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The Dollar Store Backlash Has Begun (citylab.com)
The U.S. has added 10,000 of these budget retail outlets since 2001. But some towns and cities are trying to push back. From a report: A recent research brief [PDF] by the Institute of Local Self Reliance (ILSR), a nonprofit supporting local economies, sheds light on the massive growth of this budget enterprise. Since 2001, outlets of Dollar General and Dollar Tree (which bought Family Dollar in 2015) have grown from 20,000 to 30,000 in number. Though these "small-box" retailers carry only a limited stock of prepared foods, they're now feeding more people than grocery chains like Whole Foods, which has around 400-plus outlets in the country. In fact, the number of dollar-store outlets nationwide exceeds that of Walmart and McDonalds put together -- and they're still growing at a breakneck pace. That, ILSR says, is bad news. "While dollar stores sometimes fill a need in cash-strapped communities, growing evidence suggests these stores are not merely a byproduct of economic distress," the authors of the brief write. "They're a cause of it."
Dollar stores have succeeded in part by capitalizing on a series of powerful economic and social forces -- white flight, the recent recession, the so-called "retail apocalypse" -- all of which have opened up gaping holes in food access. But while dollar store might not be causing these inequalities per se, they appear to be perpetuating them. The savings they claim to offer shoppers in the communities they move to makes them, in some ways, a little poorer. Using code made public by Jerry Shannon, a geographer at University of Georgia, CityLab made a map showing the spread of dollar stores since the recession.
Dollar stores have succeeded in part by capitalizing on a series of powerful economic and social forces -- white flight, the recent recession, the so-called "retail apocalypse" -- all of which have opened up gaping holes in food access. But while dollar store might not be causing these inequalities per se, they appear to be perpetuating them. The savings they claim to offer shoppers in the communities they move to makes them, in some ways, a little poorer. Using code made public by Jerry Shannon, a geographer at University of Georgia, CityLab made a map showing the spread of dollar stores since the recession.
Comparing dollar stores to Whole Foods is a joke, not only because they have nearly 2 orders of magnitude less stores but Whole Foods has ridiculous prices in comparison. The notion that they're making communities worse off is mostly absurd. The small part that it's not is that other grocery stores with more reasonable prices do exist and provide an even better value, even if they often require more effort to access. The problem is, that truth is pretty much wholly true only so long as people spend their money wisely in those other grocery stores or any potential savings will be lost.
But, yes, please continue this rant against dollar stores.
We have one near us - it’s not a grocery store. It is a great place to buy greeting cards, gift wrap (or gift bags), stuff like that. The kind of stuff which is priced unreasonably high elsewhere.
Seriously - why should a paper birthday card cost seven or eight bucks? Why should a gift bag cost ten dollars or more?
#DeleteChrome
The end of the article has a statement from one of the researchers bemoaning the fact that the Kroger's in her neighborhood, which is primarily fixed income and suffered a 50% foreclosure rate during the last housing crises doesn't stock more expensive foods, "The one in a whiter, more affluent neighborhood regularly advertises grains, nuts, seafood, olives, and wine." Uh, the Kroger's in your neighborhood doesn't advertise it because they won't sell and, surprisingly, stores tend not to stock things that don't sell. That's not The Dollar Stores fault, that's caused by a raft of other issues (racism, predatory payday loan stores, the list is lengthy) but denying access to low cost goods in the hopes that the Kroger's that 15 minutes closer to you will start stocking things that the neighborhood can't afford is asinine.
I live in a rural area, and in places like this the dollar stores are built to fill in the gaps between the Walmarts. They are geographically dispersed roughly every 10-15 miles where there is any kind of "populated area". Here, at least, where it is rural, they are providing a needed service.
Walmarts and the big gas stations along the interstates have killed off most of the independent gas stations and country stores that used to serve the small (1000 people) populated areas. You used to go to these stores for the basic stuff - bread, milk, candy bars, snack stuff. Most also had a small variety of hardware, fishing and hunting related stuff, and sometimes a small deli or grill. These are pretty much all gone. They used to be along state routes every several miles, and they enjoyed enough traffic to do well. The interstates took a great deal of volume (especially through traffic) off those roads and condensed them into major arteries. Those arteries have extremely limited points of access, and the land at each exit is so incredibly expensive that only huge chains can afford to have a business presence there.
