'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.
It’s funny how the solutions for the failures of capitalism often end up looking just like socialism
Almost like a society of individuals that only care about themselves won't last long...
About 3% of humans are born psychpaths (roughly: they have no empathy hence only care about themselves).
One would naivelly expect that only caring about yourself would be a winning strategy from a genetics point of view and hence over time the whole of Manking would have become psychopaths as the ones with such a natural advantage were more successful at surviving and reproducing than the others, yet that's not at all the case and only a small fraction of people are born psychopaths.
My personal explanation for that is that psychopathic behaviour is only a genetic advantage if most people around are not that - or, transposed to to economic terms, being a rent-seeker only works if most people are producers and doens't at all work when most people are rent-seekers.
I expect that in our evolutionary past, whenever a tribe/group had too many psychopaths without some kind of mechanism to kick them out or force them into cooperative mode, it eventually collapsed and ended up removed from the genetic pool hence why in millions of years of evolution the supposed superior behaviour of caring only about yourself didn't end up dominating the human genetic pool - the "threading of the needle" for the survival psychopathy as a behavioural trait in the gene pool was a balance between that behaviour expressing itself often enough to reproduce and remain in the gene pool and not so much that there were too many such individuals in a group causing it to collapse.
I have a degree in psych, and regret to inform you that you have no idea what you just rambled on about
You're just making random guesses
Right. First, indeed it's not a scientific theory, just an idea. The bit were I wrote "my personal explanation" and the context being a News community should've been a strong enough hint that it was to be taken as a bit of a ramble and I hoped (apparently wrongly so) it would make it obvious that's "chewing gum for the brain" rather than "nourishment".
Second: unless you're disputing the Biology side of how behavioural traits that provide reproductive advantages result in the spreading of the genes that define those to a whole population (aka Theory of Evolution), or your understanding of Statistics is outside generally accepted Mathematics, the mere presence of that part means its not made up from "random guesses", no matter which random distribution you're thinking of. Ditto for the Economics side of it - i.e. rent-seeking does not create wealth and if the proportion of that kind economic activity exceeds a certain proportion of the whole then actual production won't keep up with natural consumption and natural attritional losses.
Third: Absolutelly, even if the Biology and Economics are not, the Psychology part is mainly coming from ignorance, so if that's wrong then the whole of it is wrong.
What is the bit in there that is that is so deeply insulting to your domain expertise that you felt that in response to this ramble of mine here in the News forum you just had to post a comment were you pointed out your qualifications in Psychology and then proceede to describe the entirety of my post with the mathematically inaccurate expression "random guesses" without actually providing an explanation?
(PS: I'm not asking this to dispute your knowledge on Psychology as I accept I'm pretty ignorant in the domain. I'm mainly curious if it's on the nature-vs-nurture in psychopathy side, if it's on my assumptions of the behaviour of people high in the psychopathy spectrum when it comes to "not caring about others" being "bollocks" - say hyper-simpistic or way off - or if I'm using the wrong terminology)
Reddit:Lemmy
Twitter:Mastodon
It's sad seeing all the idiots excited to go to the proprietary platforms. I feel like they're victims of viral marketing, similar to how red bull operates.
Some things never change with this generation.
Is city ownership socialist though? Are the workers unionized? Do they have the right to decide what is and isn't stocked?
Not necessarily. That would turn it into something more like a public utility than like a for-profit business.
I mean, it's "not socialism" when the fire department or the power utility aren't private, for-profit corporations, but it is if the grocery store is? LOL
Are fire departments for profit?
You do get billed afterwords. At least my dad did when his house burned down 20+ years ago. However his insurance covered the bill.
My in-laws had a housefire a couple of years ago, and they live in the boonies outside of a small farm community.
The volunteer fire department handed them a bill afterwards and told them "give this to your insurance. We only want what your insurance will pay so don't worry about it if they only pay part or don't pay at all"
Its a dystopian racket, but at least its pulling a bit of money from the haves to get it to the have-nots and helps sustain a vital service to the community
That sounds kinda dystopian to me
Doesn't look like socialism to me. Buiseness being city-owned isn't enough.
This is why I try to avoid using words like socialism and communism. Everyone has their own ideas of what they mean, and most of them aren't exactly wrong because these are broad terms with different sects. So many times a person mentions either word, and then guys like you come out of the woodwork to be like "umm, actually..." Lol.
