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The Urban Food Desert Myth
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FreyasRebirth wrote: »Gallowmere1984 wrote: »After reading these last few posts, I think I am starting to see the real problem.
Unless you are 75, physically handicapped, or a literal midget, there is no reason in the world why walking a couple of miles while carrying 20-30 pounds in a duffel should be considered unreasonable. Holy *kitten* people are lazy as *kitten*.
Or you're heavily pregnant, have an infant/toddler, or a child who is unwilling to walk. Heck, I wouldn't be shocked if neighbors called CPS on you after one of your older preschoolers had a tantrum over having to walk.
On the other hand, walking through a poor neighborhood with a full duffel bag (or a store with an empty duffel) looks a bit suspicious. How many people are willing to bring attention to themselves over some lettuce?
[1] IDK. I think most people in poorer city areas are more apt to mind their own damn business and care more about their own lives than what their neighbors are doing. (Not so many bored housewives/SAHM's with nothing better to do than watch the neighbors). I've never seen a kid have a temper tantrum over walking...when you grow up well aware that this is the only way to get from point A to point B, it is second nature. I think the temper tanrum would be more of an issue with the spoiled suburban kid used to being ferried around by car or who wants to stay home and play video games. (though, in fairness, I should point out that most of the children walking with their parents in my neighborhood are refugees, so the walk up to the store is really, really, really not going to be seen as a hardship).
[2] No. not really suspicious at all. Bags and carts are common..people need to get stuff from point A to point B. Any local looking at someone carrying a heavy bag would assume work clothes/equipment and/or gym and/or laundry and/or groceries. (The random suburbanite driving through or going to one of the bars/clubs might potentially think they are suspicious - they are so laughably adorable sometimes).
[on original] I regularly walked long distances (or took buses) hauling heavy books or groceries or laundry as a child, and I am still only 4'10" -- I think the healthy midgets would do just fine. ;P
(Laundry and getting to/from work or the university are WAY WAY bigger P.I.T.A.'s than the grocery store). Try getting up at still night to take 2 buses and a subway to drop kids at the 1 daycare center you can (almost, but not quite) afford, then taking a few more busses to get to work - and doing this twice a day everyday. Or hauling laundry (at least nowadays there are frequent dollar stores that carry cheap rolling luggage that can be used for this purpose - I would've loved one of those when I was a kid). In comparison, grocery shopping is nothing. I think people really have gotten so much lazier nowadays in this car culture. The older urban generation would have thought nothing of walking to their destination (they didn't know anything else)(neither did I when I was a child). And unfortunately, convenience foods have been around for so long, that an entire generation (or 2) doesn't really know how to cook. Prior generations would have had no problem throwing together a soup with whatever limited root vegetables & meat they could get their hands on in the winter. Hell- there are probably still a few folks around who remember making dandelion soup during the depression.
25 years ago(when I was a teenager) a 12 mile total distance walk to get to and from the public library to get a book, or use a computer for research was routine.0 -
lemurcat12 wrote: »Do people not push small carts to the grocery when they have a lot to buy anywhere else but Texas? You can get them for a couple of bucks at a dollar store, and they fold up for storage or the ride to the grocery on the bus. They're narrow enough to take on a ride back, too - people here will usually help getting the cart on the bus if you have trouble, and the driver will help if others don't.
Hell, when I was living in Houston people who walked to the grocery often had actual grocery carts they pushed to and from the store. I was never sure if they were grabbing abandoned ones (I'd see them left under the overpasses and in the bayous), getting decommissioned ones from the grocery, or outright stealing them from the store, but it was a common sight.
Where do you buy these carts? The closest one I've seen is for strapping to the back of a bicycle and not convenient for pushing with hands.
FTR, I'm one of the lazy buggers who can't be asked to walk 3 miles to the store.
I used to have one. I think I bought it at Target.
Fwiw, most of the urban homeless people in my city seem to have these carts, or something similar.
Also, in response to the observation that many people can't physically carry food, I don't think that really explains it. Bottled soda is very bulky and heavy, and yet it's also very overconsumed, including in poor urban areas. Somehow a lot of it is making its way into people's homes.
As someone who grew up urban poor, I never comprehended the purchase of soda (or juice). Why on earth would anyone invest so much effort in carrying sugar (or fake-sugar) water home?! If I didn't like water, I would have at least forced myself to get used to (generic) kool-aid packets...no way in hell was I EVER going to be willing to carry large quantities of water (with or without some added sugar and flavourants) in a 1st world country with running tap water.
Edited to add: ..especially now that on-tap or pitcher water filters like Brita/Pur are cheaper and more widely available.
LOL And the recommended sugar per packet was 2-3 times what was actually needed to make it tolerable to drink.
Do you remember the glass Quart OJ bottles that would last for years?1 -
RosieRose7673 wrote: »Gallowmere1984 wrote: »RosieRose7673 wrote: »ladyannique2017 wrote: »Food deserts in general are not a myth. Yes, it's a myth that all poor urban areas are food deserts, but that doesn't mean food deserts don't exist. I've lived in a few. One was a poor urban area in the Midwest. Yes you can look at a street map and see there is a grocery store within walking distance, but street maps do not take into account gang territories or other hazards between you and the food. I lived in a place where it was not safe to go two blocks uptown which is where the grocery store was due to gang boundaries but I could go ten blocks down the hill to the river where there were bars and corner stores just fine. That area was a kind of a neutral zone because it was run by pimps and their hookers.
Another food desert was also a water desert out in the west when I lived in a single wide trailer in a desperately poor rural area. Nearest grocery store was 45mikes away and although we had plumbing, the tap water wasn't safe to drink (EPA notice about arsenic in water) so my dad had to use our beat up rusted out truck to bring home a tank of water every week as well as food.
Electricity wasn't too dependable in either place...urban or country and so we couldn't buy fresh veg or meat because it would rot to nothing in a day. Lots of canned and dried foods. I think people assume everyone has access to a refrigerator/freezer when many poor people don't.
Thank you very much for posting this. I really feel that it is very easy for people to put horse blinders on when it comes to this.
It's very easy to say that there's a supermarket a mile away. Why don't they go there?
I live in Chicago currently and in a decent part of the city. However, for my job, I did have to travel to very high crime, poor areas. I've met a family who lived in an unfinished basement. 3 kids and a mom who was taking online classes to get a better job. However, the area was extremely dangerous. Homicides are high in the area as well as gang violence. Sure, if they could hop in a car and drive to a supermarket a mile or so away, they could. BUT- when you don't have a car, don't have any money to spare and have to walk that all the way to a supermarket that far with 3 kids in a high crime area, it's not the super market they are looking for. They are looking for something to eat that's both affordable and safe to get. Often times, that may mean the corner convenience store.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that if you look a statistics about proximity to supermarkets, it's easy to overlook other factors that can influence the ability to get fresh food.
This is another area where I am admittedly biased. I have lived in "the hood" in multiple cities over the years, and never once had a problem out of anyone. We'd regularly have people shot in the parking lots of two of the places I live, yet I never got so much as a sideways glance. I attribute this to the fact that I mind my own damned business, and never got tangled up in the things that tend to get people shot (drug money, *kitten* with someone's wife/girlfriend, having a big mouth, etc.)
I don't give a damn if someone got capped right under my window, I didn't crack the blinds, I didn't see *kitten*, it's not my business. So yeah, even fat and nerdy whitey can live in some nasty neighborhoods without incident, if you know what you are doing. vOv
It's good for you that you didn't care and kept to yourself. That means only gang members and drug dealers get shot?
There are so many bystanders shot yearly by stray bullets or simply because they were at the wrong place at the wrong time. Sure- a percentage of them were involved in drug or gang activity but that definitely doesn't account for all of those affected by the violence.
While I'm not discrediting your experiences, I don't think that just because you lived in a poor area and survived means that it must be okay for everyone else.
Chicago's violence is skyrocketing. The thing to remember is that chicago is big. Percentagewise, we have a ridiculously high murder and violent crime rate for the population of the city. Then you actually break it down to where these crimes happen, they tend to be concentrated in the areas with the most poverty. Then you look at the percentages in those areas- it's extremely dangerous to even live there.
So yes- my experiences with these families and being able to spend time with them does show that there are indeed "food deserts" because of other factors than proximity to a supermarket.
Food deserts are only a symptom of an unadressed root cause. Why is this level of violence allowed to exist?
All this is a waste of time, money, and most importantly - life if the root cause is not addressed.
Because there's no actual appetite to take the measures needed to curb the violence.
Profiling, stop and frisk, etc.0 -
stanmann571 wrote: »FreyasRebirth wrote: »Gallowmere1984 wrote: »After reading these last few posts, I think I am starting to see the real problem.
Unless you are 75, physically handicapped, or a literal midget, there is no reason in the world why walking a couple of miles while carrying 20-30 pounds in a duffel should be considered unreasonable. Holy *kitten* people are lazy as *kitten*.
Or you're heavily pregnant, have an infant/toddler, or a child who is unwilling to walk. Heck, I wouldn't be shocked if neighbors called CPS on you after one of your older preschoolers had a tantrum over having to walk.
On the other hand, walking through a poor neighborhood with a full duffel bag (or a store with an empty duffel) looks a bit suspicious. How many people are willing to bring attention to themselves over some lettuce?
[1] IDK. I think most people in poorer city areas are more apt to mind their own damn business and care more about their own lives than what their neighbors are doing. (Not so many bored housewives/SAHM's with nothing better to do than watch the neighbors). I've never seen a kid have a temper tantrum over walking...when you grow up well aware that this is the only way to get from point A to point B, it is second nature. I think the temper tanrum would be more of an issue with the spoiled suburban kid used to being ferried around by car or who wants to stay home and play video games. (though, in fairness, I should point out that most of the children walking with their parents in my neighborhood are refugees, so the walk up to the store is really, really, really not going to be seen as a hardship).
[2] No. not really suspicious at all. Bags and carts are common..people need to get stuff from point A to point B. Any local looking at someone carrying a heavy bag would assume work clothes/equipment and/or gym and/or laundry and/or groceries. (The random suburbanite driving through or going to one of the bars/clubs might potentially think they are suspicious - they are so laughably adorable sometimes).
