yea it would be really easy for me to be like “lol i use a cane and even bringing my groceries from my car to my fridge is a challenge sometimes and rely on delivery because of that” but in the time i lived in “LA” as a young single man taking the bus you really couldn’t bring much with you, even on a 10 minute walk, unless you were in great shape. not really the fault of the city or anything, just physics. forget it being like a really hot day and having anything perishable.
and that’s when i was reasonably fit. not bringing home groceries for a family or much of all the typical bs that typically surrounds poverty (i was lucky).
this discussion reeeeeeks of privilege but many convos here do, all i can really do is chime in, doesnt really make me mad but does make me chuckle
they wont read this far but here’s a thought experiment for the readers:
what % of americans do you think can physically walk 10 mins carrying a typical load of groceries (lets call it 10-30 lbs);
and,
what % of those americans are in what income quintiles and why do you think that?
extra credit points for realizing and considering in your answer that the people that need 5 mins or less access to grocery stores are more likely to be in the lower quintiles of income
extra extra credit - what percentage of the people in this conversation could walk 10 mins a day carrying a load of groceries?
Less than 10% of US households rely on walking or transit to retrieve groceries. Cars are a wonderful thing. Last time I wrecked my car a year ago, I was reliant on the bus for a month. Even though my service was well above average for a US suburb, it showed the wisdom of a car centric plan.
People survived on Bodegas for 100 years before grocery delivery was even invented. As for walking being mostly lower income, I’m not a communist so I’m fine with a degree of inequality.
Yep. It’s also missing completely any understanding of actual human behaviour as observed and measured.
Sure. Many people can walk 15 minutes to get fresh fruit and veg for their kids three times per week that they then cook/prepare in their limited free time.
Do they? No. Or few do.
So then you get a bunch of kids growing up with bad diet through no fault of their own, which we know links to other poverty traps like poor educational outcomes and addiction.
The same group will then judge those kids for not bootstrapping out of poverty.
And what’s worse is everyone criticising Mamdani for trying to address well known but complex economic problems resorts to the economic 101 they barely passed and never went beyond.
Like pretty much all modern economics theory deeply embeds behavioural economics and calls for mixed state/market solutions based on data. Which seem like exactly what Mamdani called for in the article no one read
I’m also not a communist (weird thing to throw into a conversation) and neither is Mamdani. I don’t think anyone in or around this conversation wants to completely get rid of inequality.
Question for you. Do you think that the state has a role to understand the causes of child food poverty and do something to intervene?
I kind of assume we have some common ground there at least. Once we’ve got that, it’s a question of the best approach.
I actually think there are better ways to address it than state owned supermarkets, such as free school lunches or just making payments for people with kids.
But there are plenty of well intended policy proposals out there that I think could be more effective, but that are nonetheless completely reasonable ideas.
Just want to break in a cheer about a huge California win today that just happened.
California just passed the biggest CEQA reform ever, basically allows infill housing to be exempt from CEQA reviews. Newsom actually did his fucking job and strongarmed the groups (mainly the building trades, who hate it) and the legislature into agreeing on this stuff and it is going to be a HUGE step forward toward solving the housing crisis.
Of course my fucking idiot chaos-monger assembly member voted no. He hates Labor and I thought he would vote yes to spite them, but I guess he hates Scott Wiener more.
Because CEQA also requires “prevailing wage”. This bill changes it to a “minimum” wage that’s lower than prevailing wage. But only for smaller projects. Bigger projects still have the prevailing wage requirement.
Also, in general, CA Labor Fed and Building Trades just reflexively hates the Abundance movement
Also, Building Trades and the Carpenters Unions kind of hate each other, and Carpenters were supporting this bill.
Has anyone done a study where they take a food desert and plop a supermarket down in the middle and see the effects? I feel like I have seen some, but it has been a long time. I’d be surprised that if there wasn’t much change with respect to things like eating more fruits and vegetables and eating heathier, home-cooked meals. IIRC, there is data to show that putting supermarkets in food deserts doesn’t lead to much dietary change.
When you are overworked and poor I think just the time involved in food prep can be overwhelming and having a supermarket next door won’t change that. I think most people will just think, “Wow this is great, I can just buy the same things I did at the convenience store for a lot less money!”
Agreed. But many people are saying that putting supermarkets in food deserts will make them healthier. I’m not sure how much of that kind of benefit will be realized. I can even imagine that it could make things worse for some subset of consumers (e.g. if you can get a 2L Coke for 99c, then you’ll drink more Coke).
one major problem here is it’s basically impossible as a small consumer to compete with the economies of scale involved in producing a quarter pounder. maybe a better example a few years ago before inflation made those cost 10 bucks, but, when this was last a hot button topic, there’s no way a poor working family could compete with these economies of scale for the equivalent calorie intake. no matter how many tiktoks/yootoobz say so, no one realistically can shop at the store and make a $.99 quarter pounder and those options win every single time when you’re in that situation, making grocery stores kinda pointless.
I’m not going that far. I’m saying lack of access to healthy fruit and veg is a contributing factor to poor health outcomes. And that governments should try and address this.
Probably by increasing access to supermarkets, plus making sure that supermarkets ghouls don’t put the juice boxes at the end of the candy aisle, plus free school lunches, plus addressing poverty generally, plus nutrition education for kids and new parents, plus subsidising sports and sports facilities in poor areas, plus increasing access to public transportation, plus subsidising child care
Poverty and it’s many facets is a complex problems to solve.
I saw some headline a few weeks ago saying it didn’t make much difference but didn’t read the article.
One thing I’ve learned thanks to a veggie loving girlfriend is that there are some smallish ethnic grocery stores in so cal that sell produce at around half and 1/3 the cost of Pavilions. Was shocked by the prices when she took me to her favorite place. My salad intake has increased significantly.
When I was out of college I used to take the bus with an 80L military backpack down to the Mexican grocery store in Chicago. Fresh produce prices were ridiculously cheap. As for the walking with groceries stuff, tons of women walked there with their cart thingies, some even took them on the bus, no big deal. Latinos seemed to deal with this problem just fine.
I’d guess the much larger problem in regards to obesity is not knowing or finding value in actual cooking with fresh ingredients.
Also anyone who thinks fast food is just as cheap or cheaper than cooking your own meal, even if it’s a single or two servings, is just flat out wrong.
