Seems like it would be better to subsidize a local grocery store in these food deserts regions.
I think the defining characteristic here is the presence of a large population of lower income and lower car ownership (hence distance to a good grocery store being a greater difficulty).
As far as subsidizing a local grocer, perhaps that’s a good idea, but I suspect that if the real problem is serving car-less urbanites then we don’t just need one big grocery store, but rather a number of smaller markets spread through the area so that it’s never a burdensome walk to get fresh food. This is how grocers used to operate. However, small grocery stores don’t have the same economics of mega stores, and inevitably charge more than supermarkets as a result.
It’s not obvious to me that there’s a good way to define a subsidy such that walkable neighborhood markets can offer mega store prices - but only in low income neighborhoods that need the support.
On the other hand, something like community markets and micro farms - if they’re run and organized by the people who live in the neighborhood - seem like a very positive development, since they are empowering people to save money / make some extra utilizing the resources they have and keeping the work and value creation inside their own neighborhood.
Another strategy they use to fudge the data is not counting grocery stores that are not 'traditional'. For example, this map (http://www.povertyusa.org/stories/homelessness-food-deserts-...) has a food desert in Pico Rivera that contains a Food 4 Less.
Around here you can get significant staples from the gas station, and not at bad prices either.
This methodology doesn't lead to the conclusions you're trying to find. It's not valid.
Assume that most people who aren't cooking meals at home from basic staples behave the way they do not because they can't find the staples but because they don't want them. What would your study find? What would it conclude?
All that said, it is certainly true that Los Angeles Hispanics eat large amounts of home-cooked meals.
A lot of education is needed to educate people on food choices once more options become available. Just because we ate that food before doesn’t mean we have to keep eating it, especially in a much lower calorie lifestyle.
The idea that were all on this team together trying to find solutions is naive, you need to do what's best for yourself and your family
The smart people are leaving, of course if you want to stay in LA and struggle your entire life you're free to
My ancestors migrated from other parts of the US to California. If you want to survive you need to move.
What we need is to fix corrupt local governments that prohibit the supply of new real estate via redevelopment and densification. Having lived in Houston for a while, I saw first-hand how different things are when there’s a robust competitive market with new supply constantly added to (mostly) keep up with demand. If you do a poor job as a landlord you’ll go out of business fast.
Anti-trust, anti-monopoly reform is what we need most, and no more regulatory capture. Perhaps compared with more efficient redistributive measures like the negative income tax or land value tax.
home values, for instance, can appreciate in value without (economic) rents, they'd just need to become more desirable in other ways, like making improvements (we need to drastically reduce code and zoning restrictions, and review, permitting, and legal delays to allow this in economically efficient ways).
i'm absolutely in agreement about anti-trust/anti-monopoly enforcement/reform though.