The Fading Of Food Access In The Suburbs

I read recently that, according the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) approximately twenty-nine million Americans live in urban and rural food deserts.

That definition means that Lexington residents from low-income neighborhoods have to travel a mile or more to a grocery store. With poverty levels being demonstrated to be growing in suburbs across the country, it could only be a short time until those food deserts become extremely evident here. From what I hear, our planning staff believes that it has already started.

It has long been known that the near north side of Lexington has been home to an almost ever present community of working class poor. There are pockets of more well to do neighborhoods but they are the exception. Many streets which once saw the fine houses of our city's doctors and lawyers or other entrepreneurs are now home to the apartment dwelling, lower class. Our ever mobile elite moved on to the newer subdivisions, chasing that American dream of living “in the country”or acting like it.

Today it is the pockets of poverty which seem to be growing in our cul-de-sac patchwork of subdivisions that we have developed over the last half century or more. Many of them began as “starter homes” under HUD's “236” or “238” programs and actually did allow young families to enter the housing market and become upwardly mobile. Lately, the newer, non programed, version of starter houses appear to be financial traps for new home owners. Their upward mobility is still stuck in the '70s.

Stories abound from some of the better known low income districts of larger cities, where food banks and food pantries see more and more of the newly impoverished. There are more than likely as many right here in Lexington and maybe you know of one or more. Retelling of stories and raising awareness is not a solution, changing what brings on or exacerbates the situation is.

I have long stated that “retail follows the population” and, up until the 1930s and a wide acceptance of zoning, the food market section of retail led in that regard. One of the initial retail establishments in any new residential area was a grocer or butcher. That is why we saw so many corner markets in neighborhoods and often in converted residences.

A while, I chronicled the actions of a retail business in a small part of a narrow wedge of Lexington. It was not complete by any means, but does illustrate what I believe to be a part of our problem. As I pointed out, Kroger Co entered the Lexington market with two stores in 1925, going up against a few local chains like S.A Glass and his 6 or so stores. Kroger had 60 such corner markets in Cincinnati at the time and there was no such thing as a “super market”

Zoning is usually employed to separate noxious uses from neighborhood or other community institutions. The corner grocery, church or barbershop beside a small drug store were the mainstays of neighborhood life, hardly uses that folks wanted to get rid of. To many, that was the embodiment of the small town life they left behind when they moved to town. Sadly, the regimented nature of zoning does not allow the time tested evolution of human interaction having replaced it with something I find hard to explain.

Grocery stores of today are required to fit into a specific “zone” and since those zones will also allow many more uses, some of them noxious, they need to be sited away from the residences that they have historically served. This, I believe, is what has opened the door for food deserts.

One of my favorite scenes from Driving Miss Daisy is where Daisy Werthan's son has hired a chauffeur since she had wrecked her car. Ever the independent woman, Daisy intends to do the weekly shopping alone until she discovers that you need to arrange a cab well in advance and walking to the store or using the streetcar have their own problems. Daisy is a well of widow living in a changing world and yet blind to those changes.

The Driving Miss Daisy story began in the late '40s when going to the grocery, though a special trip, did not involve a large amount of logistics. Store locations at that time were determined by residential units / population in a mile or two radius and the store management knew customer's families by name as well as what they bought. The grocery business in those days was a real service oriented industry, much unlike today.

A grocery superstore of 85, 000 to 200,000 square feet will require the population of 3 to 5 mile radius to make it profitable. In subdivisions containing massive numbers of cul-de-sacs the driving distance could easily be three times that. When neighborhoods like that begin to fall the poverty line our food deserts begin to emerge. Factor in the lack of adequate public transportation and the effect of the food desert grows. It begins to look like we either failed to plan or planned to fail, but we did it to ourselves.

Much of my observations and opinions here have come from growing up in a grocery oriented family. My father was a well known and respected grocery manager/owner during the '40s-'70s. Corporate marketing decisions have replaced the hands-on customer service actions of the old time grocery man and convinced the buying public that it is in their best interest. It is no longer about what is best for the customer but what is best for the corporate bottom line.

In an industry that made more than $600 billion in 2012, the corporate perception is that low-income people don't spend money unless they're at a high enough density, then there's a market. Our easily identified food deserts in the near north side do not approach that density. The National Campaign for Healthy Food Access at The Food Trust says supermarkets stay away because urban settings force them to rethink the shape and size of their stores. I think that we are seeing that with the Kroger on Euclid, but under duress. Operating in low-income areas, the employees who tend to live very nearby are less work-ready and may cost more to train and insure.

