
To Save a Neighborhood, Ban a Dollar Store? - pseudolus
https://www.citylab.com/equity/2019/07/save-neighborhood-ban-dollar-store/594196/
======
mikekchar
This kind of thing makes me sad WRT the realities of modern life. Why is it
that when we think "Oh we lack local shops for basic food stuffs" that we
think, "We need to entice multi-billion dollar operations into this area to
service our poor people".

What about, "We need local people to open up local mom & pop stores"? Why
can't we think, "We need to provide incentives, education and security for
local people to pull themselves up by the bootstraps and service themselves"
instead of "We need to find a way to funnel money from poor people to rich
people"?

I totally understand that I'm misrepresenting the actual thinking going on
here :-). People in the west are so far removed from traditional ways of doing
things that they think that the _only_ way to buy food is to have a 2 acre
parking lot for minivans and a stadium sized store with razor thin margins
selling pre-packaged food.

Around the world, poor people start small stores and sell things to other poor
people. People walk to the store because they don't own cars. They carry their
food for today because they don't own refrigerators. And it's definitely not
as efficient, but it keeps the money local.

~~~
Ancalagon
At least in the US I think it’s an economy-of-scale thing. People get used to
products at specific prices, because they’re used to shopping at the big box
stores. Then when an independent or mom-and-pop store opens, their prices are
a bit higher because they can’t survive on such small margins. Then there’s
sticker shock by the customer, the independent store gets bought out or closes
due to lack of money, and the cycle repeats or another big box retailer moves
in.

~~~
adrianratnapala
It is not always economically rational though. The US has a history of using
eminent domain to grab neighbourhoods full of small businesses so that they
can be turned over to a big development projects of nominally higher value.
Then the big developer pulls out or goes bankrupt, and the result is a ruined,
rat-infested empty lot.

Those cases involving eminent domain and rats are the most dramatic, but it
works at a more pedestrian level too. Say a government wants to dispose of
some disused rail-yard or something. A developer who says "I'm going build
some big shiny shops and attractions here" has better optics than a developer
who says "I'm going to lay down some infrastructure and parcel the land up to
whoever wants to buy it, nature will decide what the land is used for".

The latter is actually quite likely to produce the higher economic value land
use, but there is no good political narrative. And in a world of strict zoning
rules, there might not even be a legal framework for it.

------
steve19
"It’s hard to tell whether the increased dollar stores have harmed health,
researchers say"

The cities are so worried but there is no evidence health is impacted.

Maybe they should look at the reasons why supermarkets don't want to open, but
convenience stores do.

It may simply be that it is unprofitable. Supermarkets run on razor thin
margins and require significant volume.

No amount of zoning will change that.

