Forget Urban Farms. We Need a Wal-Mart
Wal-Mart is the store that everyone loves to hate
By Richard C. Longworth
Good Food
January 7, 2011
Richard C. Longworth is a senior fellow at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs and the author of Caught in the Middle: America’s Heartland in the Age of Globalism.
Excerpt:
Residents of Detroit are digging up vacant lots in their emptying city and turning them into urban farms. These little plots are an important source for produce for Detroiters for one big reason: there aren’t many other sources.
Detroit lost its last chain grocery store three years ago when the last two Farmer Jack’s groceries closed. This seems incredible—a city of nearly 1 million people without a supermarket—but it’s true. No A&P. No Meijer’s. Not even a Wal-Mart. Any Detroiters who want fresh store-bought fruits and vegetables or wrapped meats have to get in their car and drive to the suburbs. That is, if they have a car.
In this food desert, some Detroiters have taken to growing their own produce. This has received a great deal of good press from advocates of local food movements, opponents of factory farming, back-to-the-land activists and others who see urban and small-scale farming as the future of American agriculture.
In fact, it’s anything but. And we should hope it’s anything but.
2 comments
I read teh whole article and it’s one comment. Mr. Longworth does have a point. How are urban farms helping the people that are stuck in the food destitute neighborhoods? How does a homeless person pay for produce? A lot of other cities will be watching to see how Detroit will solve its problems. As for Wal Mart doing anything good or responsible? I doubt it. The “Buy USA” campaign gave way to profit margin…no doubt that any thing that they do that seems ‘pro active’ will have a price tag.
Well, since one of the major urban farming projects in Detroit is run by the Capuchin Soup Kitchen, urban farming actually is helping homeless and otherwise hungry people in “food destitute” neighborhoods.
In general, though, the article is facile and uninformed–in fact there are grocery stores in Detroit, to say nothing of Eastern Market, a huge public market and farmers’ market that has been operating continuously since 1891. There are no chain grocery stores, but that’s not the same as no grocery stores at all. Check out this blogger for an actual Detroiter’s view: http://www.sweet-juniper.com/search/label/%22But%20where%20do%20you%20shop%3F%22
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