On the local front, we have our own group which is active in bringing better food choices to the low income areas. It will also involve teaching the residents of these areas how to make the better choices. Anita Courtney of the Tweens Nutrition and Fitness Coalition has initiated a program which has seen some success in other communities. Here it goes by the name The Good Neighbor Store (GNS) Network. They have realized that small neighborhood stores play an important role in communities and if stores can enhance their business model, it’s good for the community, as well as the store’s bottom line.

Currently there are 2 stores working to become Good Neighbor Stores, all in the East End of Lexington. They are hoping to have grand re-openings this fall:

• Sammy’s Market and Deli at 651 Breckinridge Street on the corner of Breckenridge and Sixth Street
• Pak-N-Save at 503 East Third Street on the corner of Third and Race

The Pak-N-Save will have a new produce cooler, new flooring and new exterior paint and a mural is to be painted on the Race Street side of the store. There are ongoing efforts to engage other inner city corner stores.

It is not all about teaching the inner city youth and their parents. Since we are seeing food deserts develop in our suburban areas also, we need to spread the awareness there. Mrs. Sweeper has related to me an incident which played out before her and to which she could not keep herself apart from. I will let her tell the story,

I came up to the registers and began to stand in line at the Kroger on Richmond Road. “I had a small hand basket of goods.  I believe it was a Friday that I had to work and I was picking up a couple of things for the weekend.  In front of me was a black woman dressed conservatively and wearing a beautiful headscarf in the style that Sephardi women often wear them. (And I myself have done on more than one occasion.) That was what drew my attention at first.

Then I noticed she was in distress, nearly in tears and trying to say something to the cashier. Her English was very poor, she was clearly a recent immigrant. The cashier was not really interested in listening to this woman, she was instead waving a loaf of quality (possibly organic) whole grain bread. The rest of the woman's cart was filled with fresh vegetables and fruits, organic dairy products, and other healthy items – things I buy for my own family on a regular basis.

There was not a single item of junk food in her cart, not a bit of unhealthy processed food. I was almost ashamed of how often we cheat on our “healthy” diet looking at her cart.

The cashier was waving the bread at her and gestured to the healthy organic dairy products and a few other good quality products saying, loudly and rudely, “You can't buy these.”

It took me a few seconds to realize the problem – the woman was using a SNAP card (the program most of us know as food stamps). The card would not take the healthy products. The cashier was telling the woman she would have to pay for the healthy items out of pocket. Total amount was approximately $30.

The woman was scrounging around in her purse at this point, understanding what, if not why.  She said she had no more money. The cashier told her she would take the things off her ticket.

I said, “No, you won't,” or something like that. At this point I was angry, suddenly understanding that this woman's purchase was being rejected because it wasn't crappy low quality food – you know, the stuff they're always griping that poor people buy that makes their kids fat? Well, that stuff is accepted by SNAP. Decent hormone-free chemical-free items aren't, apparently.

The cashier turned to me and said, “She will have to put these back.” And I said again, “No, she won't,” and I reached over with my own credit union debit card and swiped it through the machine before the cashier could complete the action of picking up her hand-scanner to remove the items. As I was putting in my pin number, the cashier said to me in a nasty tone of voice, “you can't do that,”

By now I was pretty much in a spitting rage, but I didn't want to make a scene or embarrass the immigrant woman any further than she very clearly already was, so all I replied was something like “Yes I can, and I did. Give the woman her receipt.” At a loss as to what to do about it, the cashier did as I told her.

She then rang up my few items with me glaring at her. She didn't speak to me again. That's probably a good thing, because I am a bit high-strung by nature and it's hard to say what would have come out of my mouth. It's not the cashier's fault the system is set up to benefit corporations who make sure their processed products are on SNAP's accepted product list. I'm sure plenty of money changes hands to make sure that happens.

I imagine it is also likely that the SNAP administrators put some sort of cap on product prices to make sure that quality products don't qualify. After all, apparently, the poor don't deserve organic, hormone-free, chemical free products.

For some reason, we'd rather pay higher prices for obesity, high blood pressure, heart disease, diabetes, and other costs conveniently covered by Medicaid but entirely preventable through eating healthy food instead of the processed crap being foisted off on the poor by SNAP.

