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Comment by rmason | Hacker News Reader

Whole Foods also opened the first full supermarket in downtown Detroit. Imagine a city of 700,000 people without a single supermarket.

Course they received millions in subsidies to do it. But the program was out there for awhile and no other supermarket chain would take the chance.

Whole Foods success was followed by other chains. However the other chains took the subsidies and built their supermarkets out on 8 mile which is the dividing line between Detroit and the suburbs. While the stores are technically within Detroit the suburbs are right across the street so their risk was much lower.

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>> Whole Foods also opened the first full supermarket in downtown Detroit. Imagine a city of 700,000 people without a single supermarket.

Don't spread this lie. I know food deserts are a popular myth but there are plenty of grocery stores in the city of Detroit. Sure, they might not have a Kroger or Meijer but there are plenty of smaller grocery stores like Save A Lot and ethnic markets.

People don't really think everyone in Detroit lives on a diet of snack foods, $1 menu burgers, and fruit flavored soft drinks, do they?

> People don't really think everyone in Detroit lives on a diet of snack foods, $1 menu burgers, and fruit flavored soft drinks, do they?

Some people apparently think all Americans live that way. Never underestimate the power of preconceptions and stereotypes, especially when they're Not Racist.

"Supermarket" refers to a grocery store that is significantly larger than traditional neighborhood grocery stores.

I shop organic, typically at farmer's markets, and actively cook. I lived in Toledo for a little while and visited Detroit. While you have access to supermarkets in that part of the country the access is very poor. I ate a lot of fast food simply because fast food is within 5 min and a super market is often times 30 min. Produce is typically poor quality and imported.

https://www.google.com/maps/search/supermarket/@41.6476485,-...

It doesn't look that bad. Did you somehow miss Kroger and Meijer are supermarkets?

Most of the coders living downtown I know before Whole Foods all drove to the suburbs to shop. Those small stores offered little variety along with limited selections of fruits and vegetables.

Nobody said Detroit was a food desert or that it had no grocery stores. The claim was that it had no supermarket. You said "don't spread this lie" but then gave no evidence it was a lie. Is it a lie (I wouldn't know)?

There are actually quite a few other supermarkets in the area (like E and L). It's the chains that are / were largely scared (outside of like Spartan)

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