'Power to communities': Chicago considers city-owned grocery store to address 'food deserts' after giants like Walmart and Whole Foods shutter stores
stopthatgirl7@kbin.social to 
finance.yahoo.com
The mayor’s office says it would be the first major U.S. city to enact such a plan.
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There are less than 6500 food deserts in the country. Having access to cheap healthy food is available to the vast majority of people living in the US. We're talking edge cases, capitalism has been quite successful with the food supply chain here.
Do you think 6500 is a low number? It's not like each food desert affects only one person each. More likely than not, each is affecting more than a thousand people. Especially in a population dense area like Chicago. We are talking millions of people living in food deserts.
Also, after reading a bunch of your comments, I'm not sure you are fully aware of what a food desert is. But hey, that's Capitalism.
Just going off the name, that's someone who didn't leave reddit voluntarily.
The more time that goes by on Lemmy, it seems like the higher percentage of people who aren't here by choice, they're here because reddit IP banned them.
Anyone who left Reddit did it voluntarily, my dude.
That person is an ass in 90% of the comments I see them post... And I see them quite a bit unfortunately.
(To clarify: "that person" mentioned above is shittyredditwasbetter)
Wait you're here by choice?
Yeah, lots of us came here voluntarily....
But it seems like not a lot stayed, kind of feels like we just built the infrastructure and abandoned it to a bunch of trolls. Not sure how much longer I'll stick around to be honest.
I am, I'll grant you I started looking for alternatives because Reddit went to shit, but I haven't looked back since I created a KBin account and have been quite happy with the change.
I've seen three different definitions in the past 5 minutes. Two definitions were based on physical proximity to grocery stores. Another focused primarily on the poverty rates in census tracts, regardless of the presence of absence of supermarkets. I think the "6500" number comes from that third definition. Of the 84,414 census tracts in the US, fewer than 6500 (about 7.7%) are classified as "food deserts".
I would have to say that yes, 6500 of 84414 tracts is a fairly low number.
I would also have to say that if they are using the third definition in these Chicago neighborhoods, they qualified as "food deserts" before Walmart (et al) decided to leave.
7.7%? That's HUGE for 21st century! What is it? Africa? Russia?
7.7% of census tracts, not of people. The overwhelming majority of those tracts have insufficient population to support a nearby supermarket. That doesn't mean they don't have access to food.
Most of these tracts are farming communities. They provide all the food stocked in these urban and suburban supermarkets. They are literally surrounded by food, in their fields, pastures, gardens, pantries, etc. But because the definition of "food deserts" focuses on supermarkets and doesn't include the 10 tons of grain in their bin, they are considered to be living in a "food desert".
I think you misunderstand how rural food deserts work. They're certainly less-bad than an urban food desert but they're still a problem to solve. That 10 tons of food in your grain bin isn't necessarily food you can eat. Nobody chooses to eat feed corn unless they don't have other options. And while a farmer certainly has the tools and knowledge to grow their own food crops its a significant time investment to do so, something that a farmer doesn't have after 12+ hour days taking care of the crops and animals that make them a meager living.
The issue is partially mitigated through roadside stands and farmer's markets but its still a significant challenge to the people who live in these communities, and some of the side effects of living in a food desert are present both in a rural food desert and an urban one, despite extremely different circumstances leading to them.
About 5% of the population. Whereas the rest enjoy the best supermarkets on the planet. This should be about fixing the edge cases, not trying to pretend we don't have amazing choice and wealth in food for the vast majority.
So you're talking about "edge cases" and also claiming it effects over 17 million Americans. That's a lot of human suffering.
We should strive to improve. But the modern food system which is overwhelmingly capitalist has produced the most food secure system to the most people ever. Calling it a failure over 5%, especially without context and scope is foolish.
The modern food system is not capitalist. We extensively subsidize farming, so that farmers will produce excesses despite a lack of corresponding market demand. This socially-funded excessive production is the foundation of our food security.
Capitalism does not produce such a system. Capitalism sees production in excess of actual demand as wasteful, and seeks to eliminate it.
We subsidize farmers, so we don't have a famine. Has nothing to do with it being socially funded.
Why can't capitalism prevent a famine?
The only way capitalism can prevent a famine is if the individual can be expected to adequately plan and prepare for a food shortage. History says we won't do that.
Please clarify your point. You seem to be saying "the subsidies we provide have nothing to do with subsidization".
Because it doesn't...we subsidize farmers, so we don't have a famine...we don't subsidize farmers because of socialism or capitalism. It's literally done as a fail safe. It's the same reason we have metric tons of cheese on hand as well.
The idea that the government should provide such a failsafe against famine is an act of socialism. A purely capitalist approach to a famine is that the individual should be responsible for preparing their own means of surviving it, or perish in an act of economic Darwinism.
And praising the capitalist part "especially without context" is also foolishly.
The context being that a historically isolated and hard to invade country with extremely beneficial geological features happened to be capitalist, then went on a 50 year military and social propaganda campaign to stamp out any possible competition in other countries either by directly sending its military in, or funding local forces willing to cooperate.
In no way am I saying communism or socialism is some kind of perfect system, and I not going to debate their historic representations.
But you're ignoring a looooot of history in your comments.
My guy, shut the fuck up. Who is paying you to spout this nonsense? Because if no one is, you are getting played.
No.
"fuck those potentially 15 million people, I eat perfectly fine so stop pretending there's a problem"
This is what you sound like to those 15 million people.