As I have said, I am the son of a grocery man. He saw his job as providing the best product for the best price and doing it as a service to his fellow man. I cannot see this ever happening in his store.

Past Images - Future Hopes

There is a lot going on in the area of food production, both on a national level and at the local level. More and more of us are beginning to think about the quality of the food that we put into our bodies and what we can do to improve it. Still others are looking for a way to grow our own food, a very difficult task in our urban environment.

I wrote about some of the obstacles in urban agriculture nearly 2 ½ years ago and questioned why some of our improperly developed subdivision properties could not be reclaimed for agriculture as they have done in Detroit. I heard many explanations about farming practices, both conventional and organic, not being a good fit for parcels where the buildings have been removed to prevent continued flooding. Still, it is allowed on non-flood prone parcels not 400 feet away, along with the residential laws which get treated regularly during the year.

I think that it is such a reasonable idea that, despite being rejected by many, I still support it. At today's lunch I was told that discussions are underway to develop a policy for location of community garden in Lexington's green spaces.

The Lexington Greenspace Commission is undertaking an inventory of existing (and past) community gardens with an eye toward other community facilities may have available land. Schools, churches and group residential which do not use all of their parcels are looked at for potential use.

But what about the smaller lot residential areas which are some distance from large scale shopping centers, transit lines and the above referenced facilities? These are areas which were developed as “starter homes” that residents just could not get out of due a) the recession, b) leveling/declining wages or c) the rising cost of living. This is the realm of the suburban poor. Where is their community garden space?

Following a few inquiries, I did find someone who is a little closer to the Greenspace folks than I. Their position is that the policy recommendation being discussed is to not allow the government owned land to be used for community gardens at all. In essence, land that formerly had a productive use, was re-purposed to house families, though without adequate safety, will now be “retired” to aesthetic use when it can be adaptively reused for a community garden.

I guess the good news is that this is just a recommended policy for the use of Lexington's green space and may, at the administration's discretion, be followed or amended. It may also come under the watchful eyes of the forthcoming Local Food Policy Coordinator position being tested during the next year. I do hope that they will fare as well as the Bike/Ped Coordinator slot has over the past several years.

I like where the local food movement is heading and see some exciting things on the horizon (hemp production being one of them) and hope to live to see them all.

Urban Food Thoughts

Neal Pierce had an excellent piece of the subject of local food and the rise of cities this past Sunday.

We think of hunger – global hunger – as a third world problem yet of the millions who go to bed hungry each night, more and more of them are in cities. The bigger the city, the bigger the number of unfed.

As Pierce points out, over the next 40 years our planet will have to produce as much food as we have ever produced and I, for one, am worried about its quality. I am also reasonably sure that a majority of it will not be local food.

Cities, by their very nature, develop in the same locations and utilize the same type of land which is ideal to grow food crops. As cities grow they expand across the very land which they may need to feed themselves, devouring acre after acre in non-agricultural and resource consuming urban development.

There are those who stress that cities are where brilliant minds are more likely to intersect with others of like bent and innovations can spring forth. So, where are we going to find the innovations for feeding our ever growing urban areas? The University of Pennsylvania’s Institute for Urban Research recently held a “Feeding Cities” conference looking for answers.

Historically, with all of our cities swallowing up so much fertile farm land and creating climate altering “heat islands” in the process, our family farms have been evolving into massive industrial operations which are highly susceptible to floods and droughts. Scientists say that the altering climate will see many more of these floods and droughts. Did this conference have any good answers?

One suggestion was that cities can try to toughen themselves by assembling disaster emergency funds, strengthening their infrastructure and building their resilience. WOW – whose idea was this? When we cannot even maintain our pension funds or our roads, bridges and sewers adequately we need to establish a massive rainy day fund (which will probably be blown on the first event)? Not my idea of a complete solution.

Other conferees stressed the preservation of land for agriculture, either within their borders or in surrounding regions, apparently similar to our Rural Service Area (RSA). Lexington has already done that but the majority of crops being grown in the RSA will not feed our local population, since we don’t eat horses. Some conferees saw this as a food buffer and a flood buffer – two public goods, but our experience may say otherwise. In a free market no one can tell the farm owners to actually grow food for people and not commodity crops or inedible animals.