[on original] I regularly walked long distances (or took buses) hauling heavy books or groceries or laundry as a child, and I am still only 4'10" -- I think the healthy midgets would do just fine. ;P
(Laundry and getting to/from work or the university are WAY WAY bigger P.I.T.A.'s than the grocery store). Try getting up at still night to take 2 buses and a subway to drop kids at the 1 daycare center you can (almost, but not quite) afford, then taking a few more busses to get to work - and doing this twice a day everyday. Or hauling laundry (at least nowadays there are frequent dollar stores that carry cheap rolling luggage that can be used for this purpose - I would've loved one of those when I was a kid). In comparison, grocery shopping is nothing. I think people really have gotten so much lazier nowadays in this car culture. The older urban generation would have thought nothing of walking to their destination (they didn't know anything else)(neither did I when I was a child). And unfortunately, convenience foods have been around for so long, that an entire generation (or 2) doesn't really know how to cook. Prior generations would have had no problem throwing together a soup with whatever limited root vegetables & meat they could get their hands on in the winter. Hell- there are probably still a few folks around who remember making dandelion soup during the depression.
25 years ago(when I was a teenager) a 12 mile total distance walk to get to and from the public library to get a book, or use a computer for research was routine.
Hope you had a bike for that journey! Now I had to go look up my childhood walks, just a mile walk to my library or school, and only uphill one direction.0 -
stanmann571 wrote: »FreyasRebirth wrote: »Gallowmere1984 wrote: »After reading these last few posts, I think I am starting to see the real problem.
Unless you are 75, physically handicapped, or a literal midget, there is no reason in the world why walking a couple of miles while carrying 20-30 pounds in a duffel should be considered unreasonable. Holy *kitten* people are lazy as *kitten*.
Or you're heavily pregnant, have an infant/toddler, or a child who is unwilling to walk. Heck, I wouldn't be shocked if neighbors called CPS on you after one of your older preschoolers had a tantrum over having to walk.
On the other hand, walking through a poor neighborhood with a full duffel bag (or a store with an empty duffel) looks a bit suspicious. How many people are willing to bring attention to themselves over some lettuce?
[1] IDK. I think most people in poorer city areas are more apt to mind their own damn business and care more about their own lives than what their neighbors are doing. (Not so many bored housewives/SAHM's with nothing better to do than watch the neighbors). I've never seen a kid have a temper tantrum over walking...when you grow up well aware that this is the only way to get from point A to point B, it is second nature. I think the temper tanrum would be more of an issue with the spoiled suburban kid used to being ferried around by car or who wants to stay home and play video games. (though, in fairness, I should point out that most of the children walking with their parents in my neighborhood are refugees, so the walk up to the store is really, really, really not going to be seen as a hardship).
[2] No. not really suspicious at all. Bags and carts are common..people need to get stuff from point A to point B. Any local looking at someone carrying a heavy bag would assume work clothes/equipment and/or gym and/or laundry and/or groceries. (The random suburbanite driving through or going to one of the bars/clubs might potentially think they are suspicious - they are so laughably adorable sometimes).
[on original] I regularly walked long distances (or took buses) hauling heavy books or groceries or laundry as a child, and I am still only 4'10" -- I think the healthy midgets would do just fine. ;P
(Laundry and getting to/from work or the university are WAY WAY bigger P.I.T.A.'s than the grocery store). Try getting up at still night to take 2 buses and a subway to drop kids at the 1 daycare center you can (almost, but not quite) afford, then taking a few more busses to get to work - and doing this twice a day everyday. Or hauling laundry (at least nowadays there are frequent dollar stores that carry cheap rolling luggage that can be used for this purpose - I would've loved one of those when I was a kid). In comparison, grocery shopping is nothing. I think people really have gotten so much lazier nowadays in this car culture. The older urban generation would have thought nothing of walking to their destination (they didn't know anything else)(neither did I when I was a child). And unfortunately, convenience foods have been around for so long, that an entire generation (or 2) doesn't really know how to cook. Prior generations would have had no problem throwing together a soup with whatever limited root vegetables & meat they could get their hands on in the winter. Hell- there are probably still a few folks around who remember making dandelion soup during the depression.
25 years ago(when I was a teenager) a 12 mile total distance walk to get to and from the public library to get a book, or use a computer for research was routine.
Can't say I ever walked 12 miles for a book - thankfully bus tokens (you used to be able to buy tokens at a discount for the bus fare - they've since been discontinued) were a lot cheaper back then.
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stanmann571 wrote: »RosieRose7673 wrote: »Gallowmere1984 wrote: »RosieRose7673 wrote: »ladyannique2017 wrote: »Food deserts in general are not a myth. Yes, it's a myth that all poor urban areas are food deserts, but that doesn't mean food deserts don't exist. I've lived in a few. One was a poor urban area in the Midwest. Yes you can look at a street map and see there is a grocery store within walking distance, but street maps do not take into account gang territories or other hazards between you and the food. I lived in a place where it was not safe to go two blocks uptown which is where the grocery store was due to gang boundaries but I could go ten blocks down the hill to the river where there were bars and corner stores just fine. That area was a kind of a neutral zone because it was run by pimps and their hookers.
Another food desert was also a water desert out in the west when I lived in a single wide trailer in a desperately poor rural area. Nearest grocery store was 45mikes away and although we had plumbing, the tap water wasn't safe to drink (EPA notice about arsenic in water) so my dad had to use our beat up rusted out truck to bring home a tank of water every week as well as food.
Electricity wasn't too dependable in either place...urban or country and so we couldn't buy fresh veg or meat because it would rot to nothing in a day. Lots of canned and dried foods. I think people assume everyone has access to a refrigerator/freezer when many poor people don't.
Thank you very much for posting this. I really feel that it is very easy for people to put horse blinders on when it comes to this.
It's very easy to say that there's a supermarket a mile away. Why don't they go there?
I live in Chicago currently and in a decent part of the city. However, for my job, I did have to travel to very high crime, poor areas. I've met a family who lived in an unfinished basement. 3 kids and a mom who was taking online classes to get a better job. However, the area was extremely dangerous. Homicides are high in the area as well as gang violence. Sure, if they could hop in a car and drive to a supermarket a mile or so away, they could. BUT- when you don't have a car, don't have any money to spare and have to walk that all the way to a supermarket that far with 3 kids in a high crime area, it's not the super market they are looking for. They are looking for something to eat that's both affordable and safe to get. Often times, that may mean the corner convenience store.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that if you look a statistics about proximity to supermarkets, it's easy to overlook other factors that can influence the ability to get fresh food.
This is another area where I am admittedly biased. I have lived in "the hood" in multiple cities over the years, and never once had a problem out of anyone. We'd regularly have people shot in the parking lots of two of the places I live, yet I never got so much as a sideways glance. I attribute this to the fact that I mind my own damned business, and never got tangled up in the things that tend to get people shot (drug money, *kitten* with someone's wife/girlfriend, having a big mouth, etc.)
I don't give a damn if someone got capped right under my window, I didn't crack the blinds, I didn't see *kitten*, it's not my business. So yeah, even fat and nerdy whitey can live in some nasty neighborhoods without incident, if you know what you are doing. vOv
It's good for you that you didn't care and kept to yourself. That means only gang members and drug dealers get shot?
There are so many bystanders shot yearly by stray bullets or simply because they were at the wrong place at the wrong time. Sure- a percentage of them were involved in drug or gang activity but that definitely doesn't account for all of those affected by the violence.
While I'm not discrediting your experiences, I don't think that just because you lived in a poor area and survived means that it must be okay for everyone else.
Chicago's violence is skyrocketing. The thing to remember is that chicago is big. Percentagewise, we have a ridiculously high murder and violent crime rate for the population of the city. Then you actually break it down to where these crimes happen, they tend to be concentrated in the areas with the most poverty. Then you look at the percentages in those areas- it's extremely dangerous to even live there.
So yes- my experiences with these families and being able to spend time with them does show that there are indeed "food deserts" because of other factors than proximity to a supermarket.
Food deserts are only a symptom of an unadressed root cause. Why is this level of violence allowed to exist?
All this is a waste of time, money, and most importantly - life if the root cause is not addressed.
Because there's no actual appetite to take the measures needed to curb the violence.
Profiling, stop and frisk, etc.
This simply reinforces the fact that government is not in the business of solving problems. They are in the business of creating problems which will further the size and power of government.
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stanmann571 wrote: »FreyasRebirth wrote: »Gallowmere1984 wrote: »After reading these last few posts, I think I am starting to see the real problem.
Unless you are 75, physically handicapped, or a literal midget, there is no reason in the world why walking a couple of miles while carrying 20-30 pounds in a duffel should be considered unreasonable. Holy *kitten* people are lazy as *kitten*.
Or you're heavily pregnant, have an infant/toddler, or a child who is unwilling to walk. Heck, I wouldn't be shocked if neighbors called CPS on you after one of your older preschoolers had a tantrum over having to walk.
On the other hand, walking through a poor neighborhood with a full duffel bag (or a store with an empty duffel) looks a bit suspicious. How many people are willing to bring attention to themselves over some lettuce?
[1] IDK. I think most people in poorer city areas are more apt to mind their own damn business and care more about their own lives than what their neighbors are doing. (Not so many bored housewives/SAHM's with nothing better to do than watch the neighbors). I've never seen a kid have a temper tantrum over walking...when you grow up well aware that this is the only way to get from point A to point B, it is second nature. I think the temper tanrum would be more of an issue with the spoiled suburban kid used to being ferried around by car or who wants to stay home and play video games. (though, in fairness, I should point out that most of the children walking with their parents in my neighborhood are refugees, so the walk up to the store is really, really, really not going to be seen as a hardship).
[2] No. not really suspicious at all. Bags and carts are common..people need to get stuff from point A to point B. Any local looking at someone carrying a heavy bag would assume work clothes/equipment and/or gym and/or laundry and/or groceries. (The random suburbanite driving through or going to one of the bars/clubs might potentially think they are suspicious - they are so laughably adorable sometimes).
