A Dollar Store Backlash Has Begun

the reason there aren't more grocery stores selling good food is because no one wants that. Consumers are in charge and they've spoken loud and clear: consumers prefer processed foods, sodas, chips, things placed in boxes and plastic. I've even seen parent who boycott schools trying to remove cookies from the lunch menu. At a certain point, people need to start making good decisions about what they buy. and yes, you can buy healthy AND cheap. Rolled oats (aka oatmeal is available for 50c to 1$ per lb, even here in the CA!) . and that's 22 times cheaper than a meal at McDonalds. Compare => 3 meals at mcDonalds => 22$ vs Oatmeal 1 lb = 1600 calories which makes it about 1$ per day. And oatmeal is high in fiber, protein and countless minerals, super low in saturated fat, extremely low in sodium and sugar. Sure, you'd want to add a couple of fruits to your basket: there's bananas for 55c per pound!, etc.

I ate oatmeal almost everyday for lunch for a year and it lowered my LDL cholesterol by 60 points! it's a real cholesterol fighter. And, if you do the math on everything, you can find great deals in veggies to: potatoes, onions, Beans, Corn (super highly subsidized), and the occassional costco spinach.

Once we start choosing good foods, stores will have no choice but to start selling more of that. Let the backlash begin!

The elitism here is sickening. Why shouldn’t the author just come out and say “We know what’s best and have to control the stores around poor people or they might buy junk food.”

I hope people who think this way never end up in a position to influence actual laws or policies.

- some items are not as cheap as walmat/costco like Fluor

- they dont create as much jobs as traditional grocery stoes ( 9 vs 14)

I assume the folks who are struggling are not stupid .. and have looked at every conceivable way of stretching their dollar and judging by the demand it (Dollar store) is providing a valuable service.

I take another exception to the approach this article takes .. instead of complaining about dollar stores moving into poor/urban areas why are they giving a pass to the established grocery chains for moving out ? it seems like providing 9 employment positions is better than the 0 being offered by the other stores.

I dislike dollar stores, but not for any of the reasons listed here. The folks pushing back in Vermont aren’t angry about dollar stores for the reasons being dissected in this piece - instead, they seem to dislike massive, soulless retail chains showing up and profiting off their community.

How about instead writing about the fact that Whole Foods doesn’t open retail stores in communities of color? That probably doesn’t play as well to their affluent white audience who probably has disdain for dollar stores but shops at Whole Foods on the regular.

It's definitely a different experience than going to a grocery store for sure. It's almost like you have a department store or modern pharmacies like CVS with the food capabilities of a gas station or 7-Eleven.

I can see why it would appeal to lower-income families. If you assume they are short on time you can probably get all your shopping done in one place. It's definitely smaller than a grocery store and there are fewer options. I think this helps because if you're short on time and trying to get in and out of there you have to spend less time in the store and there's less cognitive overload trying to figure out what to get.

Most grocery stores I've been to have unit prices somewhere on the shelf. They're noticeably absent and I have to do the math sometimes.

I can understand residents being upset about these stores being subsidized by local government. It makes me wonder what the alternate solutions are. I assume they're getting subsidized since stores are fleeing or they don't want to open up shop. If that's true I don't think those stores are coming back unless they're even more heavily subsidized.

Is the solution more Aldi's or Lidl's? I've found that there's a "feel bad" for me going in those stores compared to a normal grocery store.

Every Dollar General I've ever been in has dairy, eggs, a competent selection of canned and dry goods (pasta, beans, etc), baking goods, and a good (if basic) selection of fresh fruits and vegetables.

It's not the dollar store's fault if the surrounding community insists on frozen pizzas and soda.

I wonder how much of the issue is cultural and institutional knowledge as opposed to economic. Poverty alone doesn't ensure lack of healthy cooking, the skills involve and time aren't free or universally possessed. One can't just handwave away the labor costs of auto repair for everyone because they know how to fix their own car.

Cynically the 'backlash' it seems more like a 'keep the poor out' move than anything else.

A few decades prior, Walmart built up a retail empire through its willingness to build on the outskirts of rural, far-from-everything-else towns that only had gas stations, ailing downtowns, and maybe a small grocery store, but definitely not a supermarket. But even Walmart's best-in-class coverage leaves large tracts out, and these gaps are filled in by the sorts of Dollar General, for when you don't need to go to the Walmart another twenty, or forty minutes away.

In more populated, more urban areas, grocery stores have shed locations in neighborhoods that were faltering, further contributing to these locales' decline. These are interrelated. It's easy to claim that variety stores don't do enough about food deserts or that they even contribute to the problem (by not stocking enough fresh, perishable foods), but at least they're trying, while other national chain stores have pursued a pragmatic strategy that has largely removed them from this issue.

