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posted by takyon on Sunday February 17 2019, @05:00PM   Printer-friendly
from the nothing-in-that-store-costs-1$-anyway dept.

In a Washington Post story picked up by the S. Louis Post-Dispatch, reporter Rachel Siegel asks the question "Are dollar stores a response to poverty - or a cause?"

The fundamental premise of the story is

fear the stores deter other business, especially in neighborhoods without grocers or options for healthy food. Dollar stores rarely sell fresh produce or meats, but they undercut grocery stores on prices of everyday items, often pushing them out of business.

this creates what is referred to by one patron as a 'food desert'

their unstoppable rise...keeps grocers from opening.

implications are made

With fewer options for fresh food and health care, people in a North Tulsa ZIP code have an average life expectancy of 11 years less than those in South Tulsa, according to a 2015 city report.

"It creates an overall sense of the neighborhood being run-down," said Stacy Mitchell, [of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance]. "It's a recipe for locking in poverty rather than alleviating it."

Contrariwise, these stores

are a vital source of cheap staples

The last Dollar General to open is across the street from a senior citizens home. That store, Henderson said, is a lifeline to residents.

the council thinks it's appropriate for city government to pick winners and losers in the economy.

and while not typical, some do indeed sell fruits and vegetables

grapes, apples, avocados, potatoes sandwiched between bags of fried pork skins and cases of Michelob Ultra.

It's Walmart all over again in a way.

Grocery stores run on thin profit margins - usually between 1 and 3 percent. And they employ more workers than dollar stores to keep perishable food stocked.

"It's no longer the big-box grocery store" that threatens local businesses, said David Procter, a Kansas State University professor who studies rural grocery stores. "But it's the discount retailer that's coming to town and setting up shop right across the street."

Some localities have added restrictions on the stores, for example

Mesquite, Texas, a Dallas suburb, approved changes to its zoning code last year that will limit the number of dollar stores. The guidelines prevent them from opening within 5,000 feet of each other. And stores must dedicate 10 percent of floor space to fresh food.

Tulsa is working to solve the 'food desert' problem they attribute to the stores

This month, a deal was reached with ECO Farms, a local company that focuses on indoor vertical farming to solve food deserts. Two company executives, Jim Bloom and Adam James, said that while this is their first try at a grocery store, they're intent on making healthy food a reality in District 1 - not a luxury.

"We're attending to this as a human right, not a geographic privilege," James said.

However, as the article notes - "grocery stores have struggled here before"

The nearest dollar store to me is about four-five miles (15 minutes or so) on busy backroads. My experiences with them are lack of selection and significant product gaps. Very hit or miss and you just have to go shop somewhere like Kroger or Publix afterwards anyway to finish out your list, so I don't bother as I don't have the time to spend on the extra commute and double shopping.

If everyone was like me dollar stores might not be experiencing the success they very obviously are.
So how about some other perspectives? Do Soylentils love them or hate them? Is this a first world problem?


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  • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 18 2019, @08:06AM (8 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 18 2019, @08:06AM (#802836)

    ** given that "grow your own" is an expensive proposition when compared with buying them from agribusiness.

    How expensive it is depends on the circumstances. If you have even a small yard, water is cheap where you live, and you have access to free organic matter to mulch your soil, it can be very cheap.

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  • (Score: 3, Informative) by c0lo on Monday February 18 2019, @08:30AM (7 children)

    by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Monday February 18 2019, @08:30AM (#802842) Journal

    In my case, water services are expensive (e.g. sewage services charged based on consumption), weather is hot and has been quite dry for the last 2 years.

    But even letting aside the costs, most of the crops tend to ripe at the same time. The result is 3weeks of eating your own and buying the same produce for the rest of the year: letting aside the 'deli/gourmet' factors, grow-your-own is a hobby, not a way to eat healthier.

    --
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
    • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday February 18 2019, @09:37AM (5 children)

      by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Monday February 18 2019, @09:37AM (#802867) Homepage Journal

      I invite you to find someone's grandmother and learn the wonders of the mason jar.

      --
      My rights don't end where your fear begins.
      • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Monday February 18 2019, @09:58AM (4 children)

        by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Monday February 18 2019, @09:58AM (#802878) Journal

        I invite you to find someone's grandmother and learn the wonders of the mason jar.

