[laen]

I'm glad the co-op is able to bring the community together, however, I am disturbed by the fact that like the title implies, residents were "stuck." Grocery stores were 2.5 miles away, but that was too far to get reasonably priced food and instead residents were gouged for $5 gallons of milk at the corner store.

I fear that the $2 million being invested into the co-op could have been better used for infrastructure, not only enabling folks to journey to nearby grocery stores, but also opening up more employment opportunities.

[timdiggerm]

Infrastructure investments are long, time-consuming, and done by municipal or state governments, not by residents & non-profits. Evidently the government didn't care enough to make that possible.

Additionally, they're not always a great option. Here are the bus route suggestions from the affected area to the nearest grocery stores:

- https://www.google.com/maps/dir/2200+Phillips+Ave,+Greensbor...

- https://www.google.com/maps/dir/Kim+Food+Mart/Food+Lion,+231...

20min one-way bus rides are pretty time consuming.

[kaitai]

I visited Greensboro once for an event at the university. I make a point of taking public transit all over the world and have made transit work for me in Europe, Asia, rural parts of Mexico... but I couldn't in Greensboro. The transit instructions to get to & from the airport on a weekend involved steps like, "get a taxi, take it 20 miles to this bus line, then sit on the bus line for an hour" when the hotel was 15 miles from the airport.

I tried to walk to a fellow conference-goer's hotel from my hotel to meet up for dinner. It was just 2 block. After confronting a bunch of 10-foot tall fences around parking lots and ending up on a highway entrance ramp from a dead-end sidewalk, only 50 feet from my destination but unable to get there, I was finally forced to admit that car is king there and they don't want you walking. (I did finish walking there by going around all the fences, darting down an unlit busy street in a valley with no sidewalk and no shoulder, and approaching from the other side.)

Being my cynical self, I don't think the government didn't care enough to make infrastructure investments possible. I think they actively didn't want to give handouts to those no-good lazy moochers of government service who oughta get real jobs and get a car like responsible citizens.

I've heard Heritage Foundation people and others argue very strongly that people should just buy cars -- public transportation is an inefficient handout -- but I can't find any quotes right now. Stephen Moore in this debate made remarks in that direction (http://intelligencesquaredus.org/debates/past-debates/item/1...) but he didn't include my favorite line (by some candidate) that people should just join a church that will help them monetarily with buying a car so they can be good US citizens.

http://www.citylab.com/cityfixer/2012/07/race-class-and-stig... http://www.wnyc.org/story/285757-back-of-the-bus-documentary...

[dublinben]

It's not as if these places are impossible to access. The existing bus routes are just not well planned for this trip. These journeys are both less than 15 minutes by bike.

http://www.openstreetmap.org/directions?engine=mapzen_bicycl...

http://www.openstreetmap.org/directions?engine=mapzen_bicycl...

Not only can you carry more food on a bike than you can on the bus, but it's good exercise too.

[kaitai]

I'd be much more scared to bike in Greensboro than in Manhattan. Drivers aren't used to bikes and the streets in some areas are poorly set up for biking (no shoulders, many lanes in each direction, high speed limits, so you have to cross four lanes of traffic with one a highway entrance to make a left turn).

[teddyc]

In the 1990s, I got hit by a car while biking in the bike lane in Greensboro, on UNCG campus.

[metasean]

As kaitai & teddyc, mentioned the roads aren't as bike-friendly. Now trying to be a mother with kids in tow trying to bike a total of 30 minutes, in a not bike-friendly area, to the grocery store and back.

[Avshalom]

it's worse than 20 minutes. That bus only runs every 30 minutes, so unless you get lucky chances are the trip back is going to be closer to 40.

[Squarel]

There are many food deserts in the USA, and I suspect infrastructure is a large part of the problem

https://apps.ams.usda.gov/fooddeserts/fooddeserts.aspx

[ctdonath]

Many seem to misunderstand how large the USA is, how dispersed the population is, and how impractical it is to implement alternate infrastructure to solve the alleged problem. Walking/biking infrastructure is only feasible with high enough population densities; below some threshold, "car culture" absolutely dominates unless you're raising your own food. Grocery stores require a minimum number of recurring customers (and low enough crime rates); given a sufficiently dispersed population, the average viable distance between stores may very well exceed the distance criteria currently defining "food desert", even though people have moved to those areas knowing full well stores were far away.

Following your link, I was surprised there's a "food desert" near my home; yes it may be a bit far from the nearest grocery, but if you live in this area you _must_ have a car and thus have no trouble reaching a ridiculous number of grocery stores.

[crpatino]

> but if you live in this area you _must_ have a car and thus have no trouble reaching a ridiculous number of grocery stores.

And because of this mentality, everyone that cannot or will not drive will end up being ripped off with $5 US milk gallons and the like.

What will you do if you find yourself with a minor disability and unable to meet your financial obligations? Take one big hit, sell your underwater property and move to an affordable walkable area (where, exactly)? Or accept the death of the thousand cuts and keep buying at the local kwiki mart, fully aware that their mark up prices are twice or thrice what they should be?

[ctdonath]

You don't seem to understand my point. I live by the area, so have a clue about how & why it's a "food desert". There is no "local wiki mart" in that area, and the nearest one is just a block from a real grocery store; if you can get to one, you can get to the other. There's not enough population density to support a walk/bike infrastructure that's meaningfully different from existing roads, nor enough customers within the defined range of a grocery store to support one with a walking/biking population. If "you find yourself with a minor disability" you wouldn't be walking or biking there anyway, you'll either drive yourself (you wouldn't live in that area without a car) or get a ride from someone else (if you don't have a car, that doesn't stop practically everyone else around you from having one - this isn't a no-car area). It's a 5 minute drive from the farthest point on that map's "food desert" (in zip code 30040) to a Publix, Super Walmart, Super Target, Ingles, Kroger, Sprouts, and a dozen varying ethnic/local specialty groceries. Drive by the poorest communities and you'll see a car next to every home.

Please understand: in a large portion of the USA, not having a car isn't an option. That's not because of any intentional malice, it's just that grocery stores need a certain volume of customers to be viable, and the population density is low enough that walking/biking is absolutely not an option (no matter how good the infrastructure, for which there isn't the necessary tax base anyway). The infrastructures Europeans & many Orientals take for granted are only possible precisely because of the high population densities and limited quasi-urban distances. Here in the USA, outside [sub]urban areas we're really spread out, not congregating in villages that make local grocery stores & walking paths viable.

[jacalata]

Possibly, but it sounds like the money is coming from a ton of sources and it may not have been available for infrastructure - for instance, some of the money is a building improvement loan from the store owner.