I prefer to focus on real solutions to real problems (pragmatism.) This is a very pragmatic approach to solving the issue of corporations not meeting standards.
You're right. They should tax 100% of my income and give me a weekly grocery credit!
Oh, and it won't be enough to buy a nice steak more than once a week. Even though I have a very prestigious position at my job, I'm given the same grocery allowance as everyone else
That's one steak a week more than I'm currently eating
If you insist. The solution that sane people are proposing is way better, but if you want we can setup this weird system of punishment for you.
But also you think that amount of steak should be somehow tied to the prestige of a job, so yes, for you specifically.
The stores all closed down due to high crime rate, I don't blame them.
This is true. I don’t know why you’re being downvoted.
I know, the issue is well known. I'm sure I was down voted because the city is primarily black so to mention the fact of it's high crime rate in a discussion that pertains to it is wrongly offensive to them, que sera sera.
A lot of the discussion related to retail theft is heavily racially-motivated and insincere. A short comment without nuance can look indistinguishable from a scary dogwhistle news segment, even if the short comment is accurate
The stores left because of the crime, not because there isn't a market for them. I'm sure there are tons of people in Chicago who would love shopping at a local grocery store.
It's not sustainable to run a business when your loss to crimes outweighs any potential profits
The crime stories (yep, they made a big buzz and media ran hundreds of stories about that one shoplifter in San Francisco) wildly overstated the actual amount of crime. It's just so interesting that corporate news oversold that story, so much so that a person that didn't know better would think that was a pervasive thing in urban areas and cities are all hellscapes of disorder and flames.
Meanwhile, shareholders rewarded Walgreens' management with a boost to stock prices after they reported they'd be pulling out of 'crime-ridden' areas. They didn't leave because of the crime, they left for the stock bump and told the crime story to make it look less-bad
By definition, if the business venture isn't profitable, then there isn't a market.
REI in downtown Portland pulled out and publicly said it was because of rising crime, but it was really because the employees were trying to unionize.
Yeah. We all know how much Walmart is struggling to make profits.
Invoking crime for this practice is just a tactic to pretend it isn't red lining.
Are they closed because of rampant theft?
As other people have pointed out, big companies target an area and set about establishing a monopoly using $$$
Then they realise “huh. There’s not so much profit here in Assfuck, Montana after all.” And make some lame excuse (theft) to pull out.
Citizens get fucked because : capitalism.
Bonus points if the large business trying to monopolize Assfuck, Montana kills the small businesses that were otherwise sustainable and leaves a gigantic financial burden on Assfuck, Montana's township finances in the process (demanding unsustainable subsidies, changing terms on the township after much money is already spent in the hopes of bringing more money into the town so the township invests more taxpayer dollars into the private business, and of course leaving a giant retail space that no business can afford to sit vacant and create additional costs to demolish and/or mitigate damages as it decays)
There's a large homegoods chain that had locations in both the small town I live in and a neighboring town of which the parent company went bankrupt. The location in my town sat empty for several years because it was too large of a space for any local business to be able to grow into (the local furniture store asked the city to give them the space for free though!) it eventually got filled by one of uHaul's weird abandoned-retail-space projects where its now a storage space and truck rental. The town nearby has yet to fill the space, although the parking lot is sometimes used by the manufactured home factory nextdoor for overflow storage
Wow, that was a considered and interesting contribution. I learned a lot there.
That has essentially never happened, that's just a fraudulent PR campaign
Yes really
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/retailers-talk-a-lot-about-rising-theft-but-a-retail-industry-report-finds-a-key-metric-for-it-hasnt-increased-that-much-b24ee181
https://www.cnbc.com/2023/08/09/claims-about-organized-retail-theft-are-nearly-impossible-to-verify.html
https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2021/12/shoplifting-holiday-theft-panic/621108/
https://www.vice.com/en/article/g5ve49/we-cried-too-much-walgreens-cfo-admits-retail-theft-isnt-the-crisis-it-portrayed
https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2021-12-15/organized-retail-theft-crime-rate
https://news.wttw.com/2023/05/12/retailers-walmart-and-starbucks-are-closing-big-cities-some-cite-crime-changing-habits
Wage theft.
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.
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.
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.