[on original] I regularly walked long distances (or took buses) hauling heavy books or groceries or laundry as a child, and I am still only 4'10" -- I think the healthy midgets would do just fine. ;P
(Laundry and getting to/from work or the university are WAY WAY bigger P.I.T.A.'s than the grocery store). Try getting up at still night to take 2 buses and a subway to drop kids at the 1 daycare center you can (almost, but not quite) afford, then taking a few more busses to get to work - and doing this twice a day everyday. Or hauling laundry (at least nowadays there are frequent dollar stores that carry cheap rolling luggage that can be used for this purpose - I would've loved one of those when I was a kid). In comparison, grocery shopping is nothing. I think people really have gotten so much lazier nowadays in this car culture. The older urban generation would have thought nothing of walking to their destination (they didn't know anything else)(neither did I when I was a child). And unfortunately, convenience foods have been around for so long, that an entire generation (or 2) doesn't really know how to cook. Prior generations would have had no problem throwing together a soup with whatever limited root vegetables & meat they could get their hands on in the winter. Hell- there are probably still a few folks around who remember making dandelion soup during the depression.
25 years ago(when I was a teenager) a 12 mile total distance walk to get to and from the public library to get a book, or use a computer for research was routine.
Can't say I ever walked 12 miles for a book - thankfully bus tokens (you used to be able to buy tokens at a discount for the bus fare - they've since been discontinued) were a lot cheaper back then.
That was the longest.... and round trip... of 6 miles with an intermediate stop or two.
And again... it wasn't just the book.. but also the computer access.0 -
stanmann571 wrote: »RosieRose7673 wrote: »Gallowmere1984 wrote: »RosieRose7673 wrote: »ladyannique2017 wrote: »Food deserts in general are not a myth. Yes, it's a myth that all poor urban areas are food deserts, but that doesn't mean food deserts don't exist. I've lived in a few. One was a poor urban area in the Midwest. Yes you can look at a street map and see there is a grocery store within walking distance, but street maps do not take into account gang territories or other hazards between you and the food. I lived in a place where it was not safe to go two blocks uptown which is where the grocery store was due to gang boundaries but I could go ten blocks down the hill to the river where there were bars and corner stores just fine. That area was a kind of a neutral zone because it was run by pimps and their hookers.
Another food desert was also a water desert out in the west when I lived in a single wide trailer in a desperately poor rural area. Nearest grocery store was 45mikes away and although we had plumbing, the tap water wasn't safe to drink (EPA notice about arsenic in water) so my dad had to use our beat up rusted out truck to bring home a tank of water every week as well as food.
Electricity wasn't too dependable in either place...urban or country and so we couldn't buy fresh veg or meat because it would rot to nothing in a day. Lots of canned and dried foods. I think people assume everyone has access to a refrigerator/freezer when many poor people don't.
Thank you very much for posting this. I really feel that it is very easy for people to put horse blinders on when it comes to this.
It's very easy to say that there's a supermarket a mile away. Why don't they go there?
I live in Chicago currently and in a decent part of the city. However, for my job, I did have to travel to very high crime, poor areas. I've met a family who lived in an unfinished basement. 3 kids and a mom who was taking online classes to get a better job. However, the area was extremely dangerous. Homicides are high in the area as well as gang violence. Sure, if they could hop in a car and drive to a supermarket a mile or so away, they could. BUT- when you don't have a car, don't have any money to spare and have to walk that all the way to a supermarket that far with 3 kids in a high crime area, it's not the super market they are looking for. They are looking for something to eat that's both affordable and safe to get. Often times, that may mean the corner convenience store.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that if you look a statistics about proximity to supermarkets, it's easy to overlook other factors that can influence the ability to get fresh food.
This is another area where I am admittedly biased. I have lived in "the hood" in multiple cities over the years, and never once had a problem out of anyone. We'd regularly have people shot in the parking lots of two of the places I live, yet I never got so much as a sideways glance. I attribute this to the fact that I mind my own damned business, and never got tangled up in the things that tend to get people shot (drug money, *kitten* with someone's wife/girlfriend, having a big mouth, etc.)
I don't give a damn if someone got capped right under my window, I didn't crack the blinds, I didn't see *kitten*, it's not my business. So yeah, even fat and nerdy whitey can live in some nasty neighborhoods without incident, if you know what you are doing. vOv
It's good for you that you didn't care and kept to yourself. That means only gang members and drug dealers get shot?
There are so many bystanders shot yearly by stray bullets or simply because they were at the wrong place at the wrong time. Sure- a percentage of them were involved in drug or gang activity but that definitely doesn't account for all of those affected by the violence.
While I'm not discrediting your experiences, I don't think that just because you lived in a poor area and survived means that it must be okay for everyone else.
Chicago's violence is skyrocketing. The thing to remember is that chicago is big. Percentagewise, we have a ridiculously high murder and violent crime rate for the population of the city. Then you actually break it down to where these crimes happen, they tend to be concentrated in the areas with the most poverty. Then you look at the percentages in those areas- it's extremely dangerous to even live there.
So yes- my experiences with these families and being able to spend time with them does show that there are indeed "food deserts" because of other factors than proximity to a supermarket.
Food deserts are only a symptom of an unadressed root cause. Why is this level of violence allowed to exist?
All this is a waste of time, money, and most importantly - life if the root cause is not addressed.
Because there's no actual appetite to take the measures needed to curb the violence.
Profiling, stop and frisk, etc.
This simply reinforces the fact that government is not in the business of solving problems. They are in the business of creating problems which will further the size and power of government.
In this case, the government is able and willing to solve the problems. The communities prefer the violence to the solution.0 -
stanmann571 wrote: »stanmann571 wrote: »RosieRose7673 wrote: »Gallowmere1984 wrote: »RosieRose7673 wrote: »ladyannique2017 wrote: »Food deserts in general are not a myth. Yes, it's a myth that all poor urban areas are food deserts, but that doesn't mean food deserts don't exist. I've lived in a few. One was a poor urban area in the Midwest. Yes you can look at a street map and see there is a grocery store within walking distance, but street maps do not take into account gang territories or other hazards between you and the food. I lived in a place where it was not safe to go two blocks uptown which is where the grocery store was due to gang boundaries but I could go ten blocks down the hill to the river where there were bars and corner stores just fine. That area was a kind of a neutral zone because it was run by pimps and their hookers.
Another food desert was also a water desert out in the west when I lived in a single wide trailer in a desperately poor rural area. Nearest grocery store was 45mikes away and although we had plumbing, the tap water wasn't safe to drink (EPA notice about arsenic in water) so my dad had to use our beat up rusted out truck to bring home a tank of water every week as well as food.
Electricity wasn't too dependable in either place...urban or country and so we couldn't buy fresh veg or meat because it would rot to nothing in a day. Lots of canned and dried foods. I think people assume everyone has access to a refrigerator/freezer when many poor people don't.
Thank you very much for posting this. I really feel that it is very easy for people to put horse blinders on when it comes to this.
It's very easy to say that there's a supermarket a mile away. Why don't they go there?
I live in Chicago currently and in a decent part of the city. However, for my job, I did have to travel to very high crime, poor areas. I've met a family who lived in an unfinished basement. 3 kids and a mom who was taking online classes to get a better job. However, the area was extremely dangerous. Homicides are high in the area as well as gang violence. Sure, if they could hop in a car and drive to a supermarket a mile or so away, they could. BUT- when you don't have a car, don't have any money to spare and have to walk that all the way to a supermarket that far with 3 kids in a high crime area, it's not the super market they are looking for. They are looking for something to eat that's both affordable and safe to get. Often times, that may mean the corner convenience store.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that if you look a statistics about proximity to supermarkets, it's easy to overlook other factors that can influence the ability to get fresh food.
This is another area where I am admittedly biased. I have lived in "the hood" in multiple cities over the years, and never once had a problem out of anyone. We'd regularly have people shot in the parking lots of two of the places I live, yet I never got so much as a sideways glance. I attribute this to the fact that I mind my own damned business, and never got tangled up in the things that tend to get people shot (drug money, *kitten* with someone's wife/girlfriend, having a big mouth, etc.)
I don't give a damn if someone got capped right under my window, I didn't crack the blinds, I didn't see *kitten*, it's not my business. So yeah, even fat and nerdy whitey can live in some nasty neighborhoods without incident, if you know what you are doing. vOv
It's good for you that you didn't care and kept to yourself. That means only gang members and drug dealers get shot?
There are so many bystanders shot yearly by stray bullets or simply because they were at the wrong place at the wrong time. Sure- a percentage of them were involved in drug or gang activity but that definitely doesn't account for all of those affected by the violence.
While I'm not discrediting your experiences, I don't think that just because you lived in a poor area and survived means that it must be okay for everyone else.
Chicago's violence is skyrocketing. The thing to remember is that chicago is big. Percentagewise, we have a ridiculously high murder and violent crime rate for the population of the city. Then you actually break it down to where these crimes happen, they tend to be concentrated in the areas with the most poverty. Then you look at the percentages in those areas- it's extremely dangerous to even live there.
So yes- my experiences with these families and being able to spend time with them does show that there are indeed "food deserts" because of other factors than proximity to a supermarket.
Food deserts are only a symptom of an unadressed root cause. Why is this level of violence allowed to exist?
All this is a waste of time, money, and most importantly - life if the root cause is not addressed.
Because there's no actual appetite to take the measures needed to curb the violence.
Profiling, stop and frisk, etc.
This simply reinforces the fact that government is not in the business of solving problems. They are in the business of creating problems which will further the size and power of government.
In this case, the government is able and willing to solve the problems. The communities prefer the violence to the solution.
I highly doubt that. :noway:2 -
Chef_Barbell wrote: »stanmann571 wrote: »stanmann571 wrote: »RosieRose7673 wrote: »Gallowmere1984 wrote: »RosieRose7673 wrote: »ladyannique2017 wrote: »Food deserts in general are not a myth. Yes, it's a myth that all poor urban areas are food deserts, but that doesn't mean food deserts don't exist. I've lived in a few. One was a poor urban area in the Midwest. Yes you can look at a street map and see there is a grocery store within walking distance, but street maps do not take into account gang territories or other hazards between you and the food. I lived in a place where it was not safe to go two blocks uptown which is where the grocery store was due to gang boundaries but I could go ten blocks down the hill to the river where there were bars and corner stores just fine. That area was a kind of a neutral zone because it was run by pimps and their hookers.
Another food desert was also a water desert out in the west when I lived in a single wide trailer in a desperately poor rural area. Nearest grocery store was 45mikes away and although we had plumbing, the tap water wasn't safe to drink (EPA notice about arsenic in water) so my dad had to use our beat up rusted out truck to bring home a tank of water every week as well as food.
Electricity wasn't too dependable in either place...urban or country and so we couldn't buy fresh veg or meat because it would rot to nothing in a day. Lots of canned and dried foods. I think people assume everyone has access to a refrigerator/freezer when many poor people don't.
