[cyanydeez]

they're building these ground floor retail everywhere here.

the only useful one is a grocer that sources labor from volunteers for discounts on food.

the rest appear empty or have bars /(also empty) or some other useless high expense niche purpose.

it's definitely a situation that zoning alone won't fix. I'm definitely in a food desert and the closest grocer is a coop that probably doesn't support low cost food options.

there's no capitalism or market based fixes here. you need to actually get your hands dirty if you want to improve quality of life

[BigRedDog1669]

zoning and business laws prevent market based solutions, so we don't know that there aren't market fixes. The retail space prices are so absurd because there was only a limited part of the city where you can do retail. Go to 'third world countries' and there are plenty of groceries in neighborhoods as well as street vendors that are illegal in the US.