It was mentioned that fending off powerful business or political forces to preserve agricultural lands may be a tremendously difficult task. From gated communities and golf courses to the starter homes evolving into suburban slums amid a food desert, Lexington needs to think about better access to local food production on what remaining land we have.

In the developing third world nations it is estimated that 40% of the food produced annually is lost due to improper storage or delivery systems. Yet, in America we waste nearly 650 pounds per person a year, more than any other country in the world. The losses by careless farming, inefficient food processing or from retail stores simply discarding foods that are past their sell-by dates probably trail our own personal inability to control what we buy and fail to eat. It hurts me to see what remains from many restaurant meals and I don’t see what is discarded from the kitchens themselves.

Did we always have this waste? Could we feed all of the estimated 9 billion people anticipated by 2050 with more local production and less transportation related product spoilage? There is a joy to greater self-sufficiency and local food production which Lexington is beginning to understand, yet we still fail to create real community gardens in our communities. I get the feeling that community gardens are thought to be only for the poorer sections of town. The HOA where I live will only allow a few tomato or pepper plants in pots and less obvious herbs.

Pierce concludes his article with this: 

“To date, city-produced foods account for a tiny share of urban food needs. But one is led to wonder: If city food demand is a top 21st-century concern, perhaps city ingenuity – and spirit – can also help to forge answers.”

For Lexington, those answers are not forthcoming. Nor do they seem to be in other larger communities, since Pierce is still looking for them. That would indicate that we have not achieved a critical mass of intersecting thinkers on this part of Lexington's problem – though there are a handful of pioneers.

That Lexington developed, in part, where crops are known to do well and parts of that development has proven to be a detriment to the whole, just may be a hint toward an answer.

Over the last decade or so, our city has purchased property which was adversely affected or, by its placement, caused that adverse affect on others. Said property has neither been re-purposed for suitable urban use nor been reverted to the other job for which the land is quite well suited – growing food crops.

Do some of these properties fall within an area which can be called a “food desert” or could become one should the nation's transportation costs skyrocket? Could producing healthier food closer to the mouths which need it help? Could production of such food be coordinated under the auspices of a “Local Foods Policy Advisory Group” go a long way in averting urban hunger? Maybe.

Is It To Be Or Not To Be --- An Urban Market?

Kroger has announced plans to not just renovate the Euclid Ave store, but to replace it with a larger, ”urban lifestyle market”. That was the phrase that Danny Lethco, a real estate manager for Kroger, used repeatedly during a gathering with neighborhood residents and interested parties. Maybe we just need to look at just what is an “urban market”

Though not exactly super markets, these smallish grocery stores strive to provide our cities with fresh food, meat and cooking staples within reasonable walking distance. Corner stores like these became passe after super stores like Walmart, Winn-Dixie, Kroger and Meijer came to suburbia. However there’s been a new push toward walkability and sustainable growth within our cities and we again need accessible food in our urban areas.

This Euclid Ave. store has been called a "university store" and dubbed the "disco" Kroger by Ace magazine since it serves a large number of eclectic students in the overnight hours, but it also serves as an oasis in the food desert of the less well off of the 40508 and 40502 zipcodes. Many of them are faced with carrying their groceries on long public transit rides, buying a car or relying on convenience stores to purchase their necessities. Will they be better served by making this an urban store?

The confined space of a site for an urban style store will demand the right balance of urban design and will present some challenges. These grocery stores have to use a fraction of the space that super stores have, prioritize the goods they will provide and consider parking in an area unable to accommodate a super-parking-lot. With these challenges in mind, many other cities and entrepreneurs have taken the risk and opened such grocery stores. It may be helpful to examine how they did it.

First, I looked at the basic history of the seemingly ever increasing size of suburban grocery stores. After the sprawl explosion of the 1950s and ‘60s, supermarket chains have focused primarily on the suburbs. The business model involved rolling out the same store with parking in front, again and again. When supermarkets did build in cities, they plunked down the same suburban box whenever possible. This approach works as long as new growth is taking place primarily in the suburbs and the cities languish.

Kroger, in its history, is not a stranger to the Chevy Chase area and many will remember when it occupied the space where Shoppers Village Liquor through Josie’s sets today. Well, they even pre-date that if what some of the old-timers told me is true when I was growing up. I have been told that the now gone Ben Franklin five and dime, which stood approximately where the drive entry is to the Ashland Plaza, was built as a Kroger before they moved around the corner.