        1. Grandmother veggie-patch > any suburban area backyard of the nowadays. Which means quantities absolutely not worth spending a day to put in mason jars and sterilize.

        2. I have a veggie-patch myself. Unfortunately, no basement/cellar - which means that when a produce is in season, the weather is too hot to conserve it (except for long boiled things like home-made jams - what's the point to spend an entire day doing it when the stuff available at the supermarket has the same 'healthy food' value?). Any pickle will ferment in 2-3 days and go ballistic outta mason jar.
        At the best, I can buy yogurt ferment and do a batch from one day to the other and then finish drinking it the day after.

        (Kimtchi you ask? Riiight, cause digging holes in the backyard - assuming you have one - is something that you should do at 30+C for your health)

        --
        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
        • (Score: 2) by takyon on Monday February 18 2019, @02:10PM (2 children)

          by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Monday February 18 2019, @02:10PM (#802947) Journal

          I'll agree that processing what you grow probably isn't going to fill a lot of jars in one cycle. I have only really processed storebought produce and farm-picked apples (you pick it yourself, it's cheaper). YMMV of course.

          I think if you do the math, homemade jams/jellies/etc. can be a lot cheaper than storebought. For example, I bought an 8 lb bag of oranges, a couple sacks of sugar, and some habeneros, and made well over a gallon of spicy orange marmalade (a bit sauce-like thickness due to lazy). Then I used that to make orange chicken and other goodness for a long time.

          Any pickle will ferment in 2-3 days and go ballistic outta mason jar.

          If you sterilized it, it should not do so. If you didn't and you suspect a lot of gas build up will happen, you could use a special lid such as this one [amazon.com] to release gas. I actually created some grommeted lids myself so I can insert airlocks into wide mouth mason jar lids.

          (Kimtchi you ask? Riiight, cause digging holes in the backyard - assuming you have one - is something that you should do at 30+C for your health)

          Yeah, most people don't do that any more. You can make [soylentnews.org] kimchi [soylentnews.org] or sauerkraut in a mason jar or plastic bucket. Time and money spent is relatively low in my opinion, and gives you a very tasty (if not traditionally made) product. The 5 gallon bucket and airlock that I used are not necessary; you can make it easily in a regular mason jar.

          --
          [SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
          • (Score: 3, Interesting) by c0lo on Monday February 18 2019, @09:37PM (1 child)

            by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Monday February 18 2019, @09:37PM (#803195) Journal

            If you sterilized it, it should not do so

            If you sterilize it, it's dead, Jim. No longer health-food.

            What I'm after is pickles in the lactic acid resulted from the slow fermentation of sugars in veggies - sauerkraut style. These are what I grew with, the vinegar ones just poke holes in my stomach lining.
            For the brine pickled, if the temperature is too high (over 15-18C), the colonizing lactobacillus is not the species I want - it will transform your veggies into a foul smelling mush, no matter if you drain the CO2 or not.

            --
            https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
        • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday February 18 2019, @03:37PM

          by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Monday February 18 2019, @03:37PM (#802993) Homepage Journal

          Which means quantities absolutely not worth spending a day to put in mason jars and sterilize.

          You've obviously never tasted my great aunt's pear preserves. No better tasting substance has ever graced a jar in any quantity. Easily worth dealing with all the wasps a pear tree attracts even for a single serving a year. Would still be worth it even if it attracted bears, crocodiles, and hipsters as well as wasps.

          --
          My rights don't end where your fear begins.
    • (Score: 2) by Gaaark on Monday February 18 2019, @05:01PM

      by Gaaark (41) on Monday February 18 2019, @05:01PM (#803042) Journal

      Plant in waves (succession planting?): Get seeds going, a few this week, more next week, more the week after, so they don't ripen at the same time.

      Square foot gardening: pack that garden FULL!

      Plant stuff that ripens early and late so you always have something you're eating.

      Square foot gardening is amazing: stop thinking like a farmer. Who needs to plant in rows when you don't use a harvester.

      My asparagus should be prime eating this year: gonna harvest the HELL out of that baby! :)

      --
      --- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---