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Comment by insane_dreamer | Hacker News Reader

I'm going to venture an educated guess that proximity of things like grocery stores, restaurants and schools in urban areas is going to be highly correlated with income. Lower income neighborhoods are going to have gas stations and 7-Elevens/AMPMs. So an effort to make a true 15-min city should help improve quality of life and access to healthier food for lower-income residents. That would be a good thing.

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Has any city been able to do that? With the current hands-off punishment of theft, stores have multiple incentives working against them to open in low income neighborhoods.

Retail theft as a new/major issue is mostly a lie, told by corporations and parroted by the media who love a crimewave story, even if its fabricated.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/06/business/walgreens-shopli...

If you google the New Yorker and Atlantic articles on shoplifting issues in the US, you get a slightly more nuanced take combining them all.

What I take away is that retail theft 1) is technically on the rise, mostly due to the ability to then sell those goods online, including on Amazon 2) It doesn't impact major retail chains by much, basically they do what they've always done and just adjust prices. It actually helps amazon on some other online sellers. BUT 3) it definitely contributes to how shitty it is to actually work retail 4) AND it will influence where places like Walgreens set up shop (I'm neutral on this, I would rather have a bunch of local corner stores than walgreens)

No it’s not. My local grocery store has incidents hourly, heck, you can get lucky and see it for yourself where some guy just walks out with a basket full of stuff (security can’t really stop them given liability). If it were fabricated, we wouldn’t see it happen in person so much.

> (security can’t really stop them given liability)

what does this mean? Isn't that the whole point of security?

Security is instructed not to physically restrain anyone, that is a power for the police alone. Because they can get sued.

Is there a problem with thievery of apples, oranges, asparagus and beetroots? I don't have the numbers but I would bet money that most store thievery is cigarettes, alcohol, maybe sodas, and small electronics, pills at CVS, etc.

So no, I don't think theft is the major factor.

Laundry detergent, baby milk powder are pretty popular if they aren’t locked up already. QFC in Capitol Hill had to lock up ice creams which is surprising to me since it can’t be fenced. Lego’s are popular at local neighborhood Targets, they were being fenced at Pike Place Market for awhile. I saw some lady buying up shop lifted paper towels on third and pine once when waiting for the bus (before they closed the stop down last year). I’m like WTF, really? If it isn’t perishable, it’s probably fair game.

Yes, but my point my OP was about the lack of grocery stores with healthier options -- i.e., fresh fruits and vegetables, etc. -- in lower income neighborhoods. Those are perishable and therefore much less of a target.

Yes, but perishables are more difficult to stock, so they still get neglected in lower income neighborhoods. But ya, unhoused neighbors aren’t shoplifting kale.

> perishables are more difficult to stock, so they still get neglected in lower income neighborhoods

exactly, and this is a big part of the problem; we have no problem subsidizing corn for Ethanol, why can't we provide incentives that provide lower income people access to healthier food?

Gas stations and corner stores also tend to have the highest prices. Climate change policy advocates are doing a real disservice to their cause by not being honest with people about the sacrifices/hardships these polices will cause in the short term. Deception is not a viable long term political strategy.

If you take the corner store model as far as many European, NY, etc cities - You remove the $300-400+/mo cost of a car (ballparking here)

Otherwise if the local shops are more expensive (in any meaningful way), consumers would simply drive the additional N miles to the Walmart Supercenter as things kind of are as is

A big part of the problem is that the U.S. doesn't have European-style local grocery stores (and if they do, they're expensive farmer market style boutiques in high-priced areas).

Normal farmers markets, at least where I have lived, not expensive however (excluding your fancy small flock lamb, or whatever). Unfortunately they are not run every day, generally once per week. Olympia, Washington was an exception with a 4 day per week farmer's market.

> Gas stations and corner stores also tend to have the highest prices.

Yes, along with the least healthy food. Food poverty (in the sense of being unable to afford or access healthy food) is a very serious problem in America that contributes to the high numbers of unhealthy people and obesity rates. It's one of those things that isn't talked about enough, and certainly I don't read much about efforts to fix it.

this is a very US centric view and problem... in other countries lower income does not correlate with no access to local grocery shopping school etc... a german newspaper did a great income analysis of german cities [1]. You really see the differentiation in income, but if you overlay (at least for the cities I looked at) it with a map even in the low income neighborhood you get decent grocery shopping in walking distance (Lidl has also good organic produce/groceries) and schools and gyms etc...

[1] https://www.zeit.de/community/2023-02/einkommen-deutsche-sta...

The article is about Seattle, which is currently a US city, so imho it’s reasonable to have a US-centric view of the problem.

I imagine the point is that what happens in the US isn't some inevitable state of things, it's the choices of US citizens, and they could look abroad to see counterexamples to their assumptions.

yeah it was meant in this direction... I lived and worked in Minneapolis and Boston and I don't get all the discussions why this segregation for livability, walkability etc is so prominent and by choice in the US compared to the cities in europe. I mean here you also have an separation by income (as indicated by the linked provided), but even the low income areas are livable and walkable and you have everything for your daily needs.

> currently a US city

are there plans to secede to Canada? ;)

Yes, I was specifically referring to the US (since the article was about Seattle). I've lived in Europe / Asia and it's very different of course.

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