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Farm country feeds America, but try buying groceries there

nytimes.com

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Re: Farm country feeds America, but try buying groceries there

#111

Post by losteric »

refurb wrote: post #50
losteric wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Choice is an interesting word. Our purchasing decisions are constrained by income, which is limited by education and experience. If someone grows up with poor education in an economically stagnant area, their likely minimum-wage severely limits the freedom to choose. Surplus unskilled labor translates to downward pressure on wages which implies the same for goods on the market - it's a nasty feedback loop that underc…

Huh? At some point in time these people had $X. They decided that it was better for them to shop at Walmart versus their local grocer. Is this surprising? No. Walmart offers better selection and prices. Economy of scale plays a big part in that. They had every choice to keep spending their dollars at their local grocer. And they decided not to.

The decision of how $X is spent is just part of the bigger picture... what is $X, why do people accept those wages, what options are actually available to them, and how does the presence of conglomerate importers influence the local economy in the long run? That's what I was alluding to.

Re: Farm country feeds America, but try buying groceries there

#112

Post by corebit »

bluGill wrote: post #99
pwthornton wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is missing from this. There aren't many small towns anymore. Those have been decimated. It's now random strip malls in random places. There is no reason that people should need a car to do everything in life, and that's not how things used to be, but that's how things are now. In fairness to individuals, the federal government drove this with subsidizes for highway expansion and making it hard to get loans on de…

You seem to be confusing small towns for suburban sprawl. Small towns don't have the problems you list: build a massive McMansion on the edge of town you are still walking distance to the other edge of the town. The whole value of your house will be more than a tiny house in San Francisco despite having 10x the floor area and 100x the land. Hiways have been good for rural areas overall, because the few people who liv…

Actually OP is more right than even he knows, because the small towns themselves should never have been built but for massive federal government land subsidies for railroads in the 19th century - huge sections of which were never sustainable even when built, let alone a century later.

Re: Farm country feeds America, but try buying groceries there

#113

Post by SilasX »

HeyLaughingBoy wrote: post #110
pnutjam wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a lot of blame for Walmart, but let's not forget the car culture that has everyone leaving their town every day and commuting instead of living and working in a community.

wut? I'm an engineer. I live on a small farm. If not for this "car culture" I wouldn't have a job. The closest business to my house is a bar about 3 miles away. The next closest is a gas station 7 miles away. There is no "community:" that's a fiction perpetuated by people who live in cities. Maybe there was 100 years ago, but there sure isn't now. You can hate on cars all you want, but there's no denying that they op…

Interesting, most of Europe has much less of a car culture, and engineers seem to get jobs okay.

Re: Farm country feeds America, but try buying groceries there

#114

Post by notatoad »

pnutjam wrote: post #58
wil421 wrote: post #3

Walmart and the like killed local competition. There’s a gas station I stop at from time to time in the country with a Walmart next door. It’s insanely busy. I have family in the country and they accept having to drive to get decent groceries. There are seasonal vegetable and fruit stands but you couldn’t get everything you need. A local ranch sells beef but it would be quite expensive to buy year around unless you w…

There is a lot of blame for Walmart, but let's not forget the car culture that has everyone leaving their town every day and commuting instead of living and working in a community.

Yeah, this isn't really a relevant critique in farm country. You can live in a town and walk to the grocery store, but then you need to drive to work. Or else you can live on a farm and drive to a town to buy groceries. But in no scenario does farming and density work together. Industrial-scale farming doesn't happen without car travel. Subsistence farming does, but if all the farmers are subsistence farmers then the cities don't get fed.

If you want to be a proponent of dense urban living, that's great. Dense urban living is good. But dense urban living is only feasible because farm country exists.