Food, shelter, water, power shouldn't he for profit.
Medicine, education...
Holy shit...what have the Romans ever done for us?
And the aquaducts!
I'll toss in that I'm fine with the luxurious versions of those things being for profit where it applies. But that's the rub, the ruling class is probably going to define anything past a cardboard box and gruel as "luxury."
Anyone else remember government cheese?
That melty golden-orange loaf of processed cheese product. 🧀 We call it Velveeta now.
Not me, but Im not American.
Since the pandemic I've been working from home and that gives me time to take food-shopping off of my wife's share of the household work. I noticed pretty quickly that every supermarket under the Kroger group was gouging on prices, so when they acquired Safeway I discovered there's a WinCo in my town. (WinCo is employee owned, has the feel of a warehouse/bulk store, and it beats Kroger/Walmart/Amazon/GoodFoodHoldings stores on price, by a lot. Plus, the employees don't have the energy of beaten animals and that matters to me for some reason.)
Good on Chicago doing this but there are already alternatives to Walmart and Whole Foods in some places if you look.
WinCo is legit. The bulk section alone makes going in there worth it. Need oregano? You can pay $5.99 for the jar at Kroger (in my area, Fred Meyer) or you can go to the bulk section of WinCo and pay $0.37.*
* Numbers not exact, but it is literally that drastic a difference.
Yeah. I got a bunch of resealable/airtight bulk containers and will probably never buy spices in those little 2oz shaker-jars again. My pantry is a small store by itself now, it feels better to get like a pound of a spice for $7 than it does to buy 2 ounces at a time for $7- and all those trips I don't have to make to get a spice I just ran out of is totally worth it- my restocking trip is... from kitchen to pantry, takes seconds.
Ironically, way back in the 70s Kroger successfully defeated a hostile corporate takeover, in part by issuing their employees stock
That's an important caveat.
Eh, where I live the employee-owned grocery store is of lower quality and higher priced than Walmart.
I went in expecting more, was sorely disappointed and left without buying anything.
It's essentially the same products in a worse store for a higher price.
I know a lot of people like to beat the 'employee-owned' drum, but unless that translates to lower prices or better quality, I don't see a reason for customers to subscribe to it.
I agree. At the end of the day it's a business. But if two companies offer similar products go with the employee owned company.
The main thing about is decision making structure. Because employee or community owned stores are owned by the users. It means the end users have power over what is offered. As opposed to big box in which case it is non local non user shareholders.
Completely ignored my point about lower quality and higher prices.
What do you mean? The employees or the customers? I don't really care if the employees have the power. That just moves who's trying to take advantage of me.
It also doesn't matter if they're local.
What matters is if they give me a better deal. If they can't do that, I will go with someone who will.
I almost completely agree with your first and last points. I was trying to say if they provide the same product at the same quality and price try to prefer the co-operative. I say similar because, personally I'd give some leeway to the co-op. But there are limits and co-ops are businesses and if they give sub par products and services than we shouldn't buy from them.
The power is held by the owners. If it's a consumer co-operative it is controlled by the consumer and a worker cooperative is owned by the workers. So the end users of products or the ones who have jobs. It depends on how it's structured.
I somewhat agree with your last point. The big thing is ownership is wealth and control. If you control your store you get to chose the available options if someone else owns it it means someone else has control. So I'd rather I have control over it. Again with the previous thing. If someone else can do it sooo much better than I than I should someone's product.
But we have to be careful because you can lead to the problem with data and big tech. I use an alternative to Google Cloud that is a cooperative but I have to pay. But with Google I don't pay but loose my privacy. In that instance you have to determine what's more important, given what I need it for is comparable to what I need what is important and I chose ownership and privacy over having neither of those.
I'm more than positive that food deserted areas could not afford Whole Paycheck and Walmart is never the solution. It will be interesting to see how this plays out. If its successful then I forsee this being used in more than just Chicago.
Should just empower a local resident to build a local mom and pop grocery store. Subsidize them so they can compete against the larger chains if you have to, but that's how it used to be done and can still be done. Eventually they probably wouldn't need the subsidies because they're going to focus on what they can sell. They might not have the selection of a big chain, but if they aren't needing to compete with a billion dollar company that operates at a loss to drive them out of business, they'll do ok.
The fundamental cause of every problem in the US always comes down to the zoning code. Every. Single. Time.
