etc. If the store is selling it for $1, and it has been ahipoed,frozen, in a container onboard a ship, how much did that item cost to produce? Plus I refuse to eat any food from China.
4 people like this.
Reply 12 - Posted by:
DARling 1/4/2020 9:15:29 AM (No. 278418)
They should be happy any company would build a store in crime-ridden pesthole where the "customers" rob you blind.
Bring back the original food stamps requirements, such as buying actual groceries instead of fast food. It is lunacy to allow government money for purchases at Jack in the Box. You can buy canned goods, pasta and mixes at Dollar Tree. Healthier than a burger and fries.
12 people like this.
Reply 13 - Posted by:
ROLFNader 1/4/2020 9:38:47 AM (No. 278445)
Agree with #12. In fact, we should go back to the commodity food program - good ol' gubmint surplus. Those that honestly cannot find honest work will be glad to have it . But I suppose some would still figure out a way to trade it for drugs.
9 people like this.
Reply 14 - Posted by:
qr4j 1/4/2020 10:06:05 AM (No. 278477)
Much of the food desert problem is the result of theft and abuse. No store is going to stay in business for long if it is getting robbed all the time and its facilities are being damaged. And stores that catch and try to prosecute the perps are often deemed racist. If I’m a grocer, why would I even bother?
The government should stop subsidizing junk food and fast food.
The problem of food deserts may be real. But the government is not the solution.
8 people like this.
Reply 15 - Posted by:
jacksin5 1/4/2020 10:17:16 AM (No. 278489)
Now that armed robbers do not shy away from killing the store clerks, most Mom and Pop stores have left out of fear of becoming another shooting victim.
As for dollar stores, the elderly love them due to the fact that a lot of the food they sell is in single serving size. My SIL, who was buried in medical bills, but only received 34 dollars in food stamps, called these stores a life-saver.
6 people like this.
Reply 16 - Posted by:
Salt5792 1/4/2020 10:55:03 AM (No. 278547)
Actually, obesity is the most serious problem.
3 people like this.
Reply 17 - Posted by:
cor-vet 1/4/2020 11:30:29 AM (No. 278584)
I don't care how carefully you plan your diet, if you weigh 300# and look like sausage stuffed in a tube, while you strut around in your stretched to the max leggings, your getting enough to eat. As many of the above posters said, you can't make them eat what they don't want to eat. In this age of computer store inventorying, grocery packaging could be bar coded to only allow food staples that need to be prepared, not ready to microwave and eat.
5 people like this.
Reply 18 - Posted by:
mc squared 1/4/2020 11:42:44 AM (No. 278601)
#7; But we wouldn't get all those videos of hair pulling and chair throwing.
5 people like this.
Reply 19 - Posted by:
zzzghy 1/4/2020 12:15:03 PM (No. 278629)
This time the elephant in the parlour really is an elephant.
There's no fixing this because the garbage-eating elephants are happy being what they are. Doesn't matter how many dark Ozzie-and-Harriet counterfeits are trotted out by Hollywood, advertising and media on the idiot box; reality continues to blow that scam every day with another wrecked Chuck E. Cheese and/or burger-throwing melee in an inner-city McDonalds. It is what it is because they are what they are. Some things are forever beyond repair; the problem is they're starting to pile up these days.
6 people like this.
Reply 20 - Posted by:
DVC 1/4/2020 12:21:26 PM (No. 278634)
The problem is NOT free markets selling people what they CHOOSE to buy. What percentage of the current typical inner city welfare folks even KNOW how to take basic food stuff like flour, pasta, tomato puree, bread, spices, raw meat, and vegetables and turn it into a tasty meal? My wife and I do this normally every day, but how many want to buy a package of something and EAT IT, nothing required in prep, no knowledge, no skills, no time? And how many are driven strictly by childish tastes.....sweet and salty, and don't care the slightest about nutrition and healthy eating?
How many young people today, even NOT in the inner city and NOT poverty stricken cannot or will not cook a meal from basic foods? How many ONLY eat at restaurants or order food delivered? I have one old friend, a widow in her 70s who just "doesn't cook". She eats in restaurants all the time. She is moderately wealthy, can easily afford it but just chooses not to cook, preparing food is not something that she enjoys.
The government deciding that certain kinds of stores cannot be permitted in certain neighborhoods is very WRONG. Let people make their own choices. It is called FREEDOM, and sometimes it works out as freedom to live in miserable conditions and ruin your health, but it is freedom. None of the government's business.
8 people like this.
Reply 21 - Posted by:
hershey 1/4/2020 12:46:39 PM (No. 278668)
Just like liberals, when one thing doesn't work, shift the narrative...some things never change....
3 people like this.
Reply 22 - Posted by:
hershey 1/4/2020 12:48:07 PM (No. 278671)
On second thought, maybe it has something to do with the homeless defecating in the toilet paper aisle like the one did in San Fran Nan's home district...why subject your employees to 'crap' like that????
4 people like this.
Reply 23 - Posted by:
Strike3 1/4/2020 1:05:24 PM (No. 278690)
If people are fat and lazy, the last thing they are going to do is prepare their own meals, I don't care what fresh foods the store sells. Cooking cuts into TV time.
The most popular solution to feed the perpetually needy, as judged by the contents of their grocery carts, is to set up automatic Grub Hub deliveries from Dunkin Donuts and Popeye's Chicken. The biggest mistake the government makes with these people is to provide assistance in the form of cash instead of mandatory selection from a list of eligible foods. Buying a fried chicken meal costs twice as much as buying raw chicken so technically their allowance could be cut in half if they cooked their own food.
Just guessing but I would think that the items sold in the dollar stores only add up to a few dollars an armload so they don't lose as much per shoplifter as would, say a Walmart or a big chain grocery store and can still make a profit in a red-lined neighborhood. If a state is really stupid and sets a one-thousand-dollar cap on what you can shoplift, a person could eat steak every day and have plenty left over for a stop at the liquor store but that's a whole new level of democrat idiocy.
4 people like this.
Reply 24 - Posted by:
davew 1/4/2020 3:33:38 PM (No. 278808)
As others have noted above, the dollar stores have fresh produce and other quality items at lower prices than the supermarkets. There is not problem with these stores EXCEPT that they compete with higher priced grocery chains that are staffed by unionized employees. These articles are meant to kill the competition to union workers.
2 people like this.
Reply 25 - Posted by:
watashiyo 1/4/2020 4:10:36 PM (No. 278838)
I've seen fast-food restaurants, convenient stores and supermarkets close because they kept getting robbed at gunpoint, and couldn't control the rampant shop liftings. No, this was not in the black community. A predominantly poor Polynesian community dependant on government entitlements. Entitlement helps the few but destroys most.
1 person likes this.
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