Again, I'm not sure what kind of Boogeyman you've imagined, but I'm not sure where I've said we shouldn't strive to improve food scarcity. Y'all are wild looking for some people to fight with.
Wait you're not here looking for someone to fight? Well F-U
I just said US food supply chain is a poor example 🤷♂️
Oh, so like 20,000,000 people don't fucking matter and don't deserve the ability to have access to fresh fruits and vegetables?
GTFOH.
Can you point out where I said that's okay? Or that we shouldn't strive to improve?
Then quit down playing the number of people in food deserts.
I'm not 🤷♂️
Yeah but the rest of the world sees supermarkets as a negative.
Capitalism has been very successful... if you don't count the poor and the hungry.
Gotcha.
Yes. It's a very small percentage of failure here.
Oh. Well. As long as a "small percentage" starve to death, it's a resounding success! Let's celebrate by killing a few poor people to improve the economy!
Or, and hear me out before you go full tankie, maybe take steps to correct that edge case rather than tear down a largely high performing system that gives me cheap access to food from around the world year round despite things not being available locally.
Steps like government-owned supermarkets? I agree. Socialism is great.
I agree, this could help. At no point in any of my comments did I say otherwise. But keep on trying to invent arguments for.... Reasons? 🤷♂️🤣
So you agree that a non-capitalistic solution would help. That doesn't sound like capitalism is a success if you have to do something else sometimes.
What's the success rate on full socialist and communist grocery stores?
Now here it comes. Say the line Bart, say the line. I can't wait for you to tell me how socialism has never really been tried.
As far as I know, socialization of grocery stores has never been tried. Why not try it instead of letting people go hungry, including children? Seems like it's worth trying to avoid that.
By the way, if capitalism is such a resounding success, why am I in debt thousands of dollars due to medical bills and my wife in debt even more due to student loans? We have decent jobs. We're middle class. We own a house. We've paid off one of our two cars. And we're drowning. In "successful" capitalism.
We're far from alone.
The USSR literally did it. It has been tried.
USSR had an economic system that is best described as state capitalism, and the political system was an authoritarian dictatorship. Grocery stores weren't socialized - as in, being run and operated by the collective communities, but operated in full by the state, and members of community had absolutely zero say in anything.
The USSR literally had government-run supermarkets in food deserts? Are you sure they were just in food deserts? Because I don't think that's correct.
I guess the food lines of the countries that have failed don't count right? Right?
Keep on moving those goal posts lol. I said 1 very specific thing and of course you are here now talking about loans because you seemingly just want to argue capitalism instead of addressing the comment.
Classic reddit bullshit.
Which countries are those which have a basic capitalist system but socialized grocery stores in food deserts? Please name them.
And yes, I want to argue about capitalism with someone who claims capitalism is a success when it's ground me and my family into the dirt along with so many others.
Must be nice to be rich.
Absolutely correct. Those counties don't exist. They failed.
The problem with the communist food systems was that they sought to eliminate waste, rather than promoting the sort of over-production that generates it. They planned to feed their people, and their plans regularly came up short.
The socialized component of the US system specifically seeks excessive production, well beyond any likely shortages. We deliberately try to waste food.
Lol you contradicted yourself
No. It's a small failure rate and you all love to ignore how much variety and abundant cheap food the large majority have access to.
You say that but you also admit there are thousands of food deserts across the country. Pick one
Currently at 3.8%
https://www.nimhd.nih.gov/resources/understanding-health-disparities/food-accessibility-insecurity-and-health-outcomes.html
I'm okay with edge case.
Of 333 million....
That's 12 million people, they're not a rounding error
Edit:
Also, it's at 6.1%, or 19 million people...
https://thehumaneleague.org/article/food-desert
12 million people, who still get food. No one is starving. I'm technically in a food desert, but have tons of food available to me via a 20min drive to my local city. Almost all food deserts are in rural areas, there is no PT and everyone has a car because you have to be have one. Stop acting like there are 12 million people starving to death.
Talking about things is hard if you don't know what any of the terms mean...
I edited this in but looks like you didn't see it:
https://thehumaneleague.org/article/food-desert
Btw:
The person I replied to was using drastically understated numbers, it's 19 million. But that article should help you understand the difference between food desert and starving. No idea where you saw anyone talking about starvation tho. It seems like you just made up a strawman...
Naa it's just tankies in here acting like capitalism is the reason food deserts exist, and that communism would magically fix that.
And we should strive to improve. I never said otherwise.
What?
Weren't you just "arguing" that we shouldn't help them?
No, I said using the US food supply chain is a poor example.
I'm guessing you're in the 96.2%
If you can't walk to nearest store within 15 minutes, you live in food desert. Using PT counts as walking.
Do supermarkets not do home deliveries in the US for people who can't get to the shop? The UK has had those for years.
They do, but only for their area and there's a fee.
If the closest actual supermarket with fresh food is a 30 minute drive, they're probably not delivering tho.
The point is making high quality food (nutrition, not taste) easily accessible
It doesn't affect me, so fuck who it does affect.
Nice, dude.
You are just making up stuff now 🤷♂️
That's... 130 per state.
I agree. I don’t think people realise how many “food deserts” there were even a hundred years ago, let alone further back. They certainly don’t realise how many food deserts there are in countries which don’t practise capitalism, or have not in the past.
Lemmy is just largely skewed to I hate the US, facts be damned crowd at the best. At it's worst it's a straight up tankie cesspool and China apologist playground.
Very few of these people from both sides have any real travel experience. If they have spent any time in the US or Western Europe vs a poorer county they might get their head out of their asses.