Re: Farm country feeds America, but try buying groceries there

#115

Post by nmcfarl »

genieyclo wrote: post #96
nmcfarl wrote: post #84

Grocery Stores closing really is happening, and really is a problem. And it's part of what's killing towns - if only because attracting new folk without one is hard. We live in John Day, Or (pop 1700)(County pop 7200, area: about 2x Delaware), which we chose partially because of it's supermarket. The next closest supermarket is 90min away. (Walmart: 2h). Not having to commute hours for groceries is a big deal, as is…

Out of curiosity: why did you choose to live in such a remote/rural place?

stevehawk's reasons are not far off.

I'd add that my wife really loves the scope of practice - she does literally everything from delivering babies (w/an occasional C-section) to gerontology, from addiction medicine to ER. This just doesn't happen elsewhere.

And we like the space. The road we live on ends in a wilderness area, the hiking and X-C skiing and so on is amazing. And both us and our 6 year old love having sheep and alpacas and a dozen chickens and a greenhouse. Hobby farming like this just doesn't work in Seattle.

We miss live shows and restaurants and all the city stuff, but for now at least we like this more.

Re: Farm country feeds America, but try buying groceries there

#117

Post by gerbilly »

I grew up in a very small town (pop ~300) where I pumped gas in the summers.

Guys would roll up running on fumes and ask me to put two dollars of gas in it so they could drive one town over and save a few pennies a gallon on gas.

Pretty soon after, the owner of the station stopped selling gas entirely. Yay!

If you weren't a farmer with your own tanks on site, you were pretty much forced to drive 6 miles to go get gas after that.

Re: Farm country feeds America, but try buying groceries there

#118

Post by HeyLaughingBoy »

bluGill wrote: post #87
Bartweiss wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The car dependency of rural America is certainly worth discussing, and this specific grocery store case does have consequences. As one example, in towns like this retirement homes or apartments catering to older people are often within walking or shuttle distance of a town center with a grocery store, which helps preserve independence for people who no longer drive. But the focus of the article is strange, and seems…

The reporter made the mistake of not measuring distance in a unit of time! 10 miles in rural areas is just more than 10 minutes if you obey the speed limit - nobody actually does that though, so in reality it probably is less than 10 minutes. The same distance in NYC could be well over an hour (Note that I don't live in NYC so I have to guess). Depending of course on where you are going and how you get there, but mos…

Exactly. The closest grocery store to my house is an upscale one about 7 miles away. I rarely shop there: I go to the Walmart 10 miles away because (1) it's on my way home from work and (2) prices are lower.

Basically, if you live in a rural area, having to drive places is table stakes: not even worth thinking about. Unless there's a major snowstorm or the roads are covered in ice. Then it becomes a pain in the ass.

Re: Farm country feeds America, but try buying groceries there

#119

Post by jschwartzi »

refurb wrote: post #76
vkou wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, that's not the point that I'm making. The point that I am making is that platitudes about 'The people asked for it, now they got it, therefore we have optimized overall good' are poor arguments. Satisfying wants don't always result in locally, or globally optimal outcomes.

How is this not optimized for the greater good? Because some people miss their local grocery store?

What is the greater good in your mind? What end would you like to see here?

Re: Farm country feeds America, but try buying groceries there

#120

Post by chipotle_coyote »

SilasX wrote: post #113
HeyLaughingBoy wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

wut? I'm an engineer. I live on a small farm. If not for this "car culture" I wouldn't have a job. The closest business to my house is a bar about 3 miles away. The next closest is a gas station 7 miles away. There is no "community:" that's a fiction perpetuated by people who live in cities. Maybe there was 100 years ago, but there sure isn't now. You can hate on cars all you want, but there's no denying that they op…

Interesting, most of Europe has much less of a car culture, and engineers seem to get jobs okay.

How many engineers in Europe live on small farms 20+ miles from their employer?

Look, engineers can get jobs in the United States without owning a car, too -- but they'd better live in an urban area with public transit, or work remotely (and live in an area where they can still get where they need by transit, bike, or walking). I suppose it's possible that engineers in the French or German equivalents of rural farm country do just peachy where they are, but I'm betting most of them are actually living in and around Paris, Berlin and Munich.

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