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In poor neighborhoods, McDonald’s have become de-facto community centers

theguardian.com

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Re: In poor neighborhoods, McDonald’s have become de-facto community centers

#321

Post by spike021 »

Rudism wrote: post #155

A few years ago my wife and I were coming back from a road trip to visit some friends and family in Canada, and we crossed back into the US at the Detroit/Windsor crossing. We were basically running on fumes by the time we got through the border, so drove around the Detroit side a bit in search of a gas station (it took a while to find one that wasn't clearly abandoned or in complete shambles). One thing I noticed is…

For what it's worth, that's just one example of a McDonalds.

There was one location nearby where I went to college and its lot was frequently used by drug dealers and all kinds of shady types.

Re: In poor neighborhoods, McDonald’s have become de-facto community centers

#322

Post by stcredzero »

pc86 wrote: post #178
stcredzero wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, one of my best friends in Texas is a "Redneck Liberal" but he's more of the "slightly to the left of Mao" sort than he is a Libertarian.

Austin?

Houston. He's rabidly anti-corporate and anti-1%. he's also pretty rabidly anti-gun, yet he owns a revolver. He's totally "do as I say, not as I do" about that issue!

Re: In poor neighborhoods, McDonald’s have become de-facto community centers

#323

Post by city41 »

cloakandswagger wrote: post #297
dreamdu5t wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So where should the focal point of your community be? What super-sophisticated place do you socialize at? A bar? Starbucks? The mall? At home in front of the computer?

It's really not hard to find a communal gathering spot a little more high-brow than McDonald's For example, I live in the suburbs of San Francisco. Not far from me there is a delightful and quaint organic bakery, and across from that is a gorgeous park. On weekends after my kids finish lacrosse practice, my wife and I take them there and enjoy some cheap ($9 each) chocolate croissants while they play on their tablets…

But you live in a San Francisco suburb. Try a small town in West Virginia or Alabama. It's very different.

Re: In poor neighborhoods, McDonald’s have become de-facto community centers

#324

Post by zaphar »

dimino wrote: post #235
tobltobs wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The interesting question is, if this is a sign for an achievement of McDonalds or a failure of the society?

It doesn't feel like an effective use of space; what is it about McDonald's that makes it a better focal point than a community center or a space built specifically as a gathering point for the community?

The article details exactly what it is that makes McDonalds better:

1. It's clean.

2. It's local.

3. It is welcoming.

4. There is no beauracracy.

Re: In poor neighborhoods, McDonald’s have become de-facto community centers

#325

Post by chrisper »

Naritai wrote: post #287
erikpukinskis wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cooking for yourself is only cheaper if you've already spent the money to outfit your kitchen. There's a big up front investment in terms of ingredients and tools. You can spend $50 up front, and then eat for $3/meal by cooking for yourself... Or you can just spend $6/meal at McDonalds. If you only have $10 in your pocket you really don't have much of a choice. This is, I think, the most important thing to understand…

S/He also ignores the time invested in cooking. What must your hourly wage be, for the $3 saved by cooking to be worthwhile?

Also, cooking for only one person seems to me to be more expensive, because the ingredients don't really come in the size for only one person.

Re: In poor neighborhoods, McDonald’s have become de-facto community centers

#326

Post by rue »

kristianc wrote: post #143
Kalium wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, this is exactly why Vox exists. Which is both why Vox is the best place for that article and the place where its core message will go unheard.

This, from today, is another classic of the genre. A Guardian columnist walking round one of the UK's poorest districts bewildered that white working class people do not share his opinions on the European Union: http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/video/2016/jun/14/l...

“Everyone’s entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts.”

Smugness is certainly a fact, but so is that brexit will leave the UK economically worse off in pretty much all respects. Especially the poor.