Thank you very much for posting this. I really feel that it is very easy for people to put horse blinders on when it comes to this.
It's very easy to say that there's a supermarket a mile away. Why don't they go there?
I live in Chicago currently and in a decent part of the city. However, for my job, I did have to travel to very high crime, poor areas. I've met a family who lived in an unfinished basement. 3 kids and a mom who was taking online classes to get a better job. However, the area was extremely dangerous. Homicides are high in the area as well as gang violence. Sure, if they could hop in a car and drive to a supermarket a mile or so away, they could. BUT- when you don't have a car, don't have any money to spare and have to walk that all the way to a supermarket that far with 3 kids in a high crime area, it's not the super market they are looking for. They are looking for something to eat that's both affordable and safe to get. Often times, that may mean the corner convenience store.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that if you look a statistics about proximity to supermarkets, it's easy to overlook other factors that can influence the ability to get fresh food.
This is another area where I am admittedly biased. I have lived in "the hood" in multiple cities over the years, and never once had a problem out of anyone. We'd regularly have people shot in the parking lots of two of the places I live, yet I never got so much as a sideways glance. I attribute this to the fact that I mind my own damned business, and never got tangled up in the things that tend to get people shot (drug money, *kitten* with someone's wife/girlfriend, having a big mouth, etc.)
I don't give a damn if someone got capped right under my window, I didn't crack the blinds, I didn't see *kitten*, it's not my business. So yeah, even fat and nerdy whitey can live in some nasty neighborhoods without incident, if you know what you are doing. vOv
It's good for you that you didn't care and kept to yourself. That means only gang members and drug dealers get shot?
There are so many bystanders shot yearly by stray bullets or simply because they were at the wrong place at the wrong time. Sure- a percentage of them were involved in drug or gang activity but that definitely doesn't account for all of those affected by the violence.
While I'm not discrediting your experiences, I don't think that just because you lived in a poor area and survived means that it must be okay for everyone else.
Chicago's violence is skyrocketing. The thing to remember is that chicago is big. Percentagewise, we have a ridiculously high murder and violent crime rate for the population of the city. Then you actually break it down to where these crimes happen, they tend to be concentrated in the areas with the most poverty. Then you look at the percentages in those areas- it's extremely dangerous to even live there.
So yes- my experiences with these families and being able to spend time with them does show that there are indeed "food deserts" because of other factors than proximity to a supermarket.
Food deserts are only a symptom of an unadressed root cause. Why is this level of violence allowed to exist?
All this is a waste of time, money, and most importantly - life if the root cause is not addressed.
Because there's no actual appetite to take the measures needed to curb the violence.
Profiling, stop and frisk, etc.
This simply reinforces the fact that government is not in the business of solving problems. They are in the business of creating problems which will further the size and power of government.
In this case, the government is able and willing to solve the problems. The communities prefer the violence to the solution.
I highly doubt that. :noway:
Doubt all you want. The evidence is clear.
1. Stop and frisk/profiling are proven to work to reduce crime and violence
2. Communities suffering from violent crime object when these measures are proposed for implementation.
1 -
stanmann571 wrote: »Chef_Barbell wrote: »stanmann571 wrote: »stanmann571 wrote: »RosieRose7673 wrote: »Gallowmere1984 wrote: »RosieRose7673 wrote: »ladyannique2017 wrote: »Food deserts in general are not a myth. Yes, it's a myth that all poor urban areas are food deserts, but that doesn't mean food deserts don't exist. I've lived in a few. One was a poor urban area in the Midwest. Yes you can look at a street map and see there is a grocery store within walking distance, but street maps do not take into account gang territories or other hazards between you and the food. I lived in a place where it was not safe to go two blocks uptown which is where the grocery store was due to gang boundaries but I could go ten blocks down the hill to the river where there were bars and corner stores just fine. That area was a kind of a neutral zone because it was run by pimps and their hookers.
Another food desert was also a water desert out in the west when I lived in a single wide trailer in a desperately poor rural area. Nearest grocery store was 45mikes away and although we had plumbing, the tap water wasn't safe to drink (EPA notice about arsenic in water) so my dad had to use our beat up rusted out truck to bring home a tank of water every week as well as food.
Electricity wasn't too dependable in either place...urban or country and so we couldn't buy fresh veg or meat because it would rot to nothing in a day. Lots of canned and dried foods. I think people assume everyone has access to a refrigerator/freezer when many poor people don't.
Thank you very much for posting this. I really feel that it is very easy for people to put horse blinders on when it comes to this.
It's very easy to say that there's a supermarket a mile away. Why don't they go there?
I live in Chicago currently and in a decent part of the city. However, for my job, I did have to travel to very high crime, poor areas. I've met a family who lived in an unfinished basement. 3 kids and a mom who was taking online classes to get a better job. However, the area was extremely dangerous. Homicides are high in the area as well as gang violence. Sure, if they could hop in a car and drive to a supermarket a mile or so away, they could. BUT- when you don't have a car, don't have any money to spare and have to walk that all the way to a supermarket that far with 3 kids in a high crime area, it's not the super market they are looking for. They are looking for something to eat that's both affordable and safe to get. Often times, that may mean the corner convenience store.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that if you look a statistics about proximity to supermarkets, it's easy to overlook other factors that can influence the ability to get fresh food.
This is another area where I am admittedly biased. I have lived in "the hood" in multiple cities over the years, and never once had a problem out of anyone. We'd regularly have people shot in the parking lots of two of the places I live, yet I never got so much as a sideways glance. I attribute this to the fact that I mind my own damned business, and never got tangled up in the things that tend to get people shot (drug money, *kitten* with someone's wife/girlfriend, having a big mouth, etc.)
I don't give a damn if someone got capped right under my window, I didn't crack the blinds, I didn't see *kitten*, it's not my business. So yeah, even fat and nerdy whitey can live in some nasty neighborhoods without incident, if you know what you are doing. vOv
It's good for you that you didn't care and kept to yourself. That means only gang members and drug dealers get shot?
There are so many bystanders shot yearly by stray bullets or simply because they were at the wrong place at the wrong time. Sure- a percentage of them were involved in drug or gang activity but that definitely doesn't account for all of those affected by the violence.
While I'm not discrediting your experiences, I don't think that just because you lived in a poor area and survived means that it must be okay for everyone else.
Chicago's violence is skyrocketing. The thing to remember is that chicago is big. Percentagewise, we have a ridiculously high murder and violent crime rate for the population of the city. Then you actually break it down to where these crimes happen, they tend to be concentrated in the areas with the most poverty. Then you look at the percentages in those areas- it's extremely dangerous to even live there.
So yes- my experiences with these families and being able to spend time with them does show that there are indeed "food deserts" because of other factors than proximity to a supermarket.
Food deserts are only a symptom of an unadressed root cause. Why is this level of violence allowed to exist?
All this is a waste of time, money, and most importantly - life if the root cause is not addressed.
Because there's no actual appetite to take the measures needed to curb the violence.
Profiling, stop and frisk, etc.
This simply reinforces the fact that government is not in the business of solving problems. They are in the business of creating problems which will further the size and power of government.
In this case, the government is able and willing to solve the problems. The communities prefer the violence to the solution.
I highly doubt that. :noway:
Doubt all you want. The evidence is clear.
1. Stop and frisk/profiling are proven to work to reduce crime and violence
2. Communities suffering from violent crime object when these measures are proposed for implementation.
Probably because they are inherently racist and bias against minorities.7 -
stanmann571 wrote: »stanmann571 wrote: »RosieRose7673 wrote: »Gallowmere1984 wrote: »RosieRose7673 wrote: »ladyannique2017 wrote: »Food deserts in general are not a myth. Yes, it's a myth that all poor urban areas are food deserts, but that doesn't mean food deserts don't exist. I've lived in a few. One was a poor urban area in the Midwest. Yes you can look at a street map and see there is a grocery store within walking distance, but street maps do not take into account gang territories or other hazards between you and the food. I lived in a place where it was not safe to go two blocks uptown which is where the grocery store was due to gang boundaries but I could go ten blocks down the hill to the river where there were bars and corner stores just fine. That area was a kind of a neutral zone because it was run by pimps and their hookers.
Another food desert was also a water desert out in the west when I lived in a single wide trailer in a desperately poor rural area. Nearest grocery store was 45mikes away and although we had plumbing, the tap water wasn't safe to drink (EPA notice about arsenic in water) so my dad had to use our beat up rusted out truck to bring home a tank of water every week as well as food.
Electricity wasn't too dependable in either place...urban or country and so we couldn't buy fresh veg or meat because it would rot to nothing in a day. Lots of canned and dried foods. I think people assume everyone has access to a refrigerator/freezer when many poor people don't.
Thank you very much for posting this. I really feel that it is very easy for people to put horse blinders on when it comes to this.
It's very easy to say that there's a supermarket a mile away. Why don't they go there?
I live in Chicago currently and in a decent part of the city. However, for my job, I did have to travel to very high crime, poor areas. I've met a family who lived in an unfinished basement. 3 kids and a mom who was taking online classes to get a better job. However, the area was extremely dangerous. Homicides are high in the area as well as gang violence. Sure, if they could hop in a car and drive to a supermarket a mile or so away, they could. BUT- when you don't have a car, don't have any money to spare and have to walk that all the way to a supermarket that far with 3 kids in a high crime area, it's not the super market they are looking for. They are looking for something to eat that's both affordable and safe to get. Often times, that may mean the corner convenience store.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that if you look a statistics about proximity to supermarkets, it's easy to overlook other factors that can influence the ability to get fresh food.
This is another area where I am admittedly biased. I have lived in "the hood" in multiple cities over the years, and never once had a problem out of anyone. We'd regularly have people shot in the parking lots of two of the places I live, yet I never got so much as a sideways glance. I attribute this to the fact that I mind my own damned business, and never got tangled up in the things that tend to get people shot (drug money, *kitten* with someone's wife/girlfriend, having a big mouth, etc.)
I don't give a damn if someone got capped right under my window, I didn't crack the blinds, I didn't see *kitten*, it's not my business. So yeah, even fat and nerdy whitey can live in some nasty neighborhoods without incident, if you know what you are doing. vOv
It's good for you that you didn't care and kept to yourself. That means only gang members and drug dealers get shot?
