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The car dependency of rural America is certainly worth discussing, and this specific grocery store case does have consequences. As one example, in towns like th

The car dependency of rural America is certainly worth discussing, and this specific grocery store case does have consequences. As one example, in towns like this retirement homes or apartments catering to older people are often within walking or shuttle distance of a town center with a grocery store, which helps preserve independence for people who no longer drive. But the focus of the article is strange, and seems to come from a rather urban mindset. Lines like "nowhere to buy even a banana" don't square with "the only grocer within 15 miles shut down last year" or "5 million people in rural areas have to travel 10 miles or more to buy groceries". A ten mile drive is not short, but it's not actually unusual for many services in the (mid-)western US. (Which is probably why the people interviewed don't share the reporter's focus on distance.) People living on actual farms may well have been ten miles from the grocery store too! The most telling line in the piece is: "In town after town, people said their greatest challenge was enticing their neighbors away from dollar stores or the Walmart four towns over." Meaning, one, that people are already driving for groceries. And two, that finding out there's a grocery store in down didn't persuade them to switch. I looked up Mountanair to see where people were shopping, since 45 miles to a grocer is unusually long. (It's Family Dollar or a 45-mile drive to Belen.) In the process, I ran into this review for B Street Market, the new local grocer discussed in the story: "It's the only grocery store in town... Nice people that work there but[...] prices so high that you don't even want to go in there.... It's worth the drive to Belen[...] to go get groceries plus a lot better selection." Ending Mountainair's story with the happy news that it once again has a grocery store was only half the picture. I think that poor choice of focus causes the story to neglect any truly interesting analysis. The obvious place to start is not "ten miles to a grocery store" but "the last grocery store went out of business", which leads to a larger discussion of rural America's economic prospects, the price disadvantages faced by non-chain businesses, and the vicious cycle of box stores taking money out of communities and so creating more dependence on low prices. Or else keep pursuing the briefly mentioned topic of where people are shopping - there's a fascinating comparison to urban food deserts, which enforce a similar choice between distant grocers and unhealthy processed foods nearby. Fundamentally, this feels like pretending that one example of a much larger pattern is special, rather than just a human-interest way of approaching the topic.

bluGill 7y ago
The reporter made the mistake of not measuring distance in a unit of time! 10 miles in rural areas is just more than 10 minutes if you obey the speed limit - nobody actually does that though, so in reality it probably is less than 10 minutes. The same distance in NYC could be well over an hour (Note that I don't live in NYC so I have to guess). Depending of course on where you are going and how you get there, but most traffic is running much slower than rural areas. If you drive there is the time to find a parking spot and get to your destination - time that rural areas with plenty of parking don't bother count. If you take transit there may be a few transfers and the time to wait for your bus/train at each one. In NYC you may think about walking to the grocery store: 10 miles is hours each way. Car dependency isn't worth discussing because there is no other option. When you are by definition in the middle of nowhere there isn't any other option. Rural areas exist for farms: there is no way to move them in.
- HeyLaughingBoy 7y ago
  Exactly. The closest grocery store to my house is an upscale one about 7 miles away. I rarely shop there: I go to the Walmart 10 miles away because (1) it's on my way home from work and (2) prices are lower. Basically, if you live in a rural area, having to drive places is table stakes: not even worth thinking about. Unless there's a major snowstorm or the roads are covered in ice. Then it becomes a pain in the ass.
- Bartweiss 7y ago
  It's particularly surprising since the story references "rural food deserts" and cites the USDA "number living 10 miles from a grocer" statistic, but doesn't put 2 and 2 together. The USDA publishes that stat because of its food desert definition: "more than one mile from a supermarket in urban or suburban areas, and more than 10 miles from a supermarket in rural areas". Now, the USDA definition sound weirdly broad to me. I apparently grew up in a suburban 'food desert' which encompassed most of the town, including several extremely rich subdivisions. Since it was a suburb with practically no traffic or stoplights, that means "desert" applies to a ~15 minute walk or ~3 minute drive to the store. And in a town with brutal winters and minimal public transit, even the sub-poverty-line families outside that 1 mile radius completely relied on cars. So looking into this has made me more skeptical of "23.5M Americans live in food deserts". (Ironically, people did what this story promotes: bought short-lifespan foods at the close store, and expensive or bulk goods >10 miles away. The USDA just needed to apply its rural definition to that suburb.) But the USDA at least has the right idea: access is defined by time and effort, not distance. Time is fairly obvious; walking, public transit, and driving in traffic are all slower. More subtly, my experience living 20+ minutes from groceries in a rural and an urban setting is that it was much more pleasant with a car than on foot. With a car, you can freely get heavy or bulky stuff, stock up for longer, go after dark when you're tired, or shop in summer and winter without spoiled groceries or frostbite. There's no way to write this story effectively without understanding that 10 miles can be 10 minutes, or that for farms outside these small towns everything is 10+ miles away. Hence the people in New Mexico saying that a grocer right in town is still less good than driving 45 miles to a better store: you're already planning major trips to get goods regardless.