You know why those mom and pop grocery stores don't exist? Because in most cases, they're not allowed to because corner stores in residential areas were outlawed 75 years ago. Also, even when they are allowed to exist, the real reason they can't compete is because the zoning code forces car-dependency in a whole bunch of other ways, which (figuratively and literally) drives consolidation into big-box stores with gigantic parking lots.
Why give a private entity money when you can just do it publicly? And in the process not sell only what's profitable rather than what provides good health to residents. The existing mini-marts and what not are selling what's profitable (non-perishable processed food).
The Post Office is a good example of how much easier it is to just run it publicly. The Post Office literally generates revenue, whereas subsidizing a private entity to do the same would be just throwing tax dollars down the drain with little return.
Hmm... products and services still cost the same but now there are less people in the chain to make a profit.
Sounds like a win-win for me.
If there are less people In the chain, shouldn't everything cost less?
That's what they're saying. Wholesale price is the same, retail should go down due to less people in the chain.
They just phrased it poorly.
you would think so
I was referring to the overall cost of products, like what the businesses pay to bring them to market.
Yes, things should cost less for customers because businesses are making less profit.
Main streets with Mom and Pop stores are really nice. It seems like you'd get more soul from than a government store. But I don't know how you would incentive then sufficiently, as it's really tough to run a small storefront when competing with online.
The real problem is that we fucked over main streets 75 years ago with deliberately car-dependent zoning policies and massive subsidies for car infrastructure. Now all we're allowed by law to build are shitty stroads with big-box stores.
Grocery stores are still largely an offline business. Industry sales dropped from 65B during civic peak to 40b after COVID. Also I very much doubt the prime affected by this were going to be paying the 20% markup that it costs to use those services. Finally most of those services are really just white label instacart and the store does not need to invest anything substantial if they wanted to offer those services.
Problem with mom and pop stores is the owners are still operating to maximize profit.
This intrinsically involves giving the least while charging the most. They're going to be screwing everyone over as much as they can, while hiding behind the 'mom and pop' shield.
Small town in Kentucky did a similar thing with a municipally ran gas station.
Healthy food ftw!
paving over huge areas of the earth with concrete and forgetting how to grow your own food creates bad situations. every community/neighborhood should by law have a green/garden area of a certain size that is capable of growing most of the food required to sustain the local residents.
That's not at all feasible for places with long, cold winters, or southwest areas without enough water, among others.
And before you say "well people shouldn't live there then", they live in those places because of the other resources. For example, let's say logging in Montana, or oil fields in Texas. You're not going to get the world to stop needing those resources any time soon.
I wonder how people in these areas survived without grocery stores, then.
They always had some kind of food importation. Unless you want to go all the way back to the first few people in the area who did subsistence hunting and gathering. But that's also not feasible for more than a few people.
and yet people in all of those places manage to grow their own food. humans are a resilient and adaptable species. but anyway, this is a tangent. even if the land has a playground on it, it doesn't matter. people can decide how to use a blank space in a neighborhood. if food grows well there, then grow food. if not, make it a farmers market and people can bring the food there. the point is....we shouldn't pave over the earth and then complain about food deserts.
The suggestion is that this is essentially what is happening. The exact real estate that these buildings will occupy are not likely to be greatly fertile lands. They might not be farmers markets, but it's the same point you're making here.
Those stores left because of crime. Instead of fixing the root cause of major social issues, their Band-Aid is taxpayer funded stores? Why not just skip the middle man and send food to people directly? Or just set up taxpayer funded food banks. That’s effectively what these “stores” will turn into anyway. This just seems like performative nonsense, not intended to solve anything.
Is it “performative nonsense” because it’s Chicago, or was this city in Florida doing it years ago and this one in Kansas also “performative nonsense,” too?
Why do you think these examples are analogous? The stores in the towns described in the articles you linked didn’t shut down because of poverty or crime. In the examples you provided, collective supermarkets seem to be a good fit. Contrast this with the Chicago mayor, who cites poverty. If people can’t afford food anyway, and the business is going to face sky high theft, the plan doesn’t make sense. Cut out the middle man and just send poor people food. It would cost far less than trying to set up supermarkets from scratch and running them at a loss in perpetuity. Plus it means helping poor people, rather than forcing them to shop lift if they’re hungry.