There are so many bystanders shot yearly by stray bullets or simply because they were at the wrong place at the wrong time. Sure- a percentage of them were involved in drug or gang activity but that definitely doesn't account for all of those affected by the violence.
While I'm not discrediting your experiences, I don't think that just because you lived in a poor area and survived means that it must be okay for everyone else.
Chicago's violence is skyrocketing. The thing to remember is that chicago is big. Percentagewise, we have a ridiculously high murder and violent crime rate for the population of the city. Then you actually break it down to where these crimes happen, they tend to be concentrated in the areas with the most poverty. Then you look at the percentages in those areas- it's extremely dangerous to even live there.
So yes- my experiences with these families and being able to spend time with them does show that there are indeed "food deserts" because of other factors than proximity to a supermarket.
Food deserts are only a symptom of an unaddressed root cause. Why is this level of violence allowed to exist?
All this is a waste of time, money, and most importantly - life if the root cause is not addressed.
Because there's no actual appetite to take the measures needed to curb the violence.
Profiling, stop and frisk, etc.
This simply reinforces the fact that government is not in the business of solving problems. They are in the business of creating problems which will further the size and power of government.
In this case, the government is able and willing to solve the problems. The communities prefer the violence to the solution.
You lost me there. Government is certainly able, but unwilling - why implement a solution when this removes a motivator. If a solution was effective this removes a potential Government is only concerned with keeping and expanding power. There are a few actual problem solvers out there, but typically short lived.
It's not a matter of preference, but the people in these communities have been well trained and rewarded to remain victims and waiting for someone to come in a resolve the issue for them.1 -
Chef_Barbell wrote: »stanmann571 wrote: »Chef_Barbell wrote: »stanmann571 wrote: »stanmann571 wrote: »RosieRose7673 wrote: »Gallowmere1984 wrote: »RosieRose7673 wrote: »ladyannique2017 wrote: »Food deserts in general are not a myth. Yes, it's a myth that all poor urban areas are food deserts, but that doesn't mean food deserts don't exist. I've lived in a few. One was a poor urban area in the Midwest. Yes you can look at a street map and see there is a grocery store within walking distance, but street maps do not take into account gang territories or other hazards between you and the food. I lived in a place where it was not safe to go two blocks uptown which is where the grocery store was due to gang boundaries but I could go ten blocks down the hill to the river where there were bars and corner stores just fine. That area was a kind of a neutral zone because it was run by pimps and their hookers.
Another food desert was also a water desert out in the west when I lived in a single wide trailer in a desperately poor rural area. Nearest grocery store was 45mikes away and although we had plumbing, the tap water wasn't safe to drink (EPA notice about arsenic in water) so my dad had to use our beat up rusted out truck to bring home a tank of water every week as well as food.
Electricity wasn't too dependable in either place...urban or country and so we couldn't buy fresh veg or meat because it would rot to nothing in a day. Lots of canned and dried foods. I think people assume everyone has access to a refrigerator/freezer when many poor people don't.
Thank you very much for posting this. I really feel that it is very easy for people to put horse blinders on when it comes to this.
It's very easy to say that there's a supermarket a mile away. Why don't they go there?
I live in Chicago currently and in a decent part of the city. However, for my job, I did have to travel to very high crime, poor areas. I've met a family who lived in an unfinished basement. 3 kids and a mom who was taking online classes to get a better job. However, the area was extremely dangerous. Homicides are high in the area as well as gang violence. Sure, if they could hop in a car and drive to a supermarket a mile or so away, they could. BUT- when you don't have a car, don't have any money to spare and have to walk that all the way to a supermarket that far with 3 kids in a high crime area, it's not the super market they are looking for. They are looking for something to eat that's both affordable and safe to get. Often times, that may mean the corner convenience store.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that if you look a statistics about proximity to supermarkets, it's easy to overlook other factors that can influence the ability to get fresh food.
This is another area where I am admittedly biased. I have lived in "the hood" in multiple cities over the years, and never once had a problem out of anyone. We'd regularly have people shot in the parking lots of two of the places I live, yet I never got so much as a sideways glance. I attribute this to the fact that I mind my own damned business, and never got tangled up in the things that tend to get people shot (drug money, *kitten* with someone's wife/girlfriend, having a big mouth, etc.)
I don't give a damn if someone got capped right under my window, I didn't crack the blinds, I didn't see *kitten*, it's not my business. So yeah, even fat and nerdy whitey can live in some nasty neighborhoods without incident, if you know what you are doing. vOv
It's good for you that you didn't care and kept to yourself. That means only gang members and drug dealers get shot?
There are so many bystanders shot yearly by stray bullets or simply because they were at the wrong place at the wrong time. Sure- a percentage of them were involved in drug or gang activity but that definitely doesn't account for all of those affected by the violence.
While I'm not discrediting your experiences, I don't think that just because you lived in a poor area and survived means that it must be okay for everyone else.
Chicago's violence is skyrocketing. The thing to remember is that chicago is big. Percentagewise, we have a ridiculously high murder and violent crime rate for the population of the city. Then you actually break it down to where these crimes happen, they tend to be concentrated in the areas with the most poverty. Then you look at the percentages in those areas- it's extremely dangerous to even live there.
So yes- my experiences with these families and being able to spend time with them does show that there are indeed "food deserts" because of other factors than proximity to a supermarket.
Food deserts are only a symptom of an unadressed root cause. Why is this level of violence allowed to exist?
All this is a waste of time, money, and most importantly - life if the root cause is not addressed.
Because there's no actual appetite to take the measures needed to curb the violence.
Profiling, stop and frisk, etc.
This simply reinforces the fact that government is not in the business of solving problems. They are in the business of creating problems which will further the size and power of government.
In this case, the government is able and willing to solve the problems. The communities prefer the violence to the solution.
I highly doubt that. :noway:
Doubt all you want. The evidence is clear.
1. Stop and frisk/profiling are proven to work to reduce crime and violence
2. Communities suffering from violent crime object when these measures are proposed for implementation.
Probably because they are inherently racist and bias against minorities.
Like I said. The communities prefer the violent status quo.1 -
stanmann571 wrote: »stanmann571 wrote: »RosieRose7673 wrote: »Gallowmere1984 wrote: »RosieRose7673 wrote: »ladyannique2017 wrote: »Food deserts in general are not a myth. Yes, it's a myth that all poor urban areas are food deserts, but that doesn't mean food deserts don't exist. I've lived in a few. One was a poor urban area in the Midwest. Yes you can look at a street map and see there is a grocery store within walking distance, but street maps do not take into account gang territories or other hazards between you and the food. I lived in a place where it was not safe to go two blocks uptown which is where the grocery store was due to gang boundaries but I could go ten blocks down the hill to the river where there were bars and corner stores just fine. That area was a kind of a neutral zone because it was run by pimps and their hookers.
Another food desert was also a water desert out in the west when I lived in a single wide trailer in a desperately poor rural area. Nearest grocery store was 45mikes away and although we had plumbing, the tap water wasn't safe to drink (EPA notice about arsenic in water) so my dad had to use our beat up rusted out truck to bring home a tank of water every week as well as food.
Electricity wasn't too dependable in either place...urban or country and so we couldn't buy fresh veg or meat because it would rot to nothing in a day. Lots of canned and dried foods. I think people assume everyone has access to a refrigerator/freezer when many poor people don't.
Thank you very much for posting this. I really feel that it is very easy for people to put horse blinders on when it comes to this.
It's very easy to say that there's a supermarket a mile away. Why don't they go there?
I live in Chicago currently and in a decent part of the city. However, for my job, I did have to travel to very high crime, poor areas. I've met a family who lived in an unfinished basement. 3 kids and a mom who was taking online classes to get a better job. However, the area was extremely dangerous. Homicides are high in the area as well as gang violence. Sure, if they could hop in a car and drive to a supermarket a mile or so away, they could. BUT- when you don't have a car, don't have any money to spare and have to walk that all the way to a supermarket that far with 3 kids in a high crime area, it's not the super market they are looking for. They are looking for something to eat that's both affordable and safe to get. Often times, that may mean the corner convenience store.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that if you look a statistics about proximity to supermarkets, it's easy to overlook other factors that can influence the ability to get fresh food.
This is another area where I am admittedly biased. I have lived in "the hood" in multiple cities over the years, and never once had a problem out of anyone. We'd regularly have people shot in the parking lots of two of the places I live, yet I never got so much as a sideways glance. I attribute this to the fact that I mind my own damned business, and never got tangled up in the things that tend to get people shot (drug money, *kitten* with someone's wife/girlfriend, having a big mouth, etc.)
I don't give a damn if someone got capped right under my window, I didn't crack the blinds, I didn't see *kitten*, it's not my business. So yeah, even fat and nerdy whitey can live in some nasty neighborhoods without incident, if you know what you are doing. vOv
It's good for you that you didn't care and kept to yourself. That means only gang members and drug dealers get shot?
There are so many bystanders shot yearly by stray bullets or simply because they were at the wrong place at the wrong time. Sure- a percentage of them were involved in drug or gang activity but that definitely doesn't account for all of those affected by the violence.
While I'm not discrediting your experiences, I don't think that just because you lived in a poor area and survived means that it must be okay for everyone else.
Chicago's violence is skyrocketing. The thing to remember is that chicago is big. Percentagewise, we have a ridiculously high murder and violent crime rate for the population of the city. Then you actually break it down to where these crimes happen, they tend to be concentrated in the areas with the most poverty. Then you look at the percentages in those areas- it's extremely dangerous to even live there.
So yes- my experiences with these families and being able to spend time with them does show that there are indeed "food deserts" because of other factors than proximity to a supermarket.
Food deserts are only a symptom of an unadressed root cause. Why is this level of violence allowed to exist?
All this is a waste of time, money, and most importantly - life if the root cause is not addressed.
Because there's no actual appetite to take the measures needed to curb the violence.
Profiling, stop and frisk, etc.
This simply reinforces the fact that government is not in the business of solving problems. They are in the business of creating problems which will further the size and power of government.
In this case, the government is able and willing to solve the problems. The communities prefer the violence to the solution.
How are you separating gov't from community here? The police are an arm of the local gov't, local policies about law enforcement are an arm of the local gov't. (I don't agree with your claims anyway, and am rather puzzled at how profiling -- which happens in reality all the time -- would stop crime in neighborhoods that are largely all one race, but setting that aside, it's the government acting or not.)
