Evolution of the Corner Store

Corner stores were an essential feature when walking proximity to your customer base was necessary, but between the economics of plopping a greyfield Walmart on a busy avenue (as in the States), or a greenfield Carrefour or Auchan on the ring road between the city and the exurbs (as in Europe), they struggle enough on their own, without zoning or the town's own planning commission being at fault.

As the article says, the decline of neighborhood shops carrying fresh produce is one of the processes by which food deserts perpetuate. But the pivot to chips and soda-selling gas stations -- where the fuel, also being a community service, is just a hook sold as a loss leader to drive traffic to high-margin drinks and snacks -- is an economic one, where the state of the emergent market rewards an establishment selling 87, cigarettes and nonperishable Coke and Lays more than one selling lettuce, tomatoes, and peaches. Towns can distort this field to try and improve local outcomes (and they probably should), but larger forces are also at play.

It could also be that some of the solutions come with new tradeoffs. Getting sustainable markets of perishable items with US innerbelt settlement patterns to compete favorably with supermarkets is probably harder, and a longer-term venture than, say, setting up a delivery service that ships subsidized, fresh foods to families in need -- but this solution doesn't do as much for community cohesion, doesn't change settlement patterns, doesn't fix market failures, and pollutes more in transport. Nonetheless, it can improve real quality of life for many people. Negotiating such tradeoffs is where interest groups begin to diverge.

Something that strikes me as interesting is the /rural/ corner store. These I have seen in many small towns, they usually can make sandwiches and the like to go, but also have a deli attached to that to buy meat by the pound. They have frozen cases and dairy cases (not exhaustive but a few items) and then some basic fresh fruit (apples. Bananas, etc) and some canned goods.

Interestingly they almost all seem to have their own dvd rental service as well. Not a red box. But one actually run by them.

It's surprising that a corner stor can survive on my block even though there is both a trader Joe's and a full-service grocery a block away. I guess it's relatively upscale and much faster (no waiting in line most of the time) which helps.

Just to be clear, today's corner stores do not sell food. That is the problem. Sugary drinks and potato chips are not real food, they are garbage. This isn't exclusive to gas stations and other places like that. In San Francisco, it still holds. There is either no food or food of such low quality as to count as no food. I cannot go into these stores and buy a sandwich or ingredients for one nor do they have fruits or vegetables to cook a meal. Also they are overpriced and generally a ripoff that are mostly useless if your goal is to not be hungry. Like everything else in America, I'm sure there is some twisted economic explanation for this. I don't care too much because regardless of the explanation, the only way to get decent food in America is to drive a few miles and the only way to get good food, is to drive many miles. And I live in a city with a bigger city next door. This idea that we can all have walkable nice neighborhoods in America with amenities close by that this site tries to push is frankly delusional in our current economy.

There are a few interesting thing about corner stores.

The first is that almost none of them are owned by white Americans anymore. For whatever reason, almost every store, even out in the boondocks is owned by a person of Indian or Arab nationality. The Fox News fans will say it’s because of tax exemptions rigged in their favor (I’m sure thats untrue), some will say it’s the work ethic, some will say they’re the only people brave enough to work at a store in a bad neighborhood. I’m sure it’s a combination of the three.

Second, in the sketchy areas of bad neighborhoods, they are epicenters of crime. Gambling, drug dealing, selling stolen merchandise, drive by shootings, illegal purchasing of SNAP benefits... the stores are the first place the cops go when investigating crimes.

They basically poison the surrounding neighborhood with drugs and alcohol, I’m no Puritan but I could see it make sense to limit how many of these stores you should allow in your town.