Kroger also shared the Aylesford/Ashland Park/Chevy Chase shoppers up until the late “60s with the Parkes Bestway (High St where Great Clips is now) and the Colonial Albers (on the Kroger current site) stores and a Minit Mart (now Sew Fine). I almost forgot the small corner grocery where Architectural Kitchens & Bath now occupies. Most all of them had good walk-up traffic until pantry and refrigerator sizes grew, working mothers and time schedules dictated a large weekly shopping trip rather than daily checks of what was fresh.

How others have succeeded

When looking at how others have succeeded, I turned to the Urban Land Institute and took information from their 2011 Fall Meeting's session on “Developing Walkable Urban Groceries in Mixed-Use Environments”.

Chevy Chase is very definitely a walkable, mixed use area, therefore I believe that their recommendations should apply. Chevy Chase is also urban, not quite urban core but firmly, in the minds of most, a downtown area and ripe for infill or redevelopment. Kroger is choosing the redevelopment path.

Parking is absolutely necessary. Nearly all urban-format grocery stores need parking, even in transit rich neighborhoods, and it must be separated from residential parking. Often, grocers require five spaces per 1,000 square feet (93 sq m) of store. In the substantially denser urban locations where significant percentages of customers walk, sufficient parking is still required, although the allotment can be as low as two or three spaces per 1,000 square feet. With the credits allowed for bike racks and the transit stop, I believe that Kroger should have this covered.

Pedestrian entrance. With a split between customers arriving on foot or by car, a key for the design of the store is to get one entrance to face the parking lot and the other to be an attractive pedestrian entrance off the street. A store’s pedestrian entrance is critical in an urban area. It requires a welcoming access point from the sidewalk.. Grocers don’t necessarily want too much exposure and light, as natural sunlight and windows can negatively affect HVAC systems and refrigerated goods. In this case, an artist will tell you that the northern light is more pure light with lower UV effects. Here, Kroger has shunned the sidewalk/street and the lower UV light by catering to the auto traffic.

Not listed by the ULI is the inclusion of a drive-thru pharmacy window for an urban market. Walkable urban neighborhoods tend not to need such amenities. Rite-aid, just a block or so away, has no need of one nor does Wheeler's Pharmacy on Romany Road. Just a few years ago the CVS proposal at the Main and Vine intersection went through a long, torturous struggle because of a drive through window. That project failed.

The location of the proposed drive through on this plan presents some really troublesome thoughts. Firstly, it is hidden at the very back of the structure and under the similarly hidden auto ramp to the rooftop parking. If that was not enough, the loading dock ramp is arranged immediately adjacent to the pharmacy window or at least close enough to present possible traffic hazards. Add to that the traffic movements into or out of the Marquis access point and I see a real possibility of a SNAFU or worse.

Kroger seems to have made one concession to their standard floor plan in that the deli will occupy a portion of the space usually reserved for the produce section. Ostensibly this is to allow the pedestrian entrance to the “relaxing patio” behind the transit stop feature. Of course this transit feature may be omitted since they donated a considerable sum to the “Bank stop” across the street.

On the idea of this “patio” or sidewalk seating, it is unclear if this area will be like the seating at the Beer Trappe, Bourbon n' Toulouse or Charlie Brown's. These cited seating areas work well in the mild weather, but are primarily used by smokers due to the city's ban. Will this really be relaxing if it is all smokers? Will pedestrians want to use this as an entry point to the store if it is filled with smoke?

One of the details pointed out in Jeff Speck's book Walkable Cities is that the frequency and proximity of a building's entries to the sidewalk/street will raise the perception of an area as walkable. I have not heard of anyone devising a rating system or creating an algorithm to chart such perceptions but one cannot be far off. Positioning a building up to the street/sidewalk, or even within 20 feet of it, gives a more cozy feeling to the pedestrian but omitting any entry options of personally relating to it or its occupants turns those feelings to dread.

Our recent snowfall and the current Northeast storm brings up a seasonal complaint of mine. Kroger is, by far, not the only scofflaw in the clearing of the sidewalks which adjoin their property. While it is their duty and responsibility, by being farther removed from the sidewalk there are many who will give them a ”pass” but it really is a liability issue. By moving the building closer to the street, it would seem to make the duty imperative, but if it is the side or back of the building, that duty evaporates from the minds of management since there are no employee access points there. The suburban stores will never expect their customers to be to the rear of their facilities, but in this situation it is where they are forcing them to be.

