[NoZebra120vClip]

This is a funny thing. I recently looked into living in a central location downtown, and all the rents are far beyond my means as a Section 8 participant. But if you put "affordable housing" way out in the boonies, then how do residents access any services at a reasonable price? If we need to run all over town for stuff, why live in a God-forsaken location like that?

Downtown in my metro area is not only a transit hub, but a central location for goods and services. I could easily walk around, catch a bus or an eScooter, and have everything I want within mere blocks. Instead, these "affordable housing" developments are in suburbs where you've got one bus line and a Starbucks 3 blocks away, and your grocery stores are nowhere to be found, and your place of employment is way across town. Just not making sense.

[PBnFlash]

One upside of minimum wage is lots of places have competitive salaries

[thriftwy]

I'm just not sure how you get these problems unironically.

What's so hard about having a grocery store and reliable transit to downtown?

The notorious St. Petersburg's Murino district is located outside city's boundary but it has a metro station, several grocery stores, bakeries, bars and other shops. It's not like US poor have no disposable income at all. Kudrovo has worse transit options but features an absolutely huge mall you can walk to.

Of course, if having choice everybody would prefer living in walkable distance to downtown, this is why normally it is so expensive, and you can only make it affordable by making it a miserable experience.

[johnnyanmac]

I don't know, but many cities do not have reliable transit. Hourly busses that stop after 9pm doesn't help at all. And thars the case for a lot of the western part of the US.

Also, thst grocery store may not exactly be profitable and be worth keeping up. Especially if Walmart or something use to station there and then left.

[thriftwy]

I believe this is an unique US situation where you are unable to scale down Walmart. Just make a Walmart Lite with no jeans or TVs but only food. Then these can be built practically everywhere, offering the same competitive prices. There are half dozen of chains like this in Russia and they often open on the other sides of same street.

[porkbeer]

They have these, they are Dollar General and they are gutting rural and low income area mom and pops. They are not a better solution.

[wolverine876]

Also, they have poor selection, especially of healthy foods.

[johnnyanmac]

Sounds good to me, but that's the issue with relying on corporate autocracies for societal need. Wal-Mart's goals aren't necessarily aligned with society, so unless some government contract is made there's no incentive for a Walmart-Lite

[lotsoweiners]

Those have already existed in the US for a decade or two. They are called Walmart Neighborhood Market and they are basically just a regular grocery store.

[NoZebra120vClip]

Our Downtown area is replete with miniaturized grocery stores, pharmacies, and other amenities that are built into the landscape there. They have sprung up commensurately with the addition of loft-type housing and other developments which are actively luring middle-class workers to live there again, after a long period of rather blighted and lifeless downtown environs.

Back in 2008, my fiancée flew out from Catalonia to visit me, and we went on many outings using rented bicycles and public transit. One Saturday, I took her to see some museums near Downtown, and we transferred in Central Station, which was more or less deserted, except for some very brave pigeons. She looked around and she was downright incredulous about the lack of passersby. I told her this is totally typical because nobody views Downtown as a place to hang out or be entertained, it's a financial and business district where people go to work and then GTFO to their suburbs.

In Europe it is very different for her: typically people live and work right in the city center, and the suburbs are something else entirely.

[wolverine876]

Are there places in Russia without grocery stores nearby?

[thriftwy]

Yes but they are usually really small. Like a village with 20 person permanent population small. Get it to 50 and a tiny shop will spring up.

[TexanFeller]

And groceries from the grocery store downtown will cost 2x what the grocery stores outside of downtown will. Basically every good or service you buy downtown doubles in price so is it really a benefit to have poor people try to live there and wonder why they fail?

[crooked-v]

> Of course, if having choice everybody would prefer living in walkable distance to downtown, this is why normally it is so expensive, and you can only make it affordable by making it a miserable experience.

Well, yes, you answered your own question right there.

The US has a massive shortage of housing in desireable areas. Because of that, as soon as an area is at least a little desireable, people will start moving there in droves, driving the prices up and pricing out any attempts to put cost-efficient housing there. You can see exactly the same pattern in small towns that suddenly become popular for one reason or another and go through massive increases in pricing.

The only really practical solutions here at this point would take state- or national-level action to override the decades of municipality-level bullshit that's kept enough housing from actually being built to meet demand.

[heavyset_go]

> What's so hard about having a grocery store and reliable transit to downtown?

Are you asking what's difficult about living far away from people's support networks and abilities to provide for themselves?

[charlie0]

"you can only make it affordable by making it a miserable experience." This hurts because it's so true. We need to get over car-centric cities, but that's only happening slowly and those areas are the most expensive areas. That housing won't be going to those who need it the most.

[wolverine876]

What the GP describes is a generally accepted need by planners, etc. Regarding grocery stores, look up 'food deserts'.

Also, when you are working multiple jobs, you have even less time for overhead like commutes to distant jobs and services.

[thriftwy]

You do not have to have food deserts, that's self-inflicted.

If you are working multiple jobs, at least you should afford to live somewhere near. If you work multiple jobs and is forced to live very very far away/in ghetto, then you should realize people live better than you in third world countries, and relocate to Laos to teach English and lie on the beach. Seriously.

[wolverine876]

> You do not have to have food deserts, that's self-inflicted.

How is that self-inflicted? Should people with no money be opening grocery stores?

The rest of the ridicule - of poverty, from apparent ignorance - seems to show you have nothing more substantive to say.

[thriftwy]

They still have all kinds of incomes, nothing that Lidl-like discounter grocery store could not use. I attribute this to bad urban planning where these poor districts are kept small, too sparse and isolated, and shops are actively zoned out. But, you know, for the rest of the world this is non-issue.

[wolverine876]

What is all that based on? There is plenty written about food deserts that could be a good starting point.

Food deserts exist in relatively dense cities.