So, most of these small stores have gone out of business. Now if you needed to run to the store because your propane lighter ran out of fuel and you couldn't light your grill, or the kids were pestering for batteries for their game controller, you had to travel 25-30 minutes to the regional Walmart. Dollar stores are filling those empty holes. They didn't cause them (well, certainly they have run some mom and pop places out of business, but the majority of the damage was already done a decade or more ago). Around here in the boonies, it's a welcome sight having a store like this within a few minutes of home.
In this area, they have popped up in the very rural country areas in the last 2-3 years. The local stores went out of business well before that.
Better known as 318230.
...and say "eww ban it now."
Maw! Fire up the karma burner!
A couple wicking beds and two hydroponic ponds out in the yard provides me with enough fresh lettuce, peas, carrots, zucchini, and broccoli that I don't bother going to the grocery store for months. At first, it doesn't seem economical to grow your own veggies when looking at the prices of stuff at the store, but if you can grow enough to reduce the number of trips to the grocery store, the time and fuel savings really stack up.
The author is trying to make this a race thing about food. Sorry, there is no great conspiracy, they are just dollar stores. If an area has a market for "fresh food", then usually it will be filled. The reality is that either people in certain areas don't want "fresh food" or won't pay for it, so the stores that would sell it either don't offer it or they close down. This is what the market does- it fills demands in order to survive and make profit.
Dollar stores aren't trying to be grocery stores, they are supplying a limited number of long shelf-life products that *sell* to people who want it, as a convenience, in an otherwise very much non-food store. At least the ones I have been in, 80% of the store are things like housewares, cards, gifts, personal hygiene supplies, plastic goods, balloons, decor, books, games, toys, office supplies, etc.
Dollar stores are great for finding some inexpensive supplies and gifts. I go there frequently. But you have to watch their SIZES of things- the pricing is not always good for what you get and can be had cheaper at Walmart or even a grocery store. But lots of things are much cheaper than can be had anywhere else, and some things not available at all anywhere else (locally).
If the goal is for people to eat better, that requires education, which creates desire and demand, which then stimulates supply creation. Supply will not create demand. The process is not perfect, but that is generally how it works (and no other process works better in the long run).
This is yet another bunch of jerks deciding to make trouble for yet another niche business. We seem to have a never ending supply of random complaining about anything and everything, from people who create nothing themselves (except unbelievable tales about how [whatever thing] is secretly the cause of [whatever social problem]).
Dollar stores are places to get cheap stuff. Why should people have to pay 2-3x as much to get the same stuff at the supermarket?
It seems like you fail to understand the wider implications outside of your own situation
Maybe he merely doesn't believe every idea someone with an agenda is trying to sell him.
If you're poor, why the fuck would you buy a bag of popcorn anywhere?
Pop it yourself for almost zero dollars.
I live in a small town that was absent a real grocery store for years. We had both a Family Dollar and a Dollar General though.
Guess what? Grocery stores weren't deciding not to come here because those dollar stores were too difficult to compete with!
It was simply a matter of analyzing the economics. Our population is only around 6,000 -- and you don't add more than a few thousand others if you add the next town over from us, along with people on the other side of the river, who live in another small town, in another state.
We finally DID get a full size grocery store here, but only because it was part of a long-term plan for a planned community of new homes that have been getting built on the outer edge of town for 5 years or so. They waited out the economic depression before constructing it, but decided it was feasible to do now.
Both dollar stores are doing about as much business as ever, BTW. They're simply the cheaper places to go for your toiletries and household items. Plus, they're more flexible in adjusting their inventory to the local community's needs. Family Dollar, out here, turns into a pretty respectable toy store around Christmastime, and then scales that back afterwards. They'll turn into a one-stop shop for your basic gardening and outdoor BBQ needs when the weather gets nicer. They NEVER claimed to be a place to buy your fresh foods though. They're just convenient for the non-perishables like you might grab to put in your kid's school lunch, or when you need something in a pinch.