Edit: Maybe providing discounted/free public transport to new or existing
supermarkets would change things.

~~~
salixrosa
As someone who was without a car for a while...

Have you tried using public transit for grocery shopping? Where?

Oklahoma City has 20 bus routes, which seem to run every 30 to 60 mins. Unless
you're lucky enough to live right on a bus route that goes to those
supermarkets, or happens to line up perfectly with a transfer to another bus
that does, it's going to take forever to get to the supermarket via public
transit.

I've done it (in a different, but seemingly similar city). You leave early to
make sure you're not going to miss the bus, and then you wait. If you're
lucky, your first bus isn't late and the second bus isn't early... If it's
just one bus, you trip is hopefully only like 10-15 minutes (you've already
spent at least that walking and waiting), and then you're there! You probably
want to shop for about 45 minutes -- even if your bus comes every half hour,
making it back to the bus stop in 20 minutes ( remember, buses can come early
or late!) is probably not going to happen, especially given that this whole
venture isn't something you're doing every day, and you've got to stock up!
But not too much, because you've got to carry it back with you. Speaking of,
easy-to-carry packages of toilet paper or paper towels are typically
astronomically more expensive than the giant packs, wtf. So, you get back to
the bus stop laden down with stuff, everything goes pretty well on the trip
back, and it only took, let's say, an hour and a half! Yay. You're never
buying ice cream again.

But, you didn't get enough for your family for the whole week. You do it all
again two days later -- you could have waited a couple more days, but the
restricted weekend hours don't work out, or maybe you only have two days a
week where that 7pm-latest-bus-run isn't too late (assuming you're comfortable
trusting the last bus to get you home). You head out again, but this time,
your first bus is very late. Or your second bus never shows. Or you miss your
bus home, the last bus of the night, and now you have to call a friend or
Uber.

This is all if you're lucky enough to live anywhere where trying this even
makes sense. This is assuming your schedule isn't entirely incompatible with
the bus schedule, and you can afford to be gone for however long the ordeal
takes (my grandmother is a retired nurse living with her friend, who has
Parkinson's; my grandmother tries not to leave for more than about an hour
without someone else to watch her friend).

The price of public transport is not the $ for the ride; that could often be
accounted for simply by the price difference between convenience store milk
and Walmart milk.

In many cities, public transportation is used nearly exclusively by 1) lucky
people who live right on the most reliable routes, 2) unlucky people who have
_very_ little else to do with their time.

The other day, I missed a bus in downtown Seattle. I could wait 5 minutes for
the next bus (different route) coming by that stop, but have to walk an extra
block at the end, or wait 10 minutes for the next bus of the route I missed. I
said fuck it, didn't take any bus, and instead grabbed a delicious lunch at a
hole-in-the-wall place a block away. This is not an accurate representation of
public transportation in most cities.

~~~
jdnenej
I have found that shopping by bike is quite easy and much more practical. I
have a trailer on my bike that can carry twice the amount I can carry by hand
and it moves much faster than walking with no waiting time for the bus. Also
cars drive much more carefully around me because they think my trailer is
carrying kids.

~~~
salixrosa
That's actually what I ended up doing most often (albeit w/o a trailer)! I was
living somewhere where it wasn't too dangerous to bike to the grocery store.
I've also lived places where it would be an extra two miles to get around
something like a narrow main road. Still faster than the bus though...

------
dfeojm-zlib
I would bet money this sort of FUD is promulgated by big name brand PR firms
through blogger "journalists." And I wonder what Aaron Maté, Chris Hedges,
Jesse Ventura or Jimmy Dore would have to say about this.

What the heck is wrong with them? They're awesome for many miscellaneous
items. If there aren't grocery stores, that's on the local municipality to
attract/incentivize the type of businesses they want in their area. Most
dollar stores aren't grocery stores anyhow, nor should they be forced to be
anything, they're more like bric-a-brac American drug/discount stores mixed
with convenience stores. It's a strawman/red herring to blame dollar stores
for people's health... that's their municipality's and personal responsibility
to have farmer's markets, grocery stores, health food stores, fresh food
stands. They are what they are.. vote with your feet, or tell the
muncipalities to also bring other type of stores. And if they don't like
Walmartification, keep them zoned out.

~~~
dondawest
Asking what the heck is wrong with dollar stores is like asking what the heck
is wrong with Amazon’s predatory business tactics. There’s nothing inherently
“wrong” with either one, but both have extremely ill effects for the larger
system they exist within.

Dollar Stores usurp business from grocery stores and turn neighborhoods into
food deserts. What the heck is wrong with that? Dude, a lot.

------
scythe
This type of thinking is obviously silly.

People with opportunities to eat healthy food keep choosing to eat unhealthy
food. This isn't a secret. I have personally annoyed all my friends and my
girlfriend with my constant hypochondriac nudging about nutrition.

If you want to change eating habits you have to _communicate_ with the
consumers. You can't pull strings at the city-planning level and hope that the
marionettes will march in tune. Even if dollar stores were prevented by
magical aliens from selling produce (they're not), they still have freezers.
They could still sell frozen vegetables. They could sell oats, beans or
unsalted nuts in bulk. They could sell canned produce, high-fiber noodles,
refrigerated tempeh...

