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A federal policy change in the 1980s created the modern food desert

theatlantic.com

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Re: A federal policy change in the 1980s created the modern food desert

#101

Post by haroldp »

mindslight wrote: post #100
haroldp wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In reality, the inefficiencies matter a lot. Which is how big stores attract customers with lower prices, provided they already have cars to get to them.

I was talking about inefficiencies due to "free market" optimization being a mere heuristic that finds local optima rather than global ones. So it can be completely rational for individual customers to be basing their purchasing around such a dynamic, to the point where even adding some energy (eg investment capital) can't get the optimization unstuck, while still having longstanding structural inefficiencies when lo…

I think that is also what I am talking about.

A big central store is more economically efficient, and as a result the consumer preference, in an economic landscape where Men With Guns have removed every option except diffuse suburban housing, where they already need to have cars to get along.

Some suggest as a fix, getting the gunmen back out to force a more expensive, less efficient system for distributing food. I'm saying, can we strike at the root instead of forever hacking at the branches? Allow people to build the cities they actually want, so long as they don't hurt or endanger anyone else.

Re: A federal policy change in the 1980s created the modern food desert

#105

Post by acuozzo »

fluorinerocket wrote: post #104

What's crazy to me is how we have all these random unenforced laws on the books. One day things change and they start getting enforced again, now you're a criminal.

> One day things change and they start getting enforced again, now you're a criminal.

This combined with the 13th amendment making slavery legal for prisoners enables the US to grow or shrink its pool of available slave workers using primarily political forces.

It additionally empowers politicians with effective judicial power they would otherwise not have. Consider, for instance, Giuliani's use of NYC's antiquated cabaret laws to "clean up" the city.

Re: A federal policy change in the 1980s created the modern food desert

#106

Post by acuozzo »

potato3732842 wrote: post #45
legitster wrote: post #30

> Prior to that, small towns and poor neighborhoods could generally count on having a grocery store, perhaps even several. The small, corner grocery store back in the day didn't have much selection though. Hence the takeover of super -markets. For better and worse, their role has mostly been supplanted by gas stations and dollar stores which still populate a lot of these food deserts.

A "good" dollar store isn't thaaaat much worse price wise than Walmart or a "cheap" grocery store. It's generally slightly worse across the board, but consistently better than the whatever the expensive grocery store is though the selection is way worse. It really peeves me I didn't notice this sooner because I'm usually pretty good at identifying bullshit tropes that are really just the middle class fishing for reas…

Alternatively, this trope (and others?) could be an attempt by the "middle class" to establish some kind of class solidarity given that, in reality, there are only two classes: (1) the working class a.k.a. the have-to-works and (2) the capital class a.k.a. the don't-have-to-works.

Further subdivision is only useful in some contexts.

Re: A federal policy change in the 1980s created the modern food desert

#107

Post by acuozzo »

relaxing wrote: post #79
hindsightbias wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> filibuster-proof majority They had 72 Days in 2009 to fix everything! Both parties are the same! /s

And all the while they had blue dog conservatives like Joe Lieberman and Ben Nelson handicapping the proceedings.

I've wondered for a while now: why don't the Democrats get their own agents elected as pseudo-Republicans?

The Republicans keep doing it... Lieberman, Nelson, Manchin, Sinema, et al.

Re: A federal policy change in the 1980s created the modern food desert

#108

Post by trod1234 »

This opinion article lacks appropriate backing for the narrative pushed to be compelling, the data they reference is not included or linked, and the article suggests that non-enforcement of antitrust is the driver for food deserts which started around the 1980s with Reagan, when in fact there were an awful lot of issues going on simultaneously in that time period economically speaking.

It's usually ill-advised to propose a magic bullet when there are many factors at play in the overall economics. I haven't seen any data suggesting the unenforcement (which has no visibility) was more impactful than the S&L crisis (which happened around the same time).

1973 to 1982 Stagflation raged. 1970s took the USD into fiat currency,early 1980s the collapse of Silver occurred due to bad actors cornering markets, certain banks also started being less responsible with whom they loaned to favoring large corporations over independent businesses, and heavy speculation regardless of risk that culminated in the savings and loan crisis affecting many industries, and seemingly following the all too familiar pattern of too-big-to-fail bailout type plans, which were proven to be profitable starting with the Pennsylvania Railroad bankruptcy in 1970 (from what I've seen).

While it is an interesting synopsis, the article completely ignores the other factors instead cherrypicking antitrust, more specifically the Patman Act and unenforcement as the culprit. Economies don't operate in a vacuum. Occam's razor says its more likely to be any number of the crises that happened with the underlying trend being fiat banking, than any other factor that has almost no visibility with a lot of other confounding data. They were chaotic times.

Re: A federal policy change in the 1980s created the modern food desert

#109

Post by naming_the_user »

The term "food desert" has always seemed needlessly provocative to me.

Growing up in the UK my family used to drive 15-20 mins to the supermarket and do a big weekly or monthly shop. The nearest _decent_ non-petrol-station style shop with actual food would have been an hours' walk.

In the US unless you actually live in the absolute middle of nowhere like rural rural you're not more than 20 miles from a supermarket. Map example - everywhere other than the darkest red colour is a 15-20 min drive:

https://imgur.com/distance-to-nearest-large-supermarket-usa-...

Basically almost anywhere that has any meaningful population at all you're sub 20 mins drive. Of course there's not much in rural areas, that's what rural means.

There seems to be a focus on whether you "need" a car which has always seemed silly to me. If you don't have a car in the USA, outside of somewhere like NYC or specific metro corridors, you are going to have a significantly limited life in so many ways that having to drive to the supermarket just seems like a triviality in comparison.

Even in Britain people just like, have cars, it's normal, if you don't then outside of London it's just kind of embarrassing.

The whole thing seems like someone just wants an excuse to be provocative, just like, go to the supermarket, it's not that deep.

Re: A federal policy change in the 1980s created the modern food desert

#110

Post by sdevoid »

naming_the_user wrote: post #109

The term "food desert" has always seemed needlessly provocative to me. Growing up in the UK my family used to drive 15-20 mins to the supermarket and do a big weekly or monthly shop. The nearest _decent_ non-petrol-station style shop with actual food would have been an hours' walk. In the US unless you actually live in the absolute middle of nowhere like rural rural you're not more than 20 miles from a supermarket. M…

What is necessarily provocative about the term? Both the noun and verb forms of the word "desert" fit well here, especially in the context of the history that this article talks about.

"If you don't have a car ... you are going to have a significantly limited life in so many ways that having to drive to the supermarket just seems like a triviality in comparison." Except that everyone needs to eat, and we know that a poor diet can lead to many, many bad health outcomes. You're correct that there are other disadvantages, such as access to employment opportunities. But if you didn't live in a food desert, you could get a job at the grocery store, right?

"people just like, have cars, it's normal" Except that owning (or leasing) a car is a significant, ongoing expense. I barely use mine (<1,000 miles per year) and it still costs me $2k in insurance, registration, and maintenance. Some people just can't afford that. And what if you are young, old, or are unable to drive for any reason?

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