Re: In poor neighborhoods, McDonald’s have become de-facto community centers

#327

Post by ghaff »

DrScump wrote: post #315
ghaff wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>McD's are pre-cut and frozen So? There are lots and lots of reasons with many types of food to prefer fresh. But it's also possible to fetishize fresh over frozen for no particular reason. (As is often the case with seafood.) I can only report my experience, which is that I'll sometimes grab (only) some McD's fries when on a long drive and I generally avoid either In-N-Out or ShakeShack fries when getting the rare b…

So? Just stating fact without making judgments. a non-trivial uplift over McDonalds I agree. McD's price for their "premium" sandwiches are a poor value compared to In-n-Out, Five Guys, etc.

>Just stating fact without making judgments.

Fair enough. But "frozen" gets so often used as an automatic disparagement relative to fresh.

To your other point, I personally can't stand McD's burgers so would avoid them unless I were starving so In-n-Out etc. are a better value if I have a choice. (Doubt if I've had a McD's burger in more than a decade.) No judgment about people who do. Just not for me.

Re: In poor neighborhoods, McDonald’s have become de-facto community centers

#328

Post by refurb »

erikpukinskis wrote: post #232
_Codemonkeyism wrote: post #119

What astonishes me, is how often poor people go eating in a restaurant (e.g. breakfast in the first paragraph) when making breakfast at home (or lunch) is so much cheaper (as a fun exercise we often calculate the prices of our home lunch). Although I have a nice income, 80% of the time I bring my own food to work because restaurants are too expensive in my opinion to regularly use them. As a side note: I have the sus…

Cooking for yourself is only cheaper if you've already spent the money to outfit your kitchen. There's a big up front investment in terms of ingredients and tools. You can spend $50 up front, and then eat for $3/meal by cooking for yourself... Or you can just spend $6/meal at McDonalds. If you only have $10 in your pocket you really don't have much of a choice. This is, I think, the most important thing to understand…

What equipment are you thinking of? Don't most homes have stoves? A pan or pot is maybe a couple dollars from a garage sale.

Re: In poor neighborhoods, McDonald’s have become de-facto community centers

#329

Post by ac2u »

tobltobs wrote: post #303
corin_ wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given you basically said "what could be worse than a cheeseburger, apple and chocolate milk?" here's an easier answer - swap the cheeseburger for a double cheeseburger. There's a nice simple example of "could be worse", for you, without even thinking about different menu items available. The apple: it's raw apple cut into slices... not fried, nor from a fictional bakery that their marketing apparently makes you think…

Sorry to disturb those dreams about fresh cut apple slices. They are not freshly cut, they are cutted and treated with chemicals in a factory, packed into plastic and might be lying around for up to two weeks before some parents give them their kids to alleviate their guilty conscience for taking their kids to a drug food shop. Same for the chocolate milk. But I leave it up to you to find out what great inventions of…

I feel like you're playing to the knee-jerk reaction crowd that will decide you've won the argument through buzzword bingo, the buzzword in this case being "chemicals".

Saying a foodstuff has come into contact with a chemical somewhere in the process means nothing without more information, yet you expect it to be taken as an automatic negative.

Re: In poor neighborhoods, McDonald’s have become de-facto community centers

#330

Post by smokey_the_bear »

zepto wrote: post #298
smokey_the_bear wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe twice a month. We typically stop there only when traveling now. We might stroll to the one a half mile from our house for dinner once in awhile otherwise. McDonald's isn't a large part of our mostly wholesome diet. I feel good about what my kids eat on a day to day basis. Also, I'm the mother. It's not really germane to the issue, but everyone in this thread assumed otherwise.

It crossed my mind that you didn't specify gender. I just copied what the previous poster had used assuming that they knew from other threads. Sorry for making that assumption. I'm curious about how the stigma actually plays out - do people you know actually say things to you about it? Would you actually experience more negative interactions if you just did what you want, or has it been internalized because you know…

It is just internalized for me enough so that we usually make another choice for dinner. Also I don't really want the kids to go to preschool and say they had McDonalds for dinner, at about the same level that I don't want to send them to preschool in a dirty shirt.

Once we hadn't been to the grocery store in unusually long, and spent the weekend eating the things in the freezer and the back of the cupboards. We mentioned to the kids that we were out of food. My son went to preschool the next day and congratulated his teachers on always having food available.

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