Curious where this 'hood is that you lived that required a 6 mile walk for a public library, though. That's not the case in the cities I know.2 -
lemurcat12 wrote: »stanmann571 wrote: »stanmann571 wrote: »RosieRose7673 wrote: »Gallowmere1984 wrote: »RosieRose7673 wrote: »ladyannique2017 wrote: »Food deserts in general are not a myth. Yes, it's a myth that all poor urban areas are food deserts, but that doesn't mean food deserts don't exist. I've lived in a few. One was a poor urban area in the Midwest. Yes you can look at a street map and see there is a grocery store within walking distance, but street maps do not take into account gang territories or other hazards between you and the food. I lived in a place where it was not safe to go two blocks uptown which is where the grocery store was due to gang boundaries but I could go ten blocks down the hill to the river where there were bars and corner stores just fine. That area was a kind of a neutral zone because it was run by pimps and their hookers.
Another food desert was also a water desert out in the west when I lived in a single wide trailer in a desperately poor rural area. Nearest grocery store was 45mikes away and although we had plumbing, the tap water wasn't safe to drink (EPA notice about arsenic in water) so my dad had to use our beat up rusted out truck to bring home a tank of water every week as well as food.
Electricity wasn't too dependable in either place...urban or country and so we couldn't buy fresh veg or meat because it would rot to nothing in a day. Lots of canned and dried foods. I think people assume everyone has access to a refrigerator/freezer when many poor people don't.
Thank you very much for posting this. I really feel that it is very easy for people to put horse blinders on when it comes to this.
It's very easy to say that there's a supermarket a mile away. Why don't they go there?
I live in Chicago currently and in a decent part of the city. However, for my job, I did have to travel to very high crime, poor areas. I've met a family who lived in an unfinished basement. 3 kids and a mom who was taking online classes to get a better job. However, the area was extremely dangerous. Homicides are high in the area as well as gang violence. Sure, if they could hop in a car and drive to a supermarket a mile or so away, they could. BUT- when you don't have a car, don't have any money to spare and have to walk that all the way to a supermarket that far with 3 kids in a high crime area, it's not the super market they are looking for. They are looking for something to eat that's both affordable and safe to get. Often times, that may mean the corner convenience store.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that if you look a statistics about proximity to supermarkets, it's easy to overlook other factors that can influence the ability to get fresh food.
This is another area where I am admittedly biased. I have lived in "the hood" in multiple cities over the years, and never once had a problem out of anyone. We'd regularly have people shot in the parking lots of two of the places I live, yet I never got so much as a sideways glance. I attribute this to the fact that I mind my own damned business, and never got tangled up in the things that tend to get people shot (drug money, *kitten* with someone's wife/girlfriend, having a big mouth, etc.)
I don't give a damn if someone got capped right under my window, I didn't crack the blinds, I didn't see *kitten*, it's not my business. So yeah, even fat and nerdy whitey can live in some nasty neighborhoods without incident, if you know what you are doing. vOv
It's good for you that you didn't care and kept to yourself. That means only gang members and drug dealers get shot?
There are so many bystanders shot yearly by stray bullets or simply because they were at the wrong place at the wrong time. Sure- a percentage of them were involved in drug or gang activity but that definitely doesn't account for all of those affected by the violence.
While I'm not discrediting your experiences, I don't think that just because you lived in a poor area and survived means that it must be okay for everyone else.
Chicago's violence is skyrocketing. The thing to remember is that chicago is big. Percentagewise, we have a ridiculously high murder and violent crime rate for the population of the city. Then you actually break it down to where these crimes happen, they tend to be concentrated in the areas with the most poverty. Then you look at the percentages in those areas- it's extremely dangerous to even live there.
So yes- my experiences with these families and being able to spend time with them does show that there are indeed "food deserts" because of other factors than proximity to a supermarket.
Food deserts are only a symptom of an unadressed root cause. Why is this level of violence allowed to exist?
All this is a waste of time, money, and most importantly - life if the root cause is not addressed.
Because there's no actual appetite to take the measures needed to curb the violence.
Profiling, stop and frisk, etc.
This simply reinforces the fact that government is not in the business of solving problems. They are in the business of creating problems which will further the size and power of government.
In this case, the government is able and willing to solve the problems. The communities prefer the violence to the solution.
How are you separating gov't from community here? The police are an arm of the local gov't, local policies about law enforcement are an arm of the local gov't. (I don't agree with your claims anyway, and am rather puzzled at how profiling -- which happens in reality all the time -- would stop crime in neighborhoods that are largely all one race, but setting that aside, it's the government acting or not.)
Curious where this 'hood is that you lived that required a 6 mile walk for a public library, though. That's not the case in the cities I know.
So much this!1 -
Chef_Barbell wrote: »lemurcat12 wrote: »stanmann571 wrote: »stanmann571 wrote: »RosieRose7673 wrote: »Gallowmere1984 wrote: »RosieRose7673 wrote: »ladyannique2017 wrote: »Food deserts in general are not a myth. Yes, it's a myth that all poor urban areas are food deserts, but that doesn't mean food deserts don't exist. I've lived in a few. One was a poor urban area in the Midwest. Yes you can look at a street map and see there is a grocery store within walking distance, but street maps do not take into account gang territories or other hazards between you and the food. I lived in a place where it was not safe to go two blocks uptown which is where the grocery store was due to gang boundaries but I could go ten blocks down the hill to the river where there were bars and corner stores just fine. That area was a kind of a neutral zone because it was run by pimps and their hookers.
Another food desert was also a water desert out in the west when I lived in a single wide trailer in a desperately poor rural area. Nearest grocery store was 45mikes away and although we had plumbing, the tap water wasn't safe to drink (EPA notice about arsenic in water) so my dad had to use our beat up rusted out truck to bring home a tank of water every week as well as food.
Electricity wasn't too dependable in either place...urban or country and so we couldn't buy fresh veg or meat because it would rot to nothing in a day. Lots of canned and dried foods. I think people assume everyone has access to a refrigerator/freezer when many poor people don't.
Thank you very much for posting this. I really feel that it is very easy for people to put horse blinders on when it comes to this.
It's very easy to say that there's a supermarket a mile away. Why don't they go there?
I live in Chicago currently and in a decent part of the city. However, for my job, I did have to travel to very high crime, poor areas. I've met a family who lived in an unfinished basement. 3 kids and a mom who was taking online classes to get a better job. However, the area was extremely dangerous. Homicides are high in the area as well as gang violence. Sure, if they could hop in a car and drive to a supermarket a mile or so away, they could. BUT- when you don't have a car, don't have any money to spare and have to walk that all the way to a supermarket that far with 3 kids in a high crime area, it's not the super market they are looking for. They are looking for something to eat that's both affordable and safe to get. Often times, that may mean the corner convenience store.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that if you look a statistics about proximity to supermarkets, it's easy to overlook other factors that can influence the ability to get fresh food.
This is another area where I am admittedly biased. I have lived in "the hood" in multiple cities over the years, and never once had a problem out of anyone. We'd regularly have people shot in the parking lots of two of the places I live, yet I never got so much as a sideways glance. I attribute this to the fact that I mind my own damned business, and never got tangled up in the things that tend to get people shot (drug money, *kitten* with someone's wife/girlfriend, having a big mouth, etc.)
I don't give a damn if someone got capped right under my window, I didn't crack the blinds, I didn't see *kitten*, it's not my business. So yeah, even fat and nerdy whitey can live in some nasty neighborhoods without incident, if you know what you are doing. vOv
It's good for you that you didn't care and kept to yourself. That means only gang members and drug dealers get shot?
There are so many bystanders shot yearly by stray bullets or simply because they were at the wrong place at the wrong time. Sure- a percentage of them were involved in drug or gang activity but that definitely doesn't account for all of those affected by the violence.
While I'm not discrediting your experiences, I don't think that just because you lived in a poor area and survived means that it must be okay for everyone else.
Chicago's violence is skyrocketing. The thing to remember is that chicago is big. Percentagewise, we have a ridiculously high murder and violent crime rate for the population of the city. Then you actually break it down to where these crimes happen, they tend to be concentrated in the areas with the most poverty. Then you look at the percentages in those areas- it's extremely dangerous to even live there.
So yes- my experiences with these families and being able to spend time with them does show that there are indeed "food deserts" because of other factors than proximity to a supermarket.
Food deserts are only a symptom of an unadressed root cause. Why is this level of violence allowed to exist?
All this is a waste of time, money, and most importantly - life if the root cause is not addressed.
Because there's no actual appetite to take the measures needed to curb the violence.
Profiling, stop and frisk, etc.
This simply reinforces the fact that government is not in the business of solving problems. They are in the business of creating problems which will further the size and power of government.
In this case, the government is able and willing to solve the problems. The communities prefer the violence to the solution.
How are you separating gov't from community here? The police are an arm of the local gov't, local policies about law enforcement are an arm of the local gov't. (I don't agree with your claims anyway, and am rather puzzled at how profiling -- which happens in reality all the time -- would stop crime in neighborhoods that are largely all one race, but setting that aside, it's the government acting or not.)
Curious where this 'hood is that you lived that required a 6 mile walk for a public library, though. That's not the case in the cities I know.
So much this!
Not the closest. Just the closest with a working and accessible computer0 -
lemurcat12 wrote: »stanmann571 wrote: »stanmann571 wrote: »RosieRose7673 wrote: »Gallowmere1984 wrote: »RosieRose7673 wrote: »ladyannique2017 wrote: »Food deserts in general are not a myth. Yes, it's a myth that all poor urban areas are food deserts, but that doesn't mean food deserts don't exist. I've lived in a few. One was a poor urban area in the Midwest. Yes you can look at a street map and see there is a grocery store within walking distance, but street maps do not take into account gang territories or other hazards between you and the food. I lived in a place where it was not safe to go two blocks uptown which is where the grocery store was due to gang boundaries but I could go ten blocks down the hill to the river where there were bars and corner stores just fine. That area was a kind of a neutral zone because it was run by pimps and their hookers.
Another food desert was also a water desert out in the west when I lived in a single wide trailer in a desperately poor rural area. Nearest grocery store was 45mikes away and although we had plumbing, the tap water wasn't safe to drink (EPA notice about arsenic in water) so my dad had to use our beat up rusted out truck to bring home a tank of water every week as well as food.
Electricity wasn't too dependable in either place...urban or country and so we couldn't buy fresh veg or meat because it would rot to nothing in a day. Lots of canned and dried foods. I think people assume everyone has access to a refrigerator/freezer when many poor people don't.
