For sale: A food desert in Chicago

Have you heard of a "food desert"? It's a term for a poor neighborhood that doesn't have so much as a single large grocery store.

[Try to Understand]

The food desert is deserted because in the low margin food business you can't make money at these locations. Crime, theft, security costs are much higher. The amount of damaged products, equipment and fixtures, non productive labor, high turn over, huge Workers Comp and General Liablity costs also all pile onto costs. If a retailer charges more to cover these costs than they are "taking advatage" of these customers...... I say to Wal-Mart "come on in if you want"!

[MRB]

It is simply OUTRAGEOUS that ignorant, self-important interests in Chicago have prevented this business from opening here.

Outrageous and disgusting.

[Dominic]

The Wal-Mart on North Avenue does sell groceries, at least the last time I was there last year.

[Patrick]

While it is necessary to provide access to decent food at affordable prices to inner-city residents, it is not necessary to make a deal with the devil to do so.

Now, right-leaning readers are bound to argue that Wal Mart has as much of a right to do business as any other company, and they are also likely to applaud Wal Mart's vicious anti-union stance, but I wonder if self-described conservatives would be the least bothered by the fact that Wal Mart has repeatedly denied military mothers leave to spend time with their sons and daughters before they shipped off to Iraq. I mean, conservatives are all about supporting the troops, right? Or is that just empty political rhetoric?

[Orbit]

Talk about presenting false choices. The arrival of a mega-chain like wal-mart drives out smaller grocers that serve neighborhoods rather than regions, leaving the people without cars more screwed than ever before.

And the claim that Wal-Mart "creates" jobs is simply ridiculous. Wal-Mart makes money by shifting jobs away from existing businesses that generally pay better wages and eliminating many jobs,