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> Not having to commute hours for groceries is a big deal, as is being able to get vegetables of season - and in the rural west these things not a given. What
by nexuist 7y ago
> Not having to commute hours for groceries is a big deal, as is being able to get vegetables of season - and in the rural west these things not a given.
What you are describing is a de facto food desert: https://www.cdc.gov/features/FoodDeserts/index.html https://www.cdc.gov/features/FoodDeserts/index.html
There might be an easy (albeit costly) way to fix this. Just today I learned about a govt agency called the Essential Air Service:
> The United States Department of Transportation (USDOT) subsidizes airlines to serve communities across the country that otherwise would not receive scheduled air service.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Essential_Air_Service https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Essential_Air_Service
Because seats are paid for in advance, airlines don't have to worry about route popularity, and that allows them to financially justify serving towns that otherwise would never be considered by any airline.
I wonder if taking the same model and applying it to food a la the Essential Food Service might make sense. If federal or state governments subsidized every grocery store purchase so the owners can afford to keep the lights on, we can stop or even reverse the grocery store death toll and enable shorter commutes for rural residents.
- bgorman 7y agoWhy should we be subsidizing rural communities with free services that are terrible for the environment? If people want the benefits of modern civilization like air travel and grocery stores, they should move to cities. We are doing enough harm to the world in cities, we don't need to encourage sprawl even more.
- const_throwaway 7y agoNow do gentrification.
- elihu 7y agoWe need to have at least some people living in small towns and sparsely populated areas to produce food and manage natural resources that cities depend on.
- lotsofpulp 7y agoThen the government can pay the people in rural areas enough cash to fly in food, or enough to pay for prices high enough to make it worthwhile to open a grocery store. Costs should be as transparent as possible. If there is low supply and high demand, you can increase supply by moving the prices up. Alternatively, people in rural areas have to charge far more money for what they sell.
- OnlineGladiator 7y agoEverything you say sounds good in theory, until you spend a bit of time studying the history of economic policies. It's...really fucking complicated, which is why nobody really knows what they're doing (I mean how many people can predict when the stock market will crash?). But what you're proposing is the sort of thing that works with a small group of people, but then as you scale more and more you realize there are so many complicating factors you never thoughts of - not just resources but political alliances! Oftentimes there are military reasons for these justifications. One of the reasons high-fructose corn syrup is subsidized in the United States is so the US would not be dependent upon Cuba for its sugar supply back when Cuba was a communist country. One of the main motivations of the international freeway system is emergency runways for military planes. And while many subsidies are controversial, such as corn and soy, nobody can deny that we have all the corn and soy we need and it's all affordable - which was always the goal. The truth about subsidies is simple: they're too fucking complicated to make meaningful generalizations. Each case really is unique enough it needs its own context, analysis, and decision for what's best. I agree with your sentiment, but I encourage you to really dive into the details of any economic subsidy and realize how many confounding factors there are. There's the old economics joke "it works in practice, but not in theory" for a reason.
- roenxi 7y ago> I mean how many people can predict when the stock market will crash? I agree with the spirit of the post - subsidies should be implemented for non-economic reasons and are therefore justified with arguments that say there are other good reasons to pay the price. But this specific example isn't the best example because the stock market is a competitive human-driven environment where if a signal is predictive people will make money off it until it stops being predictive. That is quite different from real-world processes where the laws of physics tend to remain in effect no matter how many what people figure out. Eg, resource depletion behaves differently to the loss of signal in a stock market.
- core-questions 7y agoHave you ever, like, left the city, man? Do you really think everyone can just live in the city without anyone out in the rural areas, you know, growing your fucking food?
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- late2part 7y agoCan't they use the Essential_Air_Service and then fly back home to needleville SFO? (j/k)
- Retric 7y agoEveryone hates government spending, until they want another handout. We already massively subsidize rural living costs, stop that and the free market would raise wages to compensate without the need for government intervention. Subsidized, farms, roads, healthcare, telecoms, deliveries, airports, etc etc it’s just wasteful.
- chimi 7y agoThe "free market" is a myth. Do you have a mortgage? Do you drive a car? Do you use the internet? Do you eat food? Do you spend money? Go to national parks? Drink water? You are the recipient of govt subsidies. We are a society and as such, some things are more valuable than people are willing to pay for them, but yet still essential to keeping society functioning.
- rayiner 7y agoSure we’re a society, but we’re not a post scarcity society and wasteful programs divert money from things that are more important. When we have guaranteed lunches for every school student, then we can talk about subsidizing services for people in rural areas. (Who often aren’t exactly poor, because of the massive subsidies we pay for agriculture.)
- aezakmi 7y agoThis is peak "Hacker" "News".
- majjam 7y agoYou could use the exact same service and just mule fresh food about on these flights
- pasttense01 7y agoThese places (with the exception of Alaska) have populations of a few thousand people. That is plenty big enough to have one or more supermarkets--and probably a Walmart too.
- iamrecursion 7y agoI don’t know if nexuist found out about the Essential Air Service the same way that I did, but I learned about it today from the latest Wendover Productions video [0]. A fantastic and informative channel with high production values, if you’re not familiar. [0] https://youtu.be/U1a73gdNs0M https://youtu.be/U1a73gdNs0M
- nexuist 7y agoYup, exactly through this. Was on mobile at the time, would've linked the video otherwise. Thanks!
- mlthoughts2018 7y agoFrom the Wikipedia article, > “Per passenger EAS subsidy in the 48 contiguous states plus Puerto Rico ranged from $10 to more than $977 per passenger in 2014.” > “EAS subsidies have increased by more than 500% since 1997, not accounting for inflation” > “According to a 2006 New York Times article on the program, the subsidy per passenger, averaged across the entire program excluding Alaska, is approximately $74, and much higher on some particularly poorly patronized flights[6] where subsidies are as high as $801 per passenger.” > “Patronage on many flights is very low. The majority of EAS airplanes have fewer than 20 seats, and flights typically are less than half full.[8] However, the program is politically popular in the cities receiving the subsidized flights, many of which use an airport with scheduled service as a selling point to attract industry to their regions. Several subsidized airports are within an hour's drive from an unsubsidized airport.” This sounds like a profoundly terrible service for everyone except ~10 people per flight getting $100 - $800 subsidies (sometimes even when commercial airports are an hour away).
- scarface74 7y agoHow many of these same small towns that will gladly take government subsidies scream “socialism” anytime someone mentions government provided health care, increasing the earned income tax credit, education subsidies etc?
- smileysteve 7y agoAll of the states that resisted medicare expansion are seeing their rural hospitals dwindle; so you're not far off.
- scarface74 7y agoWhat’s crazy, is that I would have no problem subsidizing rural America by providing access to transportation, broadband, healthy food options, etc and even farm subsidies for small farms. But they continuously fight against programs that help other people.
- lotsofpulp 7y agoThey refused Medicaid (for poor people) expansion. Medicare is for old people.
- dboreham 7y agoAnd the people screaming the loudest in my experience will turn out to derive their living from some government directly or indirectly.
- rayiner 7y agoThe essential air service is an enormous waste of money that could be going to people who really need it: https://crankyflier.com/2008/01/08/essential-air-service-thirty-years-of-wasting-your-money/ https://crankyflier.com/2008/01/08/essential-air-service-thi...