I've seen these rants before about "food deserts" and the usual insinuation that racism and "white privilege" has something to do with it. Sorry, but no.... This stuff happens when either A) you live in a more rural or smaller town and the total population isn't enough for the grocery chains to cost-justify coming in, or B) you live in a high crime neighborhood that runs out the large grocers because of all the extra burdens it places on them. (I used to live in one of those areas too, and things like the requirement to hire armed security guards to patrol the parking lot and entrance, plus the fact the crime scared a lot of people off from trying to shop there in the first place, made it unsustainable for them.)
People complaining about problems in regions they don't live, which aren't considered problems by the people who live there. Might as well talk about the lack of cows running free in San Francisco. It would be a better city if they were.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
These are just fronts for Chinese products. It sends nearly all of the money on product sale to china. As such, this make local economies poorer and poorer.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Googling something only works if you have the slightest clue what you are looking for. It could be the top result, but how the heck would someone know if that's what the story was about.
The summary should have it, but since it doesn't you could be civil instead.
Yes, civility is important. So is reading comprehension. What are we discussing? Dollar Stores, ie. small market stores. Google ALDI and what's the first thing the pops up resembling what we're discussing? Hey, what do you know, it's ALDI Grocery Stores.
Quit enabling stupid.
I've never been to a dollar store.
That is your choice. But you don't get to make that choice for other people. TFA is a rant trying to justify privileged "let them eat cake" snobs imposing their will on others. A poor family struggling to make ends meet does not have the option of shopping at Whole Foods, where feeding their family is likely to cost 3 or 4 times as much, and it is idiotic to suggest that is an alternative.
A poor family struggling to make ends meet does not have the option of shopping at Whole Foods
You meant shopping at Whole Paycheck. The prices there are ludicrous.
Mod UP pls!
~ People that think they are better than anyone else for any reason are the cause of all the strife in the world.
This. SJWs do that a lot.
In rural Arizona, dollar stores spring up in those places that don't quite have the population density for a full-service grocery, where they offer local service in in competition with a big-box store that might be a 20-minute drive away. I even see them tucked into strip malls that already have supermarkets. In such places, they offer more selection in such things as school supplies. Think of them as the next step up from convenience stores.
Exactly - this is a perfect example of the USA working as it should - someone sees a need and fills it, and makes a successful business of it.
TFA is exactly the sort of thing that gave us Trump - people are sick and tired of self-proclaimed geniuses declaring this or that "proper" by their own standards and not letting the rest of us decide for ourselves. People are perfectly willing and able to run their own lives, these sorts of elitist screed against free enterprise are a perfect example of why a huge fraction of the American public has gotten *fed up* with it.
The article is claiming that the need being filled is being done so half-*****.
By filling that need in such a manner, and failing to grow as the community recovers, it stalls and kills the local economy.
Ask yourself this? Is it better to have a rookie who doesn't want to learn and isn't capable of all the responsibilities of the job, but who provides just enough assistance to sustain current production? Or is it better to be training a competent and capable employee to enable growth and a competitive edge for the future? Somebody who's abilities can free up labor to be more agile?
Some things need to be managed. Capitalism is a tool, not a holy religion. It can't meet all needs of human kind naturally.
Everyone can make the same choices. We all have the same free will. Most of us simply choose unwisely. It's not even a rich versus poor thing. Even the "rich" make many of the same stupid choices the "poor" do.
Everyone is encouraged by the same liberal media to make the same wasteful and counterproductive choices.
Vegan communists will be the first to defend nonsense like "Avocado toast".
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
failing to grow as the community recovers, it stalls and kills the local economy.
This is asserted in TFA without evidence. How does filling an obvious need in a affordable way, "kill" the economy?
Ask yourself this? Is it better to have a rookie ...
This is the dumbest analogy I have seen in a while. How you go from "employees should be trained" to "the government should force people to shop correctly" is utterly beyond my comprehension.
Some things need to be managed. Capitalism is a tool, not a holy religion.
During the 20th Century, government management of food supplies resulted in the starvation and deaths of 100 million people. I'll continue to put my trust in capitalism.