They are _not_ selling these things because _people aren 't buying them_.
Dollar General is not intentionally trying to kill people. That's not a good
business model.

People are generally woefully uninformed about nutrition. People have been
confused by the raging public debate about dietary theories that are almost
never really practiced -- I had a friend tell me he didn't want to eat _a
mango_ because of the sugar content. The same friend had no trouble ordering
soda at a drive-thru. _That_ is how the average American thinks about food.

If you want change, put the Doritos behind the counter. That's how you get
change.

~~~
itsgrimetime
Do you have any data that suggests that people are simply choosing unhealthy
options vs healthy ones?

You claim that better food isn’t available because people don’t buy it, but
I’m not convinced. Can you provide any examples of food deserts that once had
great selections of produce and non-processed foods, which disappeared because
people weren’t choosing to shop there due to “too healthy” of a selection?

No ones saying Dollar General’s business model is to ensure people only get
access to unhealthy options. This is an absurd straw man that no one is
claiming. What people _are_ pointing out is that Dollar General has virtually
zero incentive to ensure consumers have access to healthy food. Grocery stores
in America are essentially unregulated, and it appears that this is a clear
example of the free market not providing a solution that ensures everyone has
equal access to healthy food.

~~~
baggy_trough
If people want to buy healthy food, then Dollar General will make money by
providing it to them. That is the incentive, and it is a completely sufficient
one.

------
aurizon
This is a complex problem rooted in the inexorable rise in property values
that required 2 working to maintain a household by rent or purchase. In
addition, automated food gathering and preparation in fast food style meant
that there was not much of a saving by making your own meals at home. People
grabbed takeout to save $$ as well as time. We see delivered food, ready to
cook at home is dying - defeated by delivered take out food - it has tried and
failed to get much traction. Now we have fast food container based takeout
becoiming a run away success. 100 containers, parked in industrial areas, all
over the place, equipped with food preparation and coooking gear and 50,000
foam plastic takeout clamshels all cooking the same menu, internet connected,
orders accrue and are filled by the closest container. A mix of delivered and
picked up food. No cash transactions - all debit or card based = nothing to
rob and containers have good security. All driven by economics, customers as
well as cookers are happy. The only problem is ease of new entries so there
are so many container kitchens that many starve. Locals can limit numbers with
the right laws.

~~~
knowaveragejoe
> This is a complex problem rooted in the inexorable rise in property values
> that required 2 working to maintain a household by rent or purchase.

Inexorable? Various cities have managed to prevent this phenomenon. Zoning is
the root of the issue, but now everyone views their house as their primary
investment and they'll fight to protect the eye-popping growth they've seen in
their property value.

~~~
paulddraper
It's inexorable due to increasing urbanization.

More people want to live next to more people.

~~~
mschuster91
No. Many people want to live somewhere they can get decent Internet
connectivity and public services, and probably also some job they can survive
off of.

Neither are present in many rural areas and the amount of investment needed
especially for infra to catch up is enormous - too much for governments facing
a tax competition to rock bottom.

~~~
paulddraper
IDK about what level of "public services" are needed, but rural or rural-ish
locations often have broadband connectivity, and are arguable _easier_ to earn
a living wage due to the low cost of living.

I lived in Provo (college town, 50 miles south of Salt Lake City) a few years
ago. Had Google Fiber, lots of jobs, and houses for <$200k.

People want to live next to other people.

~~~
cjmcqueen
I grew up in Orem. Provo is not small or an example of most rural towns. Provo
is incredibly progressive given the local church culture and university. I
live in rural Iowa and broadband internet and the issue of low-education and
long standing segregation have caused exactly the same issues of a depressed
economy in our 5,000 people community. The laws of small numbers make it very
difficult to succeed in big numbers capitalism.

~~~
paulddraper
Unless it's immediately adjacent to other communities, 5,000 total population
is indeed very rural. I've also lived in Belfair, WA which is <4,000 and
isolated. [1].