Lack of shopping opportunities and an inability to pay for food are two separate things. They may often co-occur, but just sending food too poor people doesn't solve food deserts.
And separately from that, poor people deserve to be able to look at their produce, buy stuff last minute, or browse and buy what strikes their fancy too. All the reasons everyone else uses supermarkets should be available to poor people as well.
If the stores are government run, there is no profit motive. That means lower prices, which means more accessibility for the people who need it.
And who will be sending poor people food? Let me guess, we need to leave it up to churches and charities? Lol
Look at you tripping over yourself to lick the boot. Sad.
If these stores are going to be run at a loss anyway, why waste enormous sums of money on premises and other costs when they could just start food banks and give people the food directly? Or, as I suggest above, the government could send people food directly.
I’m suggesting that we give people free food and I’m the boot licker? Okay Bezos.
This runs into the problem of charity out-competing potential business ventures. Government subsidized private groceries, or public-private partnerships or just plain government run grocery stores can alleviate the problem of a food desert while still bringing the benefits of an active business to the area. The local government can increase or reduce its investment as needed, and it doesn't create a service that inherently can't be competed with by private business in a space that's already unprofitable/too risky to operate a business within
But this is moot as the city is planning to run loss-making stores where private stores are non-viable. There is no risk of outcompeting businesses which aren’t even there. And if there is a concern of outcompeting private stores, running stores offering cheaper products than any private store could do so in the area would destroy those businesses just as effectively.
The decision has been made to entirely sacrifice any pretence of private enterprise in the supermarket space in certain areas in Chicago. I’m merely arguing that, given this decision, there are more effectively ways to use public funds.
No, you're just pushing the tired old, "religious groups and charities should be feeding people, leave the government out of it" bullshit. It doesn't work.
I’m literally saying the government should give people free food. You’re arguing with a straw man.
They literally said government was the solution in the message above yours. Regardless of the merits of @JasSmith@kbin.social 's argument, you've mischaracterised what they've said and that isn't fair or productive for discussion.
Not always...
For decades now developers have been buying commercial property and shutting down the business. This makes the area less desirable and lowers residential prices
When those are "low enough" developers buy them up
The next step is usually getting tax money to "redevelop" the area and then they'll reopen businesses and sell the residential at a high markup as an "up and coming neighborhood". It's just a money shuffle that hurts the majority of Americans and funnels wealth to the wealthy.
It's weird people still don't understand this...
Do you have some examples? IMHO, few shareholders are willing to weather decades of losses like that in the hope that one day their investment pays off. I’m not buying it. No one buys property and then intentionally devalues it.
He's going to find our real quick why those stores left in the first place
Wal-mart regularly closes stores that try to unionize.
Whole Foods is a division of Amazon, and their store decisions generally float around hurting labor until labor gets fed up.
But that is only the pattern that both of those employers have shown repeatedly for years now so maybe I am prejudice against companies owned by multibillionaires.
It sounds like you do have a prejudice against those store chains. Those stores were closed because there was an insanely stupid amount of theft.
Funny how that's the same excuse used by stores in my area that were trying to unionize. Weird that these two things always seem to align. It's almost like monopolies are bad
Vote qith your wallet
Oh my fucking god dude.
FOOD DESERT
By definition there is little to no choice for these people.
They do, but Walmart has about a billion more votes.
No they don't. They have what you give them.
What wallet? I'm broke
Makes it pretty easy then, doesn't it.
"Voting with your wallet" means fuck all when some people's wallets are hundreds of thousands times bigger
Always pointing at others
Source?
Their official statements etc. The one in Chicago hadn't been turning a profit for 18 years due to theft.
Now show me the investor reports where they say the same thing, if you can find them
Go look for em yourself lol. You don't mean shit to me I'm not doing anything for you
Look at my link dump elsewhere here where people did in fact check. Tldr they're lying
So you think they went "hey it's only been 10 years, this theft problem is going to clear up any time..." ?? Change your username, you're disgracing it.
"Theft"
https://reddthat.com/post/4806295
Show some data
You are screaming at a brick wall. Assume everyone you talk to here is a tankie or at least a commie.
Americans going to the government owned post office that isn't profitable: Wow, I sure am glad that there is a way for me to send and receive mail, it's a service everyone needs.