Thank you very much for posting this. I really feel that it is very easy for people to put horse blinders on when it comes to this.
It's very easy to say that there's a supermarket a mile away. Why don't they go there?
I live in Chicago currently and in a decent part of the city. However, for my job, I did have to travel to very high crime, poor areas. I've met a family who lived in an unfinished basement. 3 kids and a mom who was taking online classes to get a better job. However, the area was extremely dangerous. Homicides are high in the area as well as gang violence. Sure, if they could hop in a car and drive to a supermarket a mile or so away, they could. BUT- when you don't have a car, don't have any money to spare and have to walk that all the way to a supermarket that far with 3 kids in a high crime area, it's not the super market they are looking for. They are looking for something to eat that's both affordable and safe to get. Often times, that may mean the corner convenience store.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that if you look a statistics about proximity to supermarkets, it's easy to overlook other factors that can influence the ability to get fresh food.
This is another area where I am admittedly biased. I have lived in "the hood" in multiple cities over the years, and never once had a problem out of anyone. We'd regularly have people shot in the parking lots of two of the places I live, yet I never got so much as a sideways glance. I attribute this to the fact that I mind my own damned business, and never got tangled up in the things that tend to get people shot (drug money, *kitten* with someone's wife/girlfriend, having a big mouth, etc.)
I don't give a damn if someone got capped right under my window, I didn't crack the blinds, I didn't see *kitten*, it's not my business. So yeah, even fat and nerdy whitey can live in some nasty neighborhoods without incident, if you know what you are doing. vOv
It's good for you that you didn't care and kept to yourself. That means only gang members and drug dealers get shot?
There are so many bystanders shot yearly by stray bullets or simply because they were at the wrong place at the wrong time. Sure- a percentage of them were involved in drug or gang activity but that definitely doesn't account for all of those affected by the violence.
While I'm not discrediting your experiences, I don't think that just because you lived in a poor area and survived means that it must be okay for everyone else.
Chicago's violence is skyrocketing. The thing to remember is that chicago is big. Percentagewise, we have a ridiculously high murder and violent crime rate for the population of the city. Then you actually break it down to where these crimes happen, they tend to be concentrated in the areas with the most poverty. Then you look at the percentages in those areas- it's extremely dangerous to even live there.
So yes- my experiences with these families and being able to spend time with them does show that there are indeed "food deserts" because of other factors than proximity to a supermarket.
Food deserts are only a symptom of an unadressed root cause. Why is this level of violence allowed to exist?
All this is a waste of time, money, and most importantly - life if the root cause is not addressed.
Because there's no actual appetite to take the measures needed to curb the violence.
Profiling, stop and frisk, etc.
This simply reinforces the fact that government is not in the business of solving problems. They are in the business of creating problems which will further the size and power of government.
In this case, the government is able and willing to solve the problems. The communities prefer the violence to the solution.
How are you separating gov't from community here? The police are an arm of the local gov't, local policies about law enforcement are an arm of the local gov't. (I don't agree with your claims anyway, and am rather puzzled at how profiling -- which happens in reality all the time -- would stop crime in neighborhoods that are largely all one race, but setting that aside, it's the government acting or not.)
Curious where this 'hood is that you lived that required a 6 mile walk for a public library, though. That's not the case in the cities I know.
Not necessarily to get to a public library, but getting to one larger than a closet with a computer could require commuting a few neighborhoods over. It would have been ~4 miles one way for me to get to the Central library from where I grew up (thankfully via a single bus line in my case).1 -
lemurcat12 wrote: »stanmann571 wrote: »stanmann571 wrote: »RosieRose7673 wrote: »Gallowmere1984 wrote: »RosieRose7673 wrote: »ladyannique2017 wrote: »Food deserts in general are not a myth. Yes, it's a myth that all poor urban areas are food deserts, but that doesn't mean food deserts don't exist. I've lived in a few. One was a poor urban area in the Midwest. Yes you can look at a street map and see there is a grocery store within walking distance, but street maps do not take into account gang territories or other hazards between you and the food. I lived in a place where it was not safe to go two blocks uptown which is where the grocery store was due to gang boundaries but I could go ten blocks down the hill to the river where there were bars and corner stores just fine. That area was a kind of a neutral zone because it was run by pimps and their hookers.
Another food desert was also a water desert out in the west when I lived in a single wide trailer in a desperately poor rural area. Nearest grocery store was 45mikes away and although we had plumbing, the tap water wasn't safe to drink (EPA notice about arsenic in water) so my dad had to use our beat up rusted out truck to bring home a tank of water every week as well as food.
Electricity wasn't too dependable in either place...urban or country and so we couldn't buy fresh veg or meat because it would rot to nothing in a day. Lots of canned and dried foods. I think people assume everyone has access to a refrigerator/freezer when many poor people don't.
Thank you very much for posting this. I really feel that it is very easy for people to put horse blinders on when it comes to this.
It's very easy to say that there's a supermarket a mile away. Why don't they go there?
I live in Chicago currently and in a decent part of the city. However, for my job, I did have to travel to very high crime, poor areas. I've met a family who lived in an unfinished basement. 3 kids and a mom who was taking online classes to get a better job. However, the area was extremely dangerous. Homicides are high in the area as well as gang violence. Sure, if they could hop in a car and drive to a supermarket a mile or so away, they could. BUT- when you don't have a car, don't have any money to spare and have to walk that all the way to a supermarket that far with 3 kids in a high crime area, it's not the super market they are looking for. They are looking for something to eat that's both affordable and safe to get. Often times, that may mean the corner convenience store.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that if you look a statistics about proximity to supermarkets, it's easy to overlook other factors that can influence the ability to get fresh food.
This is another area where I am admittedly biased. I have lived in "the hood" in multiple cities over the years, and never once had a problem out of anyone. We'd regularly have people shot in the parking lots of two of the places I live, yet I never got so much as a sideways glance. I attribute this to the fact that I mind my own damned business, and never got tangled up in the things that tend to get people shot (drug money, *kitten* with someone's wife/girlfriend, having a big mouth, etc.)
I don't give a damn if someone got capped right under my window, I didn't crack the blinds, I didn't see *kitten*, it's not my business. So yeah, even fat and nerdy whitey can live in some nasty neighborhoods without incident, if you know what you are doing. vOv
It's good for you that you didn't care and kept to yourself. That means only gang members and drug dealers get shot?
There are so many bystanders shot yearly by stray bullets or simply because they were at the wrong place at the wrong time. Sure- a percentage of them were involved in drug or gang activity but that definitely doesn't account for all of those affected by the violence.
While I'm not discrediting your experiences, I don't think that just because you lived in a poor area and survived means that it must be okay for everyone else.
Chicago's violence is skyrocketing. The thing to remember is that chicago is big. Percentagewise, we have a ridiculously high murder and violent crime rate for the population of the city. Then you actually break it down to where these crimes happen, they tend to be concentrated in the areas with the most poverty. Then you look at the percentages in those areas- it's extremely dangerous to even live there.
So yes- my experiences with these families and being able to spend time with them does show that there are indeed "food deserts" because of other factors than proximity to a supermarket.
Food deserts are only a symptom of an unadressed root cause. Why is this level of violence allowed to exist?
All this is a waste of time, money, and most importantly - life if the root cause is not addressed.
Because there's no actual appetite to take the measures needed to curb the violence.
Profiling, stop and frisk, etc.
This simply reinforces the fact that government is not in the business of solving problems. They are in the business of creating problems which will further the size and power of government.
In this case, the government is able and willing to solve the problems. The communities prefer the violence to the solution.
How are you separating gov't from community here? The police are an arm of the local gov't, local policies about law enforcement are an arm of the local gov't. (I don't agree with your claims anyway, and am rather puzzled at how profiling -- which happens in reality all the time -- would stop crime in neighborhoods that are largely all one race, but setting that aside, it's the government acting or not.)
Curious where this 'hood is that you lived that required a 6 mile walk for a public library, though. That's not the case in the cities I know.
Not necessarily to get to a public library, but getting to one larger than a closet with a computer could require commuting a few neighborhoods over. It would have been ~4 miles one way for me to get to the Central library from where I grew up (thankfully via a single bus line in my case).
The way it was phrased implied just to get a book, and that there was no public transportation available:
"25 years ago(when I was a teenager) a 12 mile total distance walk to get to and from the public library to get a book, or use a computer for research was routine."
I grew up in the '80s, and in a middle-sized city, not a big city (about 250K, but sprawling), and it would have been at least a 6 mile walk (more, I think, but would have to check a map) to the main library, although we would have taken public transportation (a bus). To a regular library to get a book, nowhere near that far. Here, in a big city? Even in the terrible neighborhoods that's not so.
We were reasonably active, but wouldn't have been walking 12 miles in a day to go to and from the library. Certainly not through bad neighborhoods. So that as routinely how people lived in '92, no, I am skeptical. (I agree computers would have been less available then, which is also why when we did computer research for an assignment it was usually stuff that could be done at school. But like I said, this was the '80s, maybe '92 was a weird in-between period as far as that goes.)0 -
lemurcat12 wrote: »lemurcat12 wrote: »stanmann571 wrote: »stanmann571 wrote: »RosieRose7673 wrote: »Gallowmere1984 wrote: »RosieRose7673 wrote: »ladyannique2017 wrote: »Food deserts in general are not a myth. Yes, it's a myth that all poor urban areas are food deserts, but that doesn't mean food deserts don't exist. I've lived in a few. One was a poor urban area in the Midwest. Yes you can look at a street map and see there is a grocery store within walking distance, but street maps do not take into account gang territories or other hazards between you and the food. I lived in a place where it was not safe to go two blocks uptown which is where the grocery store was due to gang boundaries but I could go ten blocks down the hill to the river where there were bars and corner stores just fine. That area was a kind of a neutral zone because it was run by pimps and their hookers.
Another food desert was also a water desert out in the west when I lived in a single wide trailer in a desperately poor rural area. Nearest grocery store was 45mikes away and although we had plumbing, the tap water wasn't safe to drink (EPA notice about arsenic in water) so my dad had to use our beat up rusted out truck to bring home a tank of water every week as well as food.
Electricity wasn't too dependable in either place...urban or country and so we couldn't buy fresh veg or meat because it would rot to nothing in a day. Lots of canned and dried foods. I think people assume everyone has access to a refrigerator/freezer when many poor people don't.