I once expressed, in a comment on a Strong Towns post [1], that when you consider settlement patterns, urban form, structural poverty, and food insecurity, perhaps you'll find that it's more sensible to subsidize fresh food delivery to people who could least afford it, but such a solution might find itself at odds with the solutions that (new) urbanists would prefer. It might not alter the structural status quo, but it could improve real outcomes in real people's lives.

And as for nonperishables and non-food, bulk packaging is a discount accessible to those with access (e.g. warehouse club), transportation, storage, and able to cover a higher upfront cost for a lower per-unit cost. These are all harder on low or unpredictable incomes, which is one of the many ways poverty is quite expensive. But is this the fault of variety stores? Of course not. The real fix is much harder.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17525029#17531109

You can lead a horse to water. You cannot make it drink.

I don't know how to fix this. I grew up in a home where food was very important. There was a garden out back and my mother cooked from scratch, etc. In recent years, I've been quite poor, including spending some of that time homeless.

My firsthand observation of other poor people is that most of them seem to cut the food budget first. Anecdotally, when I finally got off the street by moving into a cheap rental, many other residents clearly smoked cigarettes and/or marijuana. They tended to stay up all night. I wasn't disturbed by their behavior because I couldn't hear them in my room, but I could hear them anytime I went down the hall to the bathroom.

The character of the residents has changed in the time I have been here. I think the presence of my family is a factor in that. People behave better. Most people seem to sleep at night. We smell less cigarette smoke and less marijuana smoke.

We smell more food cooking in the building. I think people are smoking less because they are eating better and they probably somehow learned that from us (at least to some degree).

Do note that one reason a lot of homeless people smoke is because it is an appetite suppressant. I think people were smoking so much because they weren't eating enough. Now, people are eating better and smoking less and their sleep schedules, behavior, etc all appear to be improved in the aggregate.

I know from talking with people and reading articles, etc, that a lot of poor Americans have this idea that eating well is some luxury they cannot afford rather than a basic necessity upon which everything else is based. They try to get cheap, convenient food. They often lack good cooking skills.

To my mind, poverty and health problems grow out of this broken mental model. I don't know how we fix it, but I don't think just making sure there are stores selling fresh produce fixes it. When I was homeless, bananas and oranges were frequently given for free to homeless people and I sometimes saw other homeless folks just leave it on a sidewalk somewhere.

I really think we need to figure out how to promote healthier eating in the US. I don't think that actually starts with stores per se. I don't know where it starts. But we have this bizarre idea that "health care" happens at a doctor's office instead of seeing diet and lifestyle as the foundations of health that they actually are. Americans tend to have lousy diets and then high medical bills.

Source: Been destitute and on public assistance with a child and limited access to a car.

DG has saved my bacon on numerous occasions--when I've found myself an ingredient or two short mid-recipe.

They have plenty of dairy, eggs, canned vegetables, dry goods, spices, etc--more than adequate for a nutritious and affordable meal.

I don't know all the details, just what I've heard some people involved share about it on various local podcasts like Desert Lady Diaries [3]. It sounds like a major objection is the presence of a Dollar General casts an area as impoverished, making it less attractive to potential transplants/investors/tourists. Joshua Tree residents and business owners are trying like hell to distinguish the area from its surroundings as a classy enclave full of artists, and want to do their best to attract the preferred kind of investment and residents, raising the bar - not lowering it.

It is quite visible when driving through the surrounding towns. The Dollar General stores, definitely leave a crappy impression. I visited one once just to see what they sold, and the sliced bread loaves on the shelves were moldy, some had insects visible inside. NOPE.

[1] https://www.facebook.com/groups/nodollargeneraljoshuatree/

[2] https://www.desertsun.com/story/news/2014/12/25/dollar-gener...

[3] https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCmGyfvro5aierNkIuSNVDOg/vid...

"When a dollar store opened up in Haven, Kansas—subsidized through tax breaks by the local government—sales at the the nearby Foodliner grocery store dropped by 30 percent, "

This seems to be a case of a specific kind of competition, and the Dollar Store is good at that.

The corporation is 'extra evil' for selling stuff cheaper than the 'normally evil corporation' down the street? These arguments are really hard.

As long as produce is available - and by all reasoning it is ... then remaining conclusions are a stretch.

Cheaper prices are generally good for consumers, especially the most vulnerable.

Also should note that it is 'fresh produce' that tends to be the cheapest food. 'Processing' is where the cost is, ergo, and maybe thankfully, processed foods will be more expensive.

This destroyed years of work trying to get stores to build there. Among many others, Target decided it was no longer worth the risk and moved out. They also ended up cancelling projects in other cities, such as DC.

When a city is not competent at providing for basic things like safety and security, it becomes a high risk area, and many businesses will limit their exposure. Small dollar stores are a form of that. Vacant store fronts are another.

When you are performing analysis at the level of blaming white People for moving, you are not looking at serious material.

Would it be worth starting a campaign to attract white people back to the dilapidated neighborhoods?