Comments on: White House Pitches $400M for Healthier Neighborhood Food Outlets http://dc.streetsblog.org/2010/02/03/white-house-pitches-400m-for-healthier-neighborhood-food-outlets/ Your daily source for national transportation policy news and analysis. Thu, 09 Feb 2012 23:57:00 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: Robert Rynerson http://dc.streetsblog.org/2010/02/03/white-house-pitches-400m-for-healthier-neighborhood-food-outlets/comment-page-1/#comment-133301 Robert Rynerson Wed, 10 Feb 2010 17:58:18 +0000 http://dc.streetsblog.org/?p=70761#comment-133301 The flip side of this is pressure to consolidate stores, regardless of the consequences. When Whole Foods took over Wild Oats, there was smirking from the financial pages as to how now a number of neighborhood Wild Oats stores -- such as the one in my Capitol Hill (Denver) neighborhood -- could be closed. We were supposed to drive to the bigger store a couple of miles away, except that auto ownership is low in this neighborhood. The neighborhood is one of the few in the Denver metro area with big-city local transit service, it's one of the few where casual car-rentals work, and anyone watching the store lot can see that a big share of the business walks or bicycles in. Few of these customers would have trekked through traffic to the bigger store in an upscale shopping complex. Had these customers switched to shopping by bus, they would have found that Whole Foods' major competitors are at better locations and have been upgrading their merchandise. Therefore, putting these shoppers on the bus would have sent them to the competition. Fortunately, Whole Foods has taken this into account so far and has upgraded the neighborhood store, but it was morbidly fascinating to see the investment community's pressure to do something dramatic, before the takeover could even be digested and intelligent decisions made. How many "food deserts" are a result of rational decision-making and how many have resulted from a demand to "do something" agressive to show to investors? The flip side of this is pressure to consolidate stores, regardless of the consequences. When Whole Foods took over Wild Oats, there was smirking from the financial pages as to how now a number of neighborhood Wild Oats stores — such as the one in my Capitol Hill (Denver) neighborhood — could be closed. We were supposed to drive to the bigger store a couple of miles away, except that auto ownership is low in this neighborhood.

The neighborhood is one of the few in the Denver metro area with big-city local transit service, it’s one of the few where casual car-rentals work, and anyone watching the store lot can see that a big share of the business walks or bicycles in. Few of these customers would have trekked through traffic to the bigger store in an upscale shopping complex.

Had these customers switched to shopping by bus, they would have found that Whole Foods’ major competitors are at better locations and have been upgrading their merchandise. Therefore, putting these shoppers on the bus would have sent them to the competition.

Fortunately, Whole Foods has taken this into account so far and has upgraded the neighborhood store, but it was morbidly fascinating to see the investment community’s pressure to do something dramatic, before the takeover could even be digested and intelligent decisions made. How many “food deserts” are a result of rational decision-making and how many have resulted from a demand to “do something” agressive to show to investors?

]]> By: Ethan Kent http://dc.streetsblog.org/2010/02/03/white-house-pitches-400m-for-healthier-neighborhood-food-outlets/comment-page-1/#comment-128791 Ethan Kent Wed, 03 Feb 2010 18:14:36 +0000 http://dc.streetsblog.org/?p=70761#comment-128791 Food is indeed a great way to transform neighborhoods to be around people and places. You can almost rank the quality and walkability of streets based on presence and visibility of food. Cities first formed as markets for the exchange of food and where they have gone wrong is perhaps where they have moved food away from the streets eliminating the frictions and social and cultural connections that they propagate. William H. Whyte famously said that "the best way to seed a place is to put out food." With this in mind, The NYC Streets Renaissance Campaign pursued and received a major grant from the Kellogg Foundation's Food and Fitness Initiative to bring this approach to improving walkability in lower income sections of NYC. We are now embarking on the implementation phase of the grant with TA in a leadership role. NYC and 8 other cities can now be in a good position to leverage these investments for broader community and walkability outcomes. More on the on the NYC Food and Fitness Initiative: http://www.nycfoodandfitness.org/index.php Food is indeed a great way to transform neighborhoods to be around people and places. You can almost rank the quality and walkability of streets based on presence and visibility of food. Cities first formed as markets for the exchange of food and where they have gone wrong is perhaps where they have moved food away from the streets eliminating the frictions and social and cultural connections that they propagate.

William H. Whyte famously said that “the best way to seed a place is to put out food.”

With this in mind, The NYC Streets Renaissance Campaign pursued and received a major grant from the Kellogg Foundation’s Food and Fitness Initiative to bring this approach to improving walkability in lower income sections of NYC. We are now embarking on the implementation phase of the grant with TA in a leadership role. NYC and 8 other cities can now be in a good position to leverage these investments for broader community and walkability outcomes.

More on the on the NYC Food and Fitness Initiative:
http://www.nycfoodandfitness.org/index.php

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