The fiftieth largest high school stadium in Texas seats more than 2x that
number. [2]

Yellowstone National Park staffs that many people during the summer. [3]

So, yeah, that's small.

I understand why _actually_ rural communities are popular for only a few
people. But there's a lot that available between 10 people/sqmi farmland and
NY/LA/DC/SF/Chicago metro area. Yet, big cities are still exploding. Because
people like them.

[1] [https://suburbanstats.org/population/washington/how-many-
peo...](https://suburbanstats.org/population/washington/how-many-people-live-
in-belfair)

[2] [https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/the-largest-high-
school-...](https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/the-largest-high-school-
stadiums-in-the-us.html)

[3]
[https://www.nps.gov/yell/planyourvisit/parkfacts.htm](https://www.nps.gov/yell/planyourvisit/parkfacts.htm)

------
pdog
Why are dollar stores so popular in low-income neighborhoods? Maybe instead of
banning them, we should figure why they're so prevalent in the first place.

Shopping for everyday necessities at a grocery store or supermarket is
incredibly stressful if you're poor. You can quickly reach a $100+ shopping
bill with just a handful of items in your cart. Dollar stores offer a decent
selection of goods and, more importantly, consistent prices.

~~~
Amezarak
“Dollar” store prices are no different from supermarket prices. They often are
a little higher. The article is about stores like Dollar General and Family
Dollar, not whatever dollar stores used to be. Prices are not a dollar and
prices are not in even dollars or anything.

I have asked many, many people the same question and the answer is always the
same: convenience. The dollar store is five minutes away or less. DGs are
practically weeds, I live in the country and there are more Dollar Generals
around me than gas stations or anything else.

They have food, but it’s a very poor selection and mostly processed junk food
with a few staples thrown in.

Edit: reading the other comments, it’s a little shocking to see how many
people have evidently never set foot in a dollar general or family dollar.
Definitely a reminder I live in a different world than most of HN.

~~~
mrob
My most recent dollar (really GBP) store purchases were superglue and sticky
notes. Both were substantially cheaper than supermarket prices, with no
obvious difference in quality. Both are commodity products that supermarkets
only sell as expensive branded versions, which I refuse to buy because I don't
like getting ripped off. The dollar store is actually less convenient.

~~~
Amezarak
Were they Dollar Generals or Family Dollars? These are the stores mentioned in
the article and in my experience aside from a few loss leaders like cold
drinks everything is more expensive.

I don’t think the UK vs US situation is comparable.

------
Nasrudith
Perhaps I'm overly cynical but this feels like a pretense from people who
dislike the poor and masking it as helping. There is sadly ample precedent of
this sort of thing. The end goal seems to be "not my problem" and forcing them
out / preventing them from taking root - perhaps motivated by property value
concerns as much as prejudice. But it isn't acceptable to state such motives
so openly, so they instead mask it with very strange kinds of 'concern' or
'helping' that just happen to pursue their goals. "It is for the sake of being
humane that we want a minimum sizes of housing high."

There is the pattern of being willing to hoist restrictions and spend money on
enforcement of the lower incomes but not being willing to add more to anything
that would actually help them or reduce restrictions - and then rationalizing
why that would be a good thing.

------
ggm
I tend to think this, that its better to have diverse stores and prices, than
one bad store with bad goods. But, its regulation. its the acceptance of a
pluralist economy outcome but with forcing functions to prevent a completely
economically rational outcome.

Its another way of saying "the cheapest list price isn't always the best
price" but it also means accepting price support, income support, or, huge
glaring inequality outcomes at point of sale.

The up-side is that economics isn't kitchen-economics its town-scale
economics. More shops means more shopworkers means more jobs for money and
slightly less welfare. So its a virtuous circle.

Small towns which keep a farmers coop alive survive. They often morph into the
town coop petrol/gas, the town coop bank, the town coop pub/hotel, sports
complex.. Because thats how resilient towns work. And, if it does work, they
bring new small business alongside.

Sometimes they even bring the majors to town, but they have to fight back
against the category-killer chain on the edge of town.

British high-streets have been hollowed out by Tesco on the edge of town.

Another part of this story is commercial rents, rates, and tenancy agreements.
If the landlords are "my price or its empty" then its empty in the downturn.
Renting property for commerce needs something different, but not 1000km away
from the tenancy laws people need for homes. The town has an interest. The
rent rate needs some limits. Just because amazon opened 3000 new people in a
hi-rise next door doesn't mean the shop rent can go up to amazon rent prices.
Thats the story of S.F. in some ways (except for the building controls
NIMBYism)

------
azhenley
I just listened to a very relevant podcast, Planet Money episode 909: Dollar
Stores Vs Lettuce
[https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2019/04/26/717665452/epis...](https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2019/04/26/717665452/episode-909-dollar-
stores-vs-lettuce)