Americans considering the government opening a grocery store that might not be profitable: This is totally unsustainable and there is too much stealing for this to exist. People do not deserve access to a conveniently located grocery store.
A lot of people do critize USPS, several years ago Republicans tried to privatize it but there was heavy push back. It's not exactly hypocritical here.
I'm not sure where I said that 🤷♂️
Implying that a government opening a grocery store in an area because companies closed thiers being some sort of extremist commie take when the government already does this with things like libraries and postal offices and nobody bats an eye.
The topic at hand is socialism. You should understand the difference.
That was clearly in reference to this community, not the policy.
I always try to forgo people's political stance and just debate them on issues as humans. Sucks that these particular humans ignore everything that doesn't fit their agenda and they all have no fucking responsibility and claim innocence and blame everyone else. It's pathetic.
If you actually debated people as humans maybe you'd have some empathy for the common people affected by this issue rather than bootlicking
Not selling something is usually less profitable than selling something, it's not bootlicking to say there may be a reason so many stores closed.
Why?
Because of the exorbitant amount of theft at those locations.
Bullshit. Those large stores come in to an area and drive out local competition, then when they don't make the % to keep the shareholders happy they fold up and leave. Mom and pop shops are the backbone of communities and these pricks destroy that.
Does high crime in an area mean that people shouldn't have access to stores that sell food?
Excellent point. If stealing is what keeps people fed, then the taxes that keep that store open are worth it. But also I think the reported rates of theft are wildly overstated, here in Australia we had our two largest stores basically admit they made up the whole "epidemic" so they'd have an excuse to raise prices.
It’s usually just an excuse over in the US, too.
https://www.cnbc.com/2023/08/10/retailers-may-be-using-organized-theft-to-cover-up-internal-flaws.html
"Crime is fine so dw about working we'll just pay more taxes!"
Fucking stupid take.
If businesses are operating at a loss they cannot sustainably remain open.
Do you believe every USPS office is profitable? No, many are not, but people need access to mail. Roads don't generate a profit either. Government services shouldn't need to be profitable.
Sorry guys, this grocery store isn't profitable, guess you don't really need access to food
It's almost like we should care more about people instead of profits
Cute strawman
They definitely seemed to be implying the city shouldn't do this in their top post, so no, not a straw man.
Since when is the city in charge of businesses moving?
Stop it! There's no more straws left!
No, it means they'll have to get in a car and drive to the next location, hopefully without stealing from there too.
Not everyone in poor areas has a car. Or easy access to one, or the spare money for gas to drive out of their way to find a grocery store.
“Food deserts are most common in low socio-economic areas, where residents are unlikely to own a car or have one that is not always working.”
Then stop stealing
The real Uncle Iroh would not like you, to put it mildly.
Ah yes the real fictional character.
You know what I mean.
I know that you make pathetic excuses for crime because it doesn't affect you.
Read the thread before you comment lol
And I guess the people who can't afford a car should just die, right?
Bus, walk, bike, if you cannot affort a car you're likely not working enough so you have the time to use alternative modes of transport.
Where are you supposed to bike to when the nearest supermarket is 20 miles away?
And poor people often work 2 or 3 jobs. Again, you know nothing about being poor.
Unless you live in bumfuck arkanses the next supermarket is not 20 miles away, and even then it likely isn't.
Poor people work so many jobs that I see them sitting on their porch at 1pm on a fucking Tuesday.
Ah, and there we go. Classism. Must be nice to be rich.
Ah, yes. Me working hard to be where I am and seeing others do nothing and complain about being poor is classism. I'm not rich, I'm just not a fucking bum.
Ah, so now people who don't work are all bums. No, you're totally not a classist.
Or, like, get on a bus. Or walk. Or cycle. Or get food delivered from any one of many cheap delivery options. Or even a food bank or church. Or neighbour. Or family. Or friends. You think people without a car who don’t have a supermarket next door just die? I can’t even imagine the level of learned helplessness you seem to possess.
Buses take money. And walk where? Bicycle where? You think they could just walk to the nearest supermarket? Do you not understand that there isn't food available for miles? Do you really not understand what the term 'food desert' means?
And delivered? Do you really not understand what being poor means?
So does food from the supermarket. That’s why we give poor people money. We should, IMHO, give them even more. Either way, with that money, they get on the bus.