The larger picture

Just what is the larger picture? At least one of the audience members started off with the big picture agenda questions. “When this store is expanded, will Kroger close the Romany Road store?” Very direct and to the point but also quickly shunted to the side as too far down the road. So, is Kroger not thinking in a long term frame of mind? I doubt that very much.

The very positioning of the proposed building hints that they are looking at the older office buildings along Ashland Ave and the rest of the property on the block, though they stated that they “have no plan to purchase more property” at this time. Granted the PNC bank is unlikely to sell as they would lose their visual street presence opposite the very active Chase bank facility, but with the rise of online banking neither is doing the volume they once did.

Speaking of the Romany road store, is it so under-performing that it need to be combined with another store or eliminated altogether? This store functions as a reliable “third place” in the lives of the neighborhood residents as do the aforementioned Wheeler's and the several restaurants in the area. They have been woven into the social fabric of the families there for several generations. In my mind, the Romany Road store is a better example of an urban grocery than what is proposed on Euclid.

One last point taken from the ULI report is that “Grocery stores transform neighborhoods”. I would take that as both the addition to and the removal from a neighborhood. John Given, who helped develop a Ralph’s grocery store in South Park in downtown Los Angeles, described urban grocery stores as providing an essential element of street life for neighborhoods. The neighborhood grocery store, an urban market or not, it is more important to the everyday life of downtown than Rupp Arena or Keeneland.

To quote Seth Harry, an architect in Woodbine, Maryland, who has retail expertise “As long as walkable urban places are built from scratch or revitalized, more urban-format stores will follow”. In his view, the design of the store is driven by the urban fabric. Kroger may now realize that they had to rethink the placement of the parking in an urban location but it will still takes an urbanist architect to convince most operators to accept other design refinements.

Furthermore, Kroger's goals here may be diametrically opposed to both the purpose and function of urban markets. They stated that they wanted people to “buy more” when they shopped at the Euclid Kroger, but people who walk, bike, or use transit to arrive are not going to “buy more.” They already buy what they can carry. Kroger is using suburban thinking and trying to place it in an urban environment. That formula will not work.

There is also some question as to whether the very idea of acres of shopping in under one roof is even viable anymore. Malls are failing, or redefining themselves and Walmart type stores are shunned by the wealthier classes who would rather make trips to several boutique-style stores than one giant conglomerate comprised largely of products they don't want. Malls and superstores were originally meant to replace the old-world style village markets, suks and bazaars. For a while this worked, but shoppers today are more sophisticated than ever. They are not interested in fake village markets, they want real village markets – an experience that is simply not going to happen in any superstore or superstore mini-version. Quality, unique products are not usually to be found in such places.

So, an "urban" market?  Is it to be or not be, that is the question.

Un-intended consequences?

“Un-intended consequences”

These words are usually spoken when an action, taken for very good reasons, is responsible for a debilitating harm done to a minor portion of those affected by the action. It is always nice to see it when those actions actually help that minor portion.

I don’t think that I have been shy in my outspoken criticism of the downtown circulator “trolley” and it does look like some of the suggestions that I made have been incorporated into the current routes, especially the Green Route. I am glad to see that many more of the local businesses have embraced the service and that Lextran has responded in such a positive manner. This service has had a much bigger impact than the initial downtown concept ever imagined

As I understand the original concept, the circulator was to enable those on the farthest edges of downtown to get to the center of activity and back to their offices with enough time to actually eat or shop during lunchtime. Evening activity was for downtown residents to traverse empty city blocks from housing to the nightlife and back safely. Though these are still of concern, they seem to be more minor today.

Today, we not only can get from one end of downtown to the other but also just a bit farther out and hit a little bit more shopping, dining and nightlife. I have seen and heard of many uses for the circulator since the routes expanded but I have not read any hard figures of ridership. Hopefully these will be forthcoming.

I have heard from my friends at West Sixth St Brewing, that quite a number of their patrons are arriving by ”trolley” since it eases the parking situation and the risk of driving while intoxicated. This will work to their advantage if those folks are coming from the Aylesford – Bell Court area and not just downtown.

