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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

#191

Post by souprock »

chipotle_coyote wrote: post #120
SilasX wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 c…

There is a lot between "urban" and "rural". You could be car-free in my non-urban area. I don't do that, but you certainly could. It's the Florida cities/towns of Melbourne, Indialantic, and Palm Bay.

From my house in Indialantic it's not more than a mile to my workplace, to Ace Hardware, to Dollar General, to an organic food store, to a seafood store (raw or cook-to-order), and to the beach. There are closer houses even, often below $400,000 for a 3-bedroom on a quarter acre.

Melbourne and Palm Bay are similar, but cheaper and with many more jobs for engineers.

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

#192

Post by HeyLaughingBoy »

SilasX wrote: post #150
HeyLaughingBoy wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What does living on a farm have to do with urban planning?

Yes, I should have used a more general term, like "land use planning"; I'm glad that gave you the opportunity for the zinger. In any case, (literal) urban planning is definitely relevant to determining how many places someone can affordably live without owning a car, and lead to less people being in the kind of boxed-in situation where their best option is to live far out and car-dependent while having to drive far f…

I see.

It wasn't a "zinger," I just had no idea what you meant.

That said, one important aspect that even US journalists sometimes don't get is that most of the people who live in rural areas are doing it by preference. It's not because of urban sprawl or limited housing options. Most of us just like having lots of space and keeping our neighbors at arms length.

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

#193

Post by magduf »

bsder wrote: post #184
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…

> Grocery Stores closing really is happening, and really is a problem. And it's part of what's killing towns No, it's a symptom. The real problem is "the town should shut down". This is the standard "people are gung-ho about capitalism when things are going up, and angry about it when things are going down." There is a lower limit past when a town no longer makes sense from a self-sufficiency standpoint. If people in…

Universal healthcare and UBI aren't going to magically make a town economically viable. It'll just result in other places subsidizing some people to live in that place and sit on their asses mostly. It might work out if lots of such people congregate in one place, which will turn it back into an economically viable location, with people starting businesses (since UBI does help entrepreneurialism after all), but if it's just some little village, it'll just be some people doing little to nothing for extra money and complaining that there's no grocery stores there, because even with 100 people with UBI, that's still not enough to sustain a business.

Many of these towns just need to shut down and become ghost towns. Whatever industry that used to sustain them decades ago is gone now, so they have no more reason to exist. This isn't new: the Western US states are full of actual "ghost towns" from the late 1800s and early 1900s, most of which died out because the nearby mine got tapped out and shut down. The towns died, and the people actually (unlike these days) accepted reality, and packed up and moved out. All that's left now is usually building foundations, though some places have some collapsed buildings left.

Conservative small-town people in the US these days are really a strange lot. They whine about "socialism", but then they complain about their little town dying out, but refuse to do anything to improve their situation such as moving to a city for work, and then seem to want a government handout.

I'll also add that universal healthcare isn't going to magically bring hospitals to rural areas. Lots of rural people are so far away from medical facilities that they're basically screwed if they have any problems that require help quickly. Hospitals require a lot of money, and a lot of highly-trained staff; universal healthcare isn't going to make all these people suddenly want to relocate to some small town.

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

#194

Post by 9dev »

refurb wrote: post #185
fzeroracer wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is that really the only response you have to large corporations artificially lowering prices to brute force local markets? What next, are you going to defend regional monopolies by ISPs because consumers should just choose a different ISP?

If you’re goal is to stop competition and keep prices higher, then yes we should stop Walmart. I for one don’t want that.

Is Walmart really the kind of one-size-fits-all solution you want, though? Can't you see the value in having specialized, higher quality stores compared to a giant store that may sell you anything, but only garbage? I find that to be a sad perspective. You're literally placing the fate of entire towns in the hands of a single company with a de-facto monopoly. Free markets right, but how is that good? How much does the lower price Walmart offers you help to live a good and sustainable life?

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

#195

Post by fzeroracer »

refurb wrote: post #185
fzeroracer wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is that really the only response you have to large corporations artificially lowering prices to brute force local markets? What next, are you going to defend regional monopolies by ISPs because consumers should just choose a different ISP?

If you’re goal is to stop competition and keep prices higher, then yes we should stop Walmart. I for one don’t want that.

You're saying that we shouldn't stop Walmart monopolies because it would stifle competition?

The proof is in the fact that Walmart has came to many smaller towns and wiped out local competition due to size and economy of scale. The only companies that can compete is ones at similar scale while local businesses go bankrupt and money is drained out of the community.

When did free market economics turn into support for massive monopolies and allowing single corporations to control entire markets?