Thank you very much for posting this. I really feel that it is very easy for people to put horse blinders on when it comes to this.
It's very easy to say that there's a supermarket a mile away. Why don't they go there?
I live in Chicago currently and in a decent part of the city. However, for my job, I did have to travel to very high crime, poor areas. I've met a family who lived in an unfinished basement. 3 kids and a mom who was taking online classes to get a better job. However, the area was extremely dangerous. Homicides are high in the area as well as gang violence. Sure, if they could hop in a car and drive to a supermarket a mile or so away, they could. BUT- when you don't have a car, don't have any money to spare and have to walk that all the way to a supermarket that far with 3 kids in a high crime area, it's not the super market they are looking for. They are looking for something to eat that's both affordable and safe to get. Often times, that may mean the corner convenience store.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that if you look a statistics about proximity to supermarkets, it's easy to overlook other factors that can influence the ability to get fresh food.
This is another area where I am admittedly biased. I have lived in "the hood" in multiple cities over the years, and never once had a problem out of anyone. We'd regularly have people shot in the parking lots of two of the places I live, yet I never got so much as a sideways glance. I attribute this to the fact that I mind my own damned business, and never got tangled up in the things that tend to get people shot (drug money, *kitten* with someone's wife/girlfriend, having a big mouth, etc.)
I don't give a damn if someone got capped right under my window, I didn't crack the blinds, I didn't see *kitten*, it's not my business. So yeah, even fat and nerdy whitey can live in some nasty neighborhoods without incident, if you know what you are doing. vOv
It's good for you that you didn't care and kept to yourself. That means only gang members and drug dealers get shot?
There are so many bystanders shot yearly by stray bullets or simply because they were at the wrong place at the wrong time. Sure- a percentage of them were involved in drug or gang activity but that definitely doesn't account for all of those affected by the violence.
While I'm not discrediting your experiences, I don't think that just because you lived in a poor area and survived means that it must be okay for everyone else.
Chicago's violence is skyrocketing. The thing to remember is that chicago is big. Percentagewise, we have a ridiculously high murder and violent crime rate for the population of the city. Then you actually break it down to where these crimes happen, they tend to be concentrated in the areas with the most poverty. Then you look at the percentages in those areas- it's extremely dangerous to even live there.
So yes- my experiences with these families and being able to spend time with them does show that there are indeed "food deserts" because of other factors than proximity to a supermarket.
Food deserts are only a symptom of an unadressed root cause. Why is this level of violence allowed to exist?
All this is a waste of time, money, and most importantly - life if the root cause is not addressed.
Because there's no actual appetite to take the measures needed to curb the violence.
Profiling, stop and frisk, etc.
This simply reinforces the fact that government is not in the business of solving problems. They are in the business of creating problems which will further the size and power of government.
In this case, the government is able and willing to solve the problems. The communities prefer the violence to the solution.
How are you separating gov't from community here? The police are an arm of the local gov't, local policies about law enforcement are an arm of the local gov't. (I don't agree with your claims anyway, and am rather puzzled at how profiling -- which happens in reality all the time -- would stop crime in neighborhoods that are largely all one race, but setting that aside, it's the government acting or not.)
Curious where this 'hood is that you lived that required a 6 mile walk for a public library, though. That's not the case in the cities I know.
Not necessarily to get to a public library, but getting to one larger than a closet with a computer could require commuting a few neighborhoods over. It would have been ~4 miles one way for me to get to the Central library from where I grew up (thankfully via a single bus line in my case).
The way it was phrased implied just to get a book, and that there was no public transportation available:
"25 years ago(when I was a teenager) a 12 mile total distance walk to get to and from the public library to get a book, or use a computer for research was routine."
I grew up in the '80s, and in a middle-sized city, not a big city (about 250K, but sprawling), and it would have been at least a 6 mile walk (more, I think, but would have to check a map) to the main library, although we would have taken public transportation (a bus). To a regular library to get a book, nowhere near that far. Here, in a big city? Even in the terrible neighborhoods that's not so.
We were reasonably active, but wouldn't have been walking 12 miles in a day to go to and from the library. Certainly not through bad neighborhoods. So that as routinely how people lived in '92, no, I am skeptical. (I agree computers would have been less available then, which is also why when we did computer research for an assignment it was usually stuff that could be done at school. But like I said, this was the '80s, maybe '92 was a weird in-between period as far as that goes.)
New release books like dean koontz for example and some technical references weren't available via ILL. So yeah some times it was a book. And no not every day or every week even.0 -
lemurcat12 wrote: »lemurcat12 wrote: »stanmann571 wrote: »stanmann571 wrote: »RosieRose7673 wrote: »Gallowmere1984 wrote: »RosieRose7673 wrote: »ladyannique2017 wrote: »Food deserts in general are not a myth. Yes, it's a myth that all poor urban areas are food deserts, but that doesn't mean food deserts don't exist. I've lived in a few. One was a poor urban area in the Midwest. Yes you can look at a street map and see there is a grocery store within walking distance, but street maps do not take into account gang territories or other hazards between you and the food. I lived in a place where it was not safe to go two blocks uptown which is where the grocery store was due to gang boundaries but I could go ten blocks down the hill to the river where there were bars and corner stores just fine. That area was a kind of a neutral zone because it was run by pimps and their hookers.
Another food desert was also a water desert out in the west when I lived in a single wide trailer in a desperately poor rural area. Nearest grocery store was 45mikes away and although we had plumbing, the tap water wasn't safe to drink (EPA notice about arsenic in water) so my dad had to use our beat up rusted out truck to bring home a tank of water every week as well as food.
Electricity wasn't too dependable in either place...urban or country and so we couldn't buy fresh veg or meat because it would rot to nothing in a day. Lots of canned and dried foods. I think people assume everyone has access to a refrigerator/freezer when many poor people don't.
Thank you very much for posting this. I really feel that it is very easy for people to put horse blinders on when it comes to this.
It's very easy to say that there's a supermarket a mile away. Why don't they go there?
I live in Chicago currently and in a decent part of the city. However, for my job, I did have to travel to very high crime, poor areas. I've met a family who lived in an unfinished basement. 3 kids and a mom who was taking online classes to get a better job. However, the area was extremely dangerous. Homicides are high in the area as well as gang violence. Sure, if they could hop in a car and drive to a supermarket a mile or so away, they could. BUT- when you don't have a car, don't have any money to spare and have to walk that all the way to a supermarket that far with 3 kids in a high crime area, it's not the super market they are looking for. They are looking for something to eat that's both affordable and safe to get. Often times, that may mean the corner convenience store.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that if you look a statistics about proximity to supermarkets, it's easy to overlook other factors that can influence the ability to get fresh food.
This is another area where I am admittedly biased. I have lived in "the hood" in multiple cities over the years, and never once had a problem out of anyone. We'd regularly have people shot in the parking lots of two of the places I live, yet I never got so much as a sideways glance. I attribute this to the fact that I mind my own damned business, and never got tangled up in the things that tend to get people shot (drug money, *kitten* with someone's wife/girlfriend, having a big mouth, etc.)
I don't give a damn if someone got capped right under my window, I didn't crack the blinds, I didn't see *kitten*, it's not my business. So yeah, even fat and nerdy whitey can live in some nasty neighborhoods without incident, if you know what you are doing. vOv
It's good for you that you didn't care and kept to yourself. That means only gang members and drug dealers get shot?
There are so many bystanders shot yearly by stray bullets or simply because they were at the wrong place at the wrong time. Sure- a percentage of them were involved in drug or gang activity but that definitely doesn't account for all of those affected by the violence.
While I'm not discrediting your experiences, I don't think that just because you lived in a poor area and survived means that it must be okay for everyone else.
Chicago's violence is skyrocketing. The thing to remember is that chicago is big. Percentagewise, we have a ridiculously high murder and violent crime rate for the population of the city. Then you actually break it down to where these crimes happen, they tend to be concentrated in the areas with the most poverty. Then you look at the percentages in those areas- it's extremely dangerous to even live there.
So yes- my experiences with these families and being able to spend time with them does show that there are indeed "food deserts" because of other factors than proximity to a supermarket.
Food deserts are only a symptom of an unadressed root cause. Why is this level of violence allowed to exist?
All this is a waste of time, money, and most importantly - life if the root cause is not addressed.
Because there's no actual appetite to take the measures needed to curb the violence.
Profiling, stop and frisk, etc.
This simply reinforces the fact that government is not in the business of solving problems. They are in the business of creating problems which will further the size and power of government.
In this case, the government is able and willing to solve the problems. The communities prefer the violence to the solution.
How are you separating gov't from community here? The police are an arm of the local gov't, local policies about law enforcement are an arm of the local gov't. (I don't agree with your claims anyway, and am rather puzzled at how profiling -- which happens in reality all the time -- would stop crime in neighborhoods that are largely all one race, but setting that aside, it's the government acting or not.)
Curious where this 'hood is that you lived that required a 6 mile walk for a public library, though. That's not the case in the cities I know.
Not necessarily to get to a public library, but getting to one larger than a closet with a computer could require commuting a few neighborhoods over. It would have been ~4 miles one way for me to get to the Central library from where I grew up (thankfully via a single bus line in my case).
The way it was phrased implied just to get a book, and that there was no public transportation available:
"25 years ago(when I was a teenager) a 12 mile total distance walk to get to and from the public library to get a book, or use a computer for research was routine."
I grew up in the '80s, and in a middle-sized city, not a big city (about 250K, but sprawling), and it would have been at least a 6 mile walk (more, I think, but would have to check a map) to the main library, although we would have taken public transportation (a bus). To a regular library to get a book, nowhere near that far. Here, in a big city? Even in the terrible neighborhoods that's not so.
We were reasonably active, but wouldn't have been walking 12 miles in a day to go to and from the library. Certainly not through bad neighborhoods. So that as routinely how people lived in '92, no, I am skeptical.
I grew up in rural Illinois in a town <2k (currently over 11k) and would bike pretty much everywhere when the weather allowed. We lived 7.2 miles out of town, so I can easily see this. My closest friend lived 1.2 miles away and I grew up continually testing how fast I could make it to his house. There were two grocery stores in town.
Bottom line is people adapt. Free market adapts based upon numerous forces, the primary being profitability. If this does not exist there is a very good reason for it.0
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