Half of the world’s population walk miles for food and water. That’s certainly not a big ask on a bicycle. I commute six miles each way to work on a bike, every day. For millennia, humans roamed hundreds of miles on foot hunting for game. Yet you’re arguing someone today can’t cycle a few miles?? Lordy.
Delivery is often cheaper than the time and commute, so I’m not sure what you’re arguing there. Amazon offers free delivery, and you can buy every staple you need.
Wow. You're actually asking poor Americans to live like they're in third-world countries? I thought America was the richest nation?
And food delivery is not cheap. That's just a lie.
That’s some spicy classism. Walking and cycling isn’t the domain of the unwashed masses. It’s a clean, healthy source of transport which more cities should encourage. Furthermore, should one choose to use the less healthy and polluting forms of transport, they can: the bus. Using the money they are given for not working at all. They don’t get that in developing nations.
Amazon.com. Free delivery. Try it out.
Expecting people to walk for miles to get water is expecting them to live like a third-world country. And yes, you did say water.
And you have to pay for Prime for "free" delivery. Which poor people can't afford.
Here was you response to me prior to you deleteing it:
This is a good argument for giving people money, not food stamps.
I don’t get this revulsion to walking. Most people walk every day for commutes, food, and errands. Walking does not mean your life is irredeemably terrible. In fact, data shows you will live longer and be happier. Ditto for cycling.
You live in a little town far away from civilisation. I think it’s unreasonable to expect city amenities in such places. There’s no logistical way to get supermarkets close to every home. Not when people have built homes so far away from everyone else.
And my response: No one is asking for supermarkets near their home. But a grocery store that’s reasonably priced is well within the realm of possible. You’re literally blaming people for where they live, even though they can’t afford to move. These aren’t new builds. These are generational homes. The people who built them are long dead and their grandkids or great grandkids now live in the same house because they are too poor to live elsewhere. My town has a pop of over 10k. It’s reasonable to expect a grocery store or 3, or even a supermarket, to be there. And I’ve explained in another comment why there isn’t. No one is against walking, but as I said in my other comment to you, I’d have to bike over 2hrs to the nearest grocery store, walking? It’d take me 8hrs. It is not reasonable to expect anyone to walk 8hrs to the nearest grocery store. (And yes, I Google mapped it so I’m not just talking out my ass.) I’m honestly just so flabbergasted that people blame others for where they live like they have a choice when they can’t even afford a car.
The part about not being able to use SNAP for delivery isn't even true. I'm on food stamps; I can get delivery from Walmart, Instacart, most local grocers and more. As long as I'm only getting food stamp eligible items, I don't have to use any real cash.
Has to depend on state then, even though I know it’s a federal subsidy, because I’m also on food stamps and cannot order delivery. Not when I lived in the city, and not now in the town I live in.
If you're in favor of programs like helping people pay for food why are you so opposed to the city opening a grocery store?
You cannot use SNAP for bus fare. You also cannot get delivery using SNAP, besides Amazon, and you have to have a Whole Foods near you. The closest one for me, as an example, is in another state 3hrs away. So Amazon won’t deliver to me. There’s actually no bud where I live, so that’s out. And I just looked it up, it’d take me over 2hrs to bike to the nearest grocery store, and I’d have to do it on a highway. Oh and on top of that, I’d have to bring my toddlers.
Your points are great, if you live in a city. But most food deserts are in smaller rural towns. You’re asking people, in America a supposedly developed nation, to do the same things people in developing nations have to do to get food. It’s kinda ass backwards don’t ya think? That the “richest” nation is telling their population to live like some of the poorest nations.
This is a good argument for giving people money, not food stamps.
I don’t get this revulsion to walking. Most people walk every day for commutes, food, and errands. Walking does not mean your life is irredeemably terrible. In fact, data shows you will live longer and be happier. Ditto for cycling.
You live in a little town far away from civilisation. I think it’s unreasonable to expect city amenities in such places. There’s no logistical way to get supermarkets close to every home. Not when people have built homes so far away from everyone else.
Bused are cheap, walk to a store, bicycle to a store, I bike 12km to and from every day. But you're conveniently ignoring every other argument the lad above made, so that shows your victim mentality.