~~~
knicholes
What did you learn from it?

~~~
jackmoore
Produce isn't the main profit driver maker for grocery stores. The presence of
dollar stores can keep actual grocery stores from moving in, leaving
communities with no access to fresh foods.

~~~
gowld
Should I feel bad that my healthy produce is subsized by suckers who buy boxed
junk from the shelves?

------
baron816
In theory, these stores could sell more nutritious food. They just need the
incentives. Taxing sugar seems like the correct approach. Banning a type of
store is very heavy handed, and likely to have unintended consequences.

Schools should probably also have cooking classes. Eating is something
everyone does three or more times a day. Why not learn how to do it right. I’m
sure something like that would have a huge ROI for state and local
governments.

~~~
salixrosa
"Hey, you poor people can't afford to eat healthy food! We're going to tax the
cheap food, so now you can choose between unaffordable off-brand Lucky Charms
and unaffordable broccoli! Now it's your fault, not the job market, if you're
fat."

Taxing sugar is not an incentive to sell more nutritious food, unless we're
taking those taxes and subsidizing produce with them. Those sweet, highly-
processed foods are also a way better purchase for grocery stores, which don't
have to worry about the food going bad before it's purchased.

I do think banning these types of stores is likely to cause more harm than
good, though. To take it to extremes, there's simply never going to be a
farmer's market where my closest Dollar General is.

~~~
gowld
Subsidized produce sounds good to me. Or just a universal basic income funded
by sin taxes.

Also, healthy food is cheap, but people buy junk because it is superficially
more fun. Compare what you get from $10 of Lucky Charms vs $10 of veggies,
beans and cheese, and, if you must, simple bread and low quality cuts of meat.

~~~
salixrosa
$10 in off-brand lucky charms is breakfast for a month.

$10 in dried beans is lunch for a month, but it's damn inconvenient, and yes,
difficult to make taste good.

These are both extremes but yes, I am very confident that healthy food is more
expensive than less healthy food. Yes, a cucumber is "cheap". But 8 cucumbers
(.50/each) isn't going to get you nearly as far as a 6pack of GV mac and
cheese ($3.98). Not even the same ballpark. 5 servings of GV thin-sliced honey
ham costs $2.50, a loaf of the cheapest white bread is $1.50, 8 servings of GV
block cheese goes for roughly $2.22, so now I have let's say 10 shitty
sandwiches for roughly $8, when I could have had easily 12 meals of mac &
cheese for half that and with less prep time.

Where cheap and healthy come closer together, I see the staples of my (well,
my friends', but that's another story) childhoods; lots of potatoes, scrambled
eggs, beans.

------
empath75
It seems like Aldi’s would be a no brainer to expand into poor areas but they
seem to focus on higher income areas for some reason.

~~~
slg
One of the primary flaws of capitalism is that there is little incentive to
enter a lower margin business when a similar investment can still yield
potential profit in a higher margin business. This is also generally why new
housing is almost always "luxury" units instead of affordable units.