But this is a two-way benefit. There are also folks from the Coolavin apartments just next door to West Sixth’s taproom who are making their way to the Kroger store on Euclid and coming home with the groceries for the week. In an area that has been identified as a “food desert” this access to fresh food without carfare is a win.

Coolavin is not the only example of this. The circulator travels past other assisted living facilities downtown so I doubt that this activity would not go on there also. Mrs. Sweeper and I watched as two ladies made their way from the Christian Church facility on Short St to the designated stop just to ride around town on a warm summer evening. The simple pleasures of life know no age limits.

So far, this phenomenon exists on the Green Route which cycles between the affluent neighborhoods near Chevy Chase and the resurgent commercial parts of Jefferson St. The Blue Route, running between the two University campuses, sees some mixing of the student bodies but mostly just due to their choices of dining and drinking locations. The other neighborhood residents do not tend to use the service much.

I believe that none of this was intended by those who arranged to fund the operation just a few years ago. Who could have thought that things would change this much? And does this mean that the local businessmen, who banded together to promote their downtown businesses, and now see as many or more folks leaving the downtown confines for other businesses, could give their support? I suppose so, but I hope not. If so, then the additional beneficiaries will need to stand up and continue this proven success.

I also believe that if it works in the downtown, then it can be successful in the subdivisions too, if done right.

If you have any thought on this, I would appreciate hearing them.

Food And Some Of Our "Bad" Habits

The other day I may have riled some of my readers with some comments about a local “good foods education” program. I meant no disrespect but there is much more in the way of food access and awareness which needs to be taught. There are not enough of these grass roots organizations to adequately rid our urban areas of the food deserts that we know are there.

Food deserts are basically defined as areas of few(if any) grocery stores and other dining places. Fast food drive-ins would not qualify as a dining place in my book and many others. I am also beginning to realize that the chain grocery and supermarket stores are not much better for the “not-so-savvy” consumer and those highly susceptible to marketing techniques.

Today's supermarket is not designed to sell good healthy food for a fair price. Actually it is just the opposite, sell a high margin item for whatever price the market will bear and really maximize the profit. Those items are generally highly mass produced, full of chemical preservatives and full of sugar(though lately it is all high-fructose corn syrup). High margin items are most likely to be placed on sale in order to entice you to come in for all the other high margin items. The money is in the volume of product not the individual item itself.

Supermarkets will average about 500 square feet for every 10,000 of the whole store in fresh fruits and vegetables. In the “big box” style stores (Meijer, Kroger Marketplace, and others) the ratio is probably much less. The rest is all processed, and many are highly processed, foods of varying nutritional value. And it is all designed to sell the cheap stuff.

Consider the typical grocery store design. Nice wide aisles and plenty of space for comparison shopping? Hardly. There are displays to maneuver around and dangling racks everywhere you look. Think of it as traffic calming and impulse suggestions. The more that you see something the more you want it.

Even product location is important to impulse buying. Why is the dairy case in the very back of the store where you have to pass just about everything else just get a carton of milk or a dozen eggs. Then the bakery off to the side which pulls you past some other things that you may not know that you need.

The store atmosphere is very important. Why do they keep the darn place so cold, like the AC in on frostbite? The simple answer is – human instinct. We humans tend to prepare for winter when we chill and that means stockpiling for the winter ahead. People, they are playing with our heads.

Now consider the products that are placed there. Products produced in such volume that no one farm could generate it all. Dairies with bucolic names that have to have thousands of cows being milked 24/7 in order to supply it all. Products that have almost no local representation and are shipped in from thousands of miles away. Food, food everywhere and not much of it worth eating.

In this day of energy conservation and the entire country wishing to cut back on energy usage, the modern supermarket is an energy HOG. Keeping the store to sell stuff takes massive amounts of air conditioning effort. Largely windowless walls lead to increased lighting needs and refrigeration cases and storage add to the energy footprint. Massive parking lots as heat islands in summer and frozen tundra in winter, it is no wonder that supermarkets make difficult LEED projects for creating “green” buildings. There is much that can be done, both in changing our shopping habits and changing our supermarket design. The latter will follow the former.

Lexington's two newest urban grocery stores are a start in the right direction, though they probably follow the normal convention on product placement and energy usage, but the industry will not turn on a dime as the saying goes. It has taken us nearly 80 years to learn our bad habits, how long or what dire situation will help us or cause us “unlearn” those habits?