You think poor people can afford get food delivered. You think a supermarket is within walking distance. You have no idea what being poor means or what a food desert is. People can be 20 miles from the nearest place to buy food in rural small towns. All they can do is buy junk food at the Dollar General and survive on that.
Poor doesn't mean you can afford luxuries. Food desert doesn't mean you can walk to a supermarket.
I didn't say poor people can afford to have food delivered, you can't even read who you're talking to lmfao. Btw, eating just junk food is expensive...
Sorry, that was another person I was talking to. And yes, junk food is expensive. Too bad it can be literally the only option sometimes. But I guess those people are too poor to matter.
Or .. walk to the nearby city owned grocery store that the city is considering opening?
I keep hearing this excuse but I've yet to see any actual numbers or data to prove this.
Have you looked?
I'm not the one making the argument here, you've made a statement, you back it up.
Nah, I'm good. You can use Google.
You made the claim, you provide the evidence to back that claim.
This is the e real reason, I don’t get why you’re being downvoted.
Because Stores say shoplifting is a national crisis. The numbers don’t back it up. The surge in theft is mostly just made up, and what isn't made up is kind of an irrelevantly small number.
Stores expanded too much and then got hit by the pandemic, a tight labor market, and changes in buying patterns. Those sort of things have a lot larger impact on their profitability than whether shrink was 1.6% or 1.4%.
It's capitalism...
If they admit they overreached, it will hurt stock prices and their bonuses.
So they blame crime, knowing a significant amount of the population will go along with it because it's victim blaming and psychologically that makes people think it can't ever effect themselves.
I dont know why else people would take Walmart PR as gospel
The average shrink rate says nothing about a single store or single area's shrink rate.
Some stores are higher than 1.4%, but it's still in the low end of single digits, not like 15%. Raising prices a couple percent to compensate wouldn't even be noticed.
Does shrink include the cost of security, security measures, vandalism or injured employees? You have this one thing you think describes the whole thing and the reality is you've chosen your bad guy and you're going to confirmation bias yourself there.
Because wehh corporations wehh mom and pop shop (which they don't go to because it's inconvient) bla bla poor people. People like thinking they have a deeper understanding of something even if it's objectively not true because it makes them feel intelligent, no matter how stupid it makes then look. The reason these stores closed is really simple, crime in low income areas caused these stores to not be profitable or simply not worth the endless hassle. I don't even get why they're mad though, they cry about mom and pop shops and when the large corporations leave and there is all the space for them they get mad the large corporations left. Idiotic.
So I’d like to chime in here as someone who lives in a low income food desert. The food desert isn’t because of theft. In fact, many chains have tried to open up here over the decades. The city government is so hostile towards them though, that these stores don’t even get to the opening stages. The city wants to charge these stores exorbitant fees for no reason. Charge 10x as much for electricity than the town with a smaller population 15minutes away. Is this everywhere, no, but it is in more places than you’d think.
Let me guess, your response to that would be “Well just vote those people out! It’s your fault for keeping them in there!” And my response to that is, vote them out and replace them with who? No one has run against these people since they were first elected into office in the 1960’s. Oh sure we’ve tried to get people to turn against them, but they’ve stacked the system so it’s damn near impossible. The only thing we can do is wait until they die, which doesn’t seem to be any time soon.
You remind me of this guy I’ve debated with who had this outlandish claim that “If CEO’s are paid less, then they’d work less.” But there’s no actual proof to that, and trust me, he looked. He then went on to say he’d rather be paid in company stock than cash. Like he’d legit forego minimum wage to be paid in 100% stock.
So I’m going to say the same thing to you that I’ve said to him. You’ve been all up and down this thread blaming theft as the reason why food deserts are a thing, can you provide nonbiased studies proving that?
Sounds like a load of bullshit excuses to me.
Sounds like you can’t find anything to back your bullshit up.
Read the rest of the thread then lmao, I refuse to keep repeating myself to the mind numbingly arrogant and short sighted community that is Lemmy
I’ve read it. You haven’t provided any nonbiased studies to back you claim.
For real. Dude's just arguing with everyone and talking out of his ass.
I’ve read all the threads and comments since I get notifications for every single one, and have yet to see you back up a claim with anything but insults and bluster. You’ve asserted a lot but proven nothing.
A sav-a-lot even tried to open and they protested because it wasn't good enough for them.
That's fucking funny