bluGill 7y ago

The reporter made the mistake of not measuring distance in a unit of time! 10 miles in rural areas is just more than 10 minutes if you obey the speed limit - nobody actually does that though, so in reality it probably is less than 10 minutes. The same distance in NYC could be well over an hour (Note that I don't live in NYC so I have to guess). Depending of course on where you are going and how you get there, but most traffic is running much slower than rural areas. If you drive there is the time to find a parking spot and get to your destination - time that rural areas with plenty of parking don't bother count. If you take transit there may be a few transfers and the time to wait for your bus/train at each one. In NYC you may think about walking to the grocery store: 10 miles is hours each way. Car dependency isn't worth discussing because there is no other option. When you are by definition in the middle of nowhere there isn't any other option. Rural areas exist for farms: there is no way to move them in.

HeyLaughingBoy 7y ago
Exactly. The closest grocery store to my house is an upscale one about 7 miles away. I rarely shop there: I go to the Walmart 10 miles away because (1) it's on my way home from work and (2) prices are lower. Basically, if you live in a rural area, having to drive places is table stakes: not even worth thinking about. Unless there's a major snowstorm or the roads are covered in ice. Then it becomes a pain in the ass.
Bartweiss 7y ago
It's particularly surprising since the story references "rural food deserts" and cites the USDA "number living 10 miles from a grocer" statistic, but doesn't put 2 and 2 together. The USDA publishes that stat because of its food desert definition: "more than one mile from a supermarket in urban or suburban areas, and more than 10 miles from a supermarket in rural areas". Now, the USDA definition sound weirdly broad to me. I apparently grew up in a suburban 'food desert' which encompassed most of the town, including several extremely rich subdivisions. Since it was a suburb with practically no traffic or stoplights, that means "desert" applies to a ~15 minute walk or ~3 minute drive to the store. And in a town with brutal winters and minimal public transit, even the sub-poverty-line families outside that 1 mile radius completely relied on cars. So looking into this has made me more skeptical of "23.5M Americans live in food deserts". (Ironically, people did what this story promotes: bought short-lifespan foods at the close store, and expensive or bulk goods >10 miles away. The USDA just needed to apply its rural definition to that suburb.) But the USDA at least has the right idea: access is defined by time and effort, not distance. Time is fairly obvious; walking, public transit, and driving in traffic are all slower. More subtly, my experience living 20+ minutes from groceries in a rural and an urban setting is that it was much more pleasant with a car than on foot. With a car, you can freely get heavy or bulky stuff, stock up for longer, go after dark when you're tired, or shop in summer and winter without spoiled groceries or frostbite. There's no way to write this story effectively without understanding that 10 miles can be 10 minutes, or that for farms outside these small towns everything is 10+ miles away. Hence the people in New Mexico saying that a grocer right in town is still less good than driving 45 miles to a better store: you're already planning major trips to get goods regardless.