The City Spurs Grocery Stores to Underserved
The Bloomberg administration, which has already cut down on trans fats and distributed fruit vendors to produce-anemic neighborhoods, is now seeking to provide incentives for grocery stores to open in areas where most families spend their food budget at bodegas and drug stores. The City Planning Commission unanimously approved the proposal on Wednesday, reports The…
The Bloomberg administration, which has already cut down on trans fats and distributed fruit vendors to produce-anemic neighborhoods, is now seeking to provide incentives for grocery stores to open in areas where most families spend their food budget at bodegas and drug stores. The City Planning Commission unanimously approved the proposal on Wednesday, reports The New York Times, which would grant zoning and tax incentives to grocery stores, with set requirements about how much produce and other foods they sell. The city is eying northern Manhattan, central Brooklyn, the South Bronx, and downtown Jamaica in Queens. Many city officials, food experts, and grocery store executives approve of the plan, meant to spur economic growth in addition to encouraging health (and fighting the rising rates of obesity and diabetes), but the Times mentions a recent report to Congress by the Department of Agriculture that shows an uncertain correlation between obesity and access to healthy, fresh foods. Avi Kaner, a supermarket operator, said education is the main solution. If you force distribution of product to a population that’s not interested in it, or not educated in it, and the grocery stores can’t make a profit, he told the Times, they’ll eventually leave. Check out the Times article for more details about the program, similar programs across the country, and a finer breakdown of the pros and cons.
A Plan to Add Supermarkets to Poor Areas [NY Times]
FRESH Food Store Program Overview [DOCP]
NYC’s Neighborhood Grocery Store and Supermarket Shortage [DOCP]
Photo by Royce Bair
We’re were outside from early in the morning till dusk and then in the summer at the beach till 9 or 10. There were very few overweight kids, eating wasn’t a priority. It was much more fun to go exploring. I feel for kids today because of all the “dangers’ out there and worse their helicopter parents. My parents got cable after I moved out in 1989 and I didn’t get it till 2004.
THL, that’s so funny and true. We took every minute we could to enjoy our freedom with our friends. We had the Buffalo affiliates of ABC, NBC and CBS and I’ll throw in CBC because it had all the hockey games and SCTV. CITY-TV was one other channel that had ok shows, including Much Music, hosted for years by none other than a very young JD Roberts (now goes as John Roberts) who is now on CBS News.
Check him out in this 80s clip!! He was the coolest back then.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mv_I_cbKW5o
FSRG;
I have to disagree with you on this issue. In one sense, it is true that parents have always lamented that their kids are lazier, less respectful, etc. – probably since the caveman days.
Having said that, it is no doubt true that kids today do not engage in the same level of spontaneous outdoor activity that ENY speaks of. I am about the same age as ENY (early 50’s) and I remember that when I was a kid, every block in NYC was chock full of kids playing in the street. You just don’t see that anymore.
About two months ago I went to a party at my cousin’s house in NJ, and they have a big spread of land. One couple brought their 2 kids, about 10 and 12 years old. They spent the entire party texting on their cell phone. In my day, at a party like that, we’d be playing ball in the backyard.
Exactly Biff. We spent maybe an hour at home after school and then we got kicked back out of the house until it started to turn dark. we never watched TV until after dinner and only for an hour or two. We had the same 2-13 and I think we mainly watched 2,4 and 7. CBS, NBC and ABC.
I didn’t start watching TV on a more regular basis until I was in H.S. but even then we’d hang out and do stuff after school we usually didn’t hang at home because most of us had mothers that didn’t work. What teenager wants to hang out with their mom watching over them?
My friends and I spent all day and night outside playing baseball and bike riding in the summer and hockey and skating in the winter. There was almost no day that we would stay inside.
THL, I grew up in the pre-remote control days where the channels would go up to 13, and there wasn’t even a Channel 1! And of the 13, there were only 3 or 4 that ever had anything on that was worth watching.
MSG in NYC – dont know about LI; but that bolsters my statement – Cable became wildly popular in the early 80’s that puts it into the homes of today’s 30-45yr olds during their childhood.
Kids are more or less the same and adults are too – they always think that it was different when they were young….they are mostly wrong.
Anyone questioning the academic achievements of Asians in North America is INSANE! Take a glance into a classroom at Stuy High or Hunter or another top High School in New York. There is a HUGE and disproportionate percentage of Asians in those fine schools and others. Asians are amongst the brightest and the best in our schools without question. Those are just the facts. How it got to be that way is another discussion altogether.
We used to get them on a regular station growing up in L.I. until sometime in the very early 1980’s. Different cable co. perhaps?