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

#196

Post by SilasX »

HeyLaughingBoy wrote: post #192
SilasX wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, I should have used a more general term, like "land use planning"; I'm glad that gave you the opportunity for the zinger. In any case, (literal) urban planning is definitely relevant to determining how many places someone can affordably live without owning a car, and lead to less people being in the kind of boxed-in situation where their best option is to live far out and car-dependent while having to drive far f…

I see. It wasn't a "zinger," I just had no idea what you meant. That said, one important aspect that even US journalists sometimes don't get is that most of the people who live in rural areas are doing it by preference. It's not because of urban sprawl or limited housing options. Most of us just like having lots of space and keeping our neighbors at arms length.

>It wasn't a "zinger," I just had no idea what you meant.

That's why you read the rest of the comment -- for context that can disambiguate it.

>That said, one important aspect that even US journalists sometimes don't get is that most of the people who live in rural areas are doing it by preference. It's not because of urban sprawl or limited housing options. Most of us just like having lots of space and keeping our neighbors at arms length.

Of course, but I doubt it can account for the fully difference. In the later 20th century, there was a vast movement out to the suburbs, and I doubt it was from a spontaneous desire for more space.

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

#197

Post by hockeybias »

stevehawk wrote: post #100
genieyclo wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

As a nerd who also married a doctor and went rural - 1) Doctors tend to make more money in rural areas. Hospitals/practices tend to offer higher salaries/bonuses/etc in order to draw talent. My wife makes roughly 50% more in an area of 30,000 people (mind you, we're talking a pretty large geographic area) than she would in Miami. 2) Money goes further. My 4500sq ft home on 1.2 acres of land is worth considerably less…

I'm told nature is beautiful.

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

#198

Post by magduf »

9dev wrote: post #194
refurb wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you’re goal is to stop competition and keep prices higher, then yes we should stop Walmart. I for one don’t want that.

Is Walmart really the kind of one-size-fits-all solution you want, though? Can't you see the value in having specialized, higher quality stores compared to a giant store that may sell you anything, but only garbage? I find that to be a sad perspective. You're literally placing the fate of entire towns in the hands of a single company with a de-facto monopoly. Free markets right, but how is that good? How much does th…

What "higher quality" stores? Have you ever been to little mom-n-pop shops in the days before Walmart? They were generally pretty terrible: the prices were high, the service wasn't very good (they didn't have liberal return policies), they might even be rude to you, and the selection was absolutely terrible. How is that "higher quality"?

You seem to have some naive idea image of quaint little small towns in the "old days" where everything was great until big, bad Walmart showed up. It wasn't like that at all. Go read about "company towns" and "company stores", where there was only one store in the town, that was the only place where the local workers could shop because they got paid in "scrip" instead of real money, and where the prices were terribly high, effectively making them all indentured servants.

>You're literally placing the fate of entire towns in the hands of a single company with a de-facto monopoly.

These little towns generally had monopolies anyway. They weren't big enough to support multiple stores of the same type.

The bottom line is that these towns just aren't economically viable any more. They need to just shut down, and the people in them need to be relocated.

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

#199

Post by nexuist »

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…

> Not having to commute hours for groceries is a big deal, as is being able to get vegetables of season - and in the rural west these things not a given.

What you are describing is a de facto food desert: https://www.cdc.gov/features/FoodDeserts/index.html

There might be an easy (albeit costly) way to fix this. Just today I learned about a govt agency called the Essential Air Service:

> The United States Department of Transportation (USDOT) subsidizes airlines to serve communities across the country that otherwise would not receive scheduled air service.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Essential_Air_Service

Because seats are paid for in advance, airlines don't have to worry about route popularity, and that allows them to financially justify serving towns that otherwise would never be considered by any airline.

I wonder if taking the same model and applying it to food a la the Essential Food Service might make sense. If federal or state governments subsidized every grocery store purchase so the owners can afford to keep the lights on, we can stop or even reverse the grocery store death toll and enable shorter commutes for rural residents.

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

#200

Post by CalRobert »

techsupporter wrote: post #188
CalRobert wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It occurs to us, but doing tech work remote is much more lucrative and reliable. Also, are you sure people want it? If so why do these stores close?

> If so why do these stores close? Because for every one or two fantastically wealthy-beyond-all-belief-for-the-area technologist who moves in, five people who don't have a job like that leave the region in search of something that pays an income. A lot of these bucolic rural areas with a few thousand people in a county exist because of an industry that was present decades ago that has now collapsed. So, sure, the pr…

Oh, I know - I meant it rhetorically basically. If the last grocery store failed I'm not likely to think it's a good idea to start another.

And I suppose I do feel a bit clever (though in my case it's a ~500 sqft house on a few acres - quirky and cheap) but mostly am just angry that the city decided it was OK to add thousands and thousands and thousands of good jobs and ~0 homes.

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