The end result is that poorer neighborhoods often don't have the type of
service infrastructure that is generally provided by for profit companies.
Retail banking and internet providers are two other examples beyond the
grocery store example in the article.

~~~
zajio1am
In the age of e-banking, i would be surprised if physical retail bank offices
matter that much. Personally, i visit it once a several years.

With regards to ISPs, i often see that richer neighborhoods have wore coverage
than poorer neighborhoods, as it is much cheaper to cover big block of flats
with fiber than villa neighborhoods (so these are often limited to wireless
ISPs).

~~~
Larrikin
The poorer you are the more reliant you are on cash. When most of your
transactions are in cash you'll go through the quota of free transactions
quickly and you'll just be stuck with a lot of cash you're can't deposit
anywhere and become a prime target to rob. This also assumes you're paid via
check for your income.

------
pseudolus
Tangentially related to
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20461175](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20461175)
"If You're Poor in America, You Can Be Both Overweight and Hungry".

------
mberning
Great plan. Ban one of the few businesses willing to operate in these areas.
Where I am from people lament the “food desert” that exists in certain parts
of town, and ignore the complete glut of new establishments that pop up
elsewhere. How is it possible that it is more than economically productive to
try and fail multiple times in one area, but not even try in another.

------
linsomniac
Funny coincidence: I can literally see Dollar General CEO's house, Todd, from
where I sit typing this, in my temporary office at my inlaws house while I'm
on vacation. AMA. :-D

Edit: Just to be clear, I'm not anti Dollar General, though I do think we need
to take better care of each other. Was just very funny to see DG come up when
I was looking at their house.

~~~
J5892
How do you know where he lives?

Does everything there look like it costs a dollar?

If you need a temporary office, are you really on vacation?

~~~
linsomniac
1) My MIL makes friends with all the neighbors.

2) It is a very, very nice house. Gated house in a gated community.

3) You make a good point... But we are out here for a month and I only have a
week and a half of vacation on hand, plus a big project due in 6 weeks, so...

------
bradleybuda
"Research shows that dollar stores create fewer jobs than small grocery stores
... "

That's how they keep their prices down

"... sell products that are not actually much more affordable than those at
Walmart or Costco"

"Not actually much more affordable" translated to plain English is "more
affordable". Pennies, nickels, and dimes count more when you're poor.

"And push out full-service grocery stores"

Because people can't afford them.

Like all good liberals, I also find dollar stores aesthetically distasteful,
and I wish they provided more nutritious food. Lawmakers who want to ban these
stores, as usual, have their causation backwards - dollar stores and payday
lenders don't cause poverty, they are created by poverty, and (sadly) serve to
mitigate the crushing awfulness of being poor.

~~~
3333244
payday loans do not cause poverty but they make things worse by trapping
people into a vicious cycle of high interest loans they will never pay off.

by no means do they mitigate poverty

~~~
skyyler
they mitigate the awfulness, not the poverty.

When your options are let the power go out, or take a payday loan... Guess
which option people with children are going to take.

------
ajudson
Why don't normal grocery stores open in those neighborhoods? Less big ticket
purchases, so lower margin? Crime? Curious to know the reason.

------
xiaodai
Seems stupid to ban them? Their existence is the reflection of demand.

------
baggy_trough
To save a neighborhood, stop insufferable government meddling.

------
tomohawk
City near us had Target, various drug stores, and some new grocery stores.

Then, they had riots where the police were told to do nothing. The black
panthers and the organized crime gangs coordinated to knock over all of the
drug stores, shoe stores, and liquor stores. However, many other stores were
also hit.

Now, they have no Target, no drug stores, no grocery stores. It's highly
unlikely without adequate security that they will ever come back.

The next city over, they had smaller riots, but several grocery and
walmart/target projects were cancelled.

It seems to me that poorly run cities and politicians following misguided
policies are far more hazardous to health.

~~~
learc83
Please tell me exactly where and when the Black Panthers worked with
"organized crime gangs" and drove out the Target, and all of the grocery
stores and pharmacies.

