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
yeah totally. i have a desk job and it makes me sad to see myself get fatter and fatter every day 🙁 it doesnt help that i refuse to give up my top model and 90210 tv watching and 40 ounce sippin’. but it’s a lifestyle choice, you can’t really help people who dont want to be helped, you know?
*rob*
I wonder how many of these people who are allegedly too busy to prepare a reasonably healthy meal from scratch using low-cost ingredients still manage to watch three or four hours of TV a day.
I think a sedentary lifestyle, for children and adults, has far more to do with obesity than our eating habits. Get rid of cable TV, high-speed internet, and XBox, and you’ll probably find you can eat whatever you want without getting fat.
A lumberjack breakfast is fine if you’re going to be out chopping trees all day. The problem is when you get it at a drive-through window on your way to a desk job.
Milk in glass bottles delivered to your doorstep fresh each morning, a bakers on the corner for fresh bread, a greengrocers on main street…
bxgrl, US asians also have the highest average educational attainment of any racial group according to the last census. I think there are a number of sociological things to be learned from the achievements of US asians as a group.
Posted by: dittoburg at September 24, 2009 10:57 AM
Not, by and large, the US asians who live in Manhattan’s and Brooklyn’s Chinatowns.
oh totally THL. SOOOO many kids the second they come home from school they are sitting at their computer munching away on food until they “feel tired” and go to sleep. that cannot be good! a lot of parents probably feel tho, rightfully so, better the kid on the computer than in a gang or just out in the streets causing trouble in general. as sad as that may sound.
funny how you never see obese gang members, right?
*rob*
It is surprising the variety of choices you find in one of those huge supermarkets they build on the edge of towns in many places. When I was home on vacation, my mom and I went there almost every other day to get things. It’s a combination of gustatory pleasure and the thrill of spending money to walk around and stock up on all the things for sale in a really nice supermarket. People living in middle America have NO excuse not to eat healthy. Lime THL said, just frozen vegetables alone are easy to stock up on and good for you.
I thought they were promoting the expansion of street vendors with carts for veggies & fruits?? We could use one in Fulton Park where I get off the subway.
Posted by: daveinbedstuy at September 24, 2009 9:59 AM
There’s one of those carts at Macon or Halsey and Nostrand a short block or 2 from the Nostrand A/C stop, which competes with the Bravo supermarket (small fruit/veggie section, but it’s there, complete with weekly specials) and a fruit and veggie market right around the corner on Fulton St. Plus Foodtown is just another block and a half away with another fruit and veggie market across the street.
There are so many places in Bed Stuy that are blocks and blocks from any food retailer besides bodegas that have no or virtually no fresh fruits and veggies (maybe a few onions, bananas, potatoes) and no frozen veggies either.
Those were the milk carton days…
fsrq, I bet 90% of Americans don’t know their tryglyceride levels either.