Is trying to bring better groceries to areas that are under served by larger retail grocery outlets. This is a problem in a lot of areas because it leaves the people who live there with very limited choices for healthy food. Sure, man can live on Big Macs, Cheetos & frozen microwave dinners, but not well, and not for very long. Especially since not everyone has access to a car (and taking groceries home on a city bus …shudder!).
Also, this is a great example of how government should try to solve a social problem. Identify an existing entity that has the ability to help out, and find a way for trade to happen (in this case, Walgreen’s gives up shelf space for cheap candy & Chinese plastic products to make room for produce & dry goods). The people get more choices, and the business gets to have the market to itself for a little while.
For us libertarians, this is how government should always work. Before it sits down to craft a law forcing action, it needs to explore ways to facilitate people helping people. Usually, most governments just hear people telling them, “There ought to be a law”, and they pass a law which usually does no one any good (except for groups who manage to do a little regulatory capture or rent-seeking).
1) whoever thought up the catch-phrase “food-desert”, hasn’t got a clue. Maybe “food-sahara” would be a better term? (Anyway, if you can pick a better term, it might look good on your resume 😉
2) Someone ducked the clue-by-4, (“It was during her research on Detroit that she was struck by the fact that pharmacies were practically the only mainstream chain presence, aside from fast food, in many neighborhoods”). Hmmm, what do drug stores sell that would make them as popular as say liqueur stores?
3)You can lead a food stamp/EBT card recipient to high quality organic free-range raw milk, but you can’t get them to not spend their benefit on the milk and bottle deposit, and then dump the milk out on the pavement and return the bottle for cash.
True, but at least they have the option.
And who does bottle deposits anymore?
This has been an urban problem forever. I grew up as a kid in DeeCee, and the area of town we lived in (Cleveland Park just off Connecticut Ave) had few grocery stores. My mom, a non-driver, would call up Jimmy’s, a small market over by Dupont Circle, and order food over the phone, and Jimmy’s would deliver it the same day. OK, you don’t get all the choices of a supermarket, but you can get about 95%, including green veggies, that way. Back then, retail grocery wasn’t all about coupons and loss-leader sales, it was about service, anyway.
BTW, we still had an Italian greengrocer with a horse-driven vegetable cart (summer only) there in 1950…
The solution is to be able to order over the Internet, and have delivery right to your home. Safeway was doing that here in PDX until a few years ago, and there’s a high-end market up on Snob Hill here that still does. Safeway charged $10 for the service.
Wouldn’t it be better if the government would just issue everyone a ration card of what they were allowed? Since they know what is best for us, then we could serve the state to the maximum of our ability. And be rightly rewarded for being good citizens and eating what they allow us to eat. And we could convert all those evil, nasty “fast food” places into soup and salad bars. Since we are about to be the next Zimbabwe and have our money be worthless, we should look at how the good nanny state can better manage our lives.
>And who does bottle deposits anymore?
Whole Foods. Also, some states do it for soda, but it’s only a few cents. Its a commonly known trick that you can pay for container deposits with food stamps and get cash upon redemption.
I’m a free market supporter myself, but I’m dubious that the market is only getting a push here. Did the city come in and say, “Nice store you got hear, it would be a shame if some legislation came along and messed it up”?
Starting up a “fruit stand” on some street corner has to be the one of the lowest cost business to start. 1) If there’s a real demand for it, and 2) if the local government doesn’t regulate it all to hell, I don’t see why the demand isn’t being filled.
While the premise that ‘fixing a “food-desert†doesn’t have to be the knee-jerk “more government is the answer” solution’ is a sound one, the linked to article assumes that the reason why the “food-desert†exists in the first place is just a fluke of nature.