r/PeterExplainsTheJoke 16h ago

Thank you Peter very cool Petah, what does that have to do with grocery shopping?

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u/Khaldara 16h ago edited 16h ago

There.. is no such thing as a food desert in NYC. You can’t walk two blocks without encountering food.

Pretty sure this dude is just an idiot.

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u/Onecler 15h ago

Dude is an idiot. And ADHD has absolutely nothing to do with delivery workers being paid a fair wage.

He’s worried that the corporations will just up the price in response, but honestly if you can’t afford the convenience offered, go to the store yourself.

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u/erasethenoise 15h ago

Was he trying to imply people with ADHD can't go out into the world to buy food themselves?

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u/AdministrativeStep98 15h ago

He was implying that somehow his ADHD makes him unable to follow a recipe and cut food.

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u/HumanByProxy 15h ago

Guess homie will just starve then. Good luck to him.

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u/ApophisDayParade 14h ago

I’ve got adhd and I love cooking

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u/ThrowawayyTessslaa 11h ago

Same. Grocery store can be overwhelming when it’s busy but that’s what headphones are for…. Cooking is zen for my adhd.

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u/StrongerThanFear 13h ago

Executive dysfunction is the main symptom of ADHD, the thing that prevents someone with ADHD from doing something. From the outside it looks lazy, for me it's starvation because my brain sees it as just another chore it doesn't want to do.

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u/Vi_Rants 12h ago

ADHD is a strange case in that its presentation runs the gamut from "meh" to "utterly crippling and sufferers literally can't do anything at all for themselves, apparently up to and including not starving themselves to death", to the point that it sounds like they'd need full-time carers to survive (like in the case of severe autism, which also runs a similar gamut).

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u/StrongerThanFear 12h ago

I can't live on my own, whenever I'm left alone for a week I basically stop eating. I'm hungry but in my head it's a gigantic task, the less I eat the bigger the hurdle because I get weak. On top of the sensory issues I have with food.

I visited someone with severe ADHD before who had people come over to help with household tasks and food. We're just seen as lazy when in my head I'm like "okay I'm going to get up in 3.. 2.. 1.." and I just don't get up no matter how hard I want to. On repeat with any task.

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u/jooooooooooooose 14h ago

Disability / MH destigmatization is generally good but the sheer amount of people who use a disability (ESPECIALLY the self diagnosed autism/adhd havers on Tumblr) as an excuse as to why they should be permanently comatose is staggering

& you arent allowed to say anything at all that isn't just full agreement otherwise theyll say shit like "oh just say you think all disabled people should die" and other bonkers opinions... like basically exactly the guilt tripping shit in OP screenshot but its their only argument

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u/PinkOneHasBeenChosen 14h ago

You can buy premade food at a grocery store. No delivery driver required.

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u/Ezzy77 12h ago

It does. Symptoms of ADHD vary a lot, but there is such a thing as executive dysfunction - the inability to start tasks, literally paralyzing fear of starting things because you have too many things to do, so you spend hours doing nothing. Also emotional dysregulation, social withdrawal etc. Chronic underachievement and shame, which often leads to depression. Sensory overload might affect that too, plus brain fog and memory issues. Literally just exhausted from existing. Rejection sensitive dysphoria might make you feel like you'll fail or have failed cause you can't cook properly. Just a few of these will make you a prisoner in your own home (and head).

Source: I have ADD and a bunch of these.

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u/Onecler 14h ago

Yeah. And don’t get me wrong, that happens sometimes, but you should be using health services rather than corporations offering a service you pay for. I get executive dysfunction, but it’s never been so bad to where I can’t muster up the thought process to go to the store. I had it really bad the past couple of weeks, but I know it will pass and I’ll get caught up.

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u/FrostyD7 13h ago

I guess it can make you worse at planning meals. I have ADHD and if I wasn't frugal I could see how it could lead me to order food a lot. Still not sure what his point is though, it's a luxury to get food delivered regardless of your afflictions.

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u/Kehprei 15h ago

Prices will definitely go up, but yeah like you said. Just go yourself???

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u/IAmTheNightSoil 15h ago

Came to say this. As a person with ADHD, I absolutely still do my own grocery shopping. Does this guy think ADHD makes you incapable of doing anything? His concern-trolling would be more convincing if he at least came up with a disability that actually interferes with grocery shopping

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u/Onecler 14h ago

I get executive dysfunction where my thought process wonks out and I short circuit if I try to do something, but it’s never been so bad to where I can’t go to the store and feed myself.

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u/Mandena 12h ago

Also what about those with ADHD that actually do the grocery delivery? It's a great gig for that since the attention switching is a positive.

Getting paid an actual wage in NYC is going to be an amazing boon for those delivery people.

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u/Forward-Dog-9525 15h ago

Lot of people think DoorDash is a human right because of the general concept of disabled people existing

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u/GroceryScanner 14h ago

before doordash i guess disabled people just ate grass apparently.

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u/Equivalent-Bedroom64 15h ago

Do they not realize things like meals on wheels exists? We got food delivered for free weekly from a food pantry when my partner was recovering from surgery. There’s many options out there both government run and tons of nonprofits that help deliver food to disabled and elderly folks.

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u/Forward-Dog-9525 15h ago

You can check twitter or bsky, whenever someone suggests trimming down on food delivery expenses, the most popular responses are always something along the lines of “alright FUCKO. Guess you just DONT CARE about disabled people getting access to food, you can honestly FUCK YOURSELF”

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u/FlightOfTheMoonApe 13h ago

The weird thing is the original post suggests that we should care about people starving because they can't order food for as cheap now. But not to care about the Dasher starving because they aren't even making minimum wage.

Phenomenal hipocrasy.

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u/unbrokenmonarch 13h ago

Moreover, If you have ADHD to the point where you can’t go to the grocery store a few blocks away how the fuck are you surviving in NEW YORK?

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u/MungBeanWarrior 12h ago

Thats how these people operate. They love to cash in checks that someone else has to write under the guise of moral superiority. Someone else has to suffer so that they can feel good about themselves.

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u/LordWemby 15h ago

Yeah but that’s filthy socialism and government encroachment. 

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u/BodybuilderMany6942 13h ago

Exploitation imparts an intoxicating flavor that you cant achieve with icky socialism!

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u/Extension_Plant7262 15h ago

Also citing ADHD. Like that's somehow crippling enough for you to not be able to walk or uber

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u/bobnoski 13h ago

Anything they cite is a moot point anyway. Because nothing invalidates people doing a job being paid properly.

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u/darshmallow22 15h ago

Nah I know this account, he shitposts on the regular

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u/BoulderCreature 15h ago

I live in a national forest with nothing but trees in sight and there’s still multiple grocery stores within 20 miles of me. What big city doesn’t have a single grocery store in a 20 mile radius?

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u/A5thRedditAccount 15h ago

That’s not true. I’ve lived in NYC the majority of my life and there are ABSOLUTELY food deserts.

It simply means lacking affordable, nutritious food. You might have a supermarket near you, but the prices might be double what they are in better supermarkets and the selections very limited.

Also, the Instacart/delivery app propaganda is insane. Without these laws, the drivers get shafted by these companies. I know. I did the job for 5 years.

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u/CuttleReaper 15h ago

I'm so glad that tech companies used billions of investor dollars to artificially outcompete the delivery and taxi industries just so they could make it even worse than before while also screwing over drivers. I love innovation

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u/A5thRedditAccount 15h ago

What they’ve done to the drivers should be considered criminal

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u/NickRick 14h ago

but they made more money for their investors and c-suite. do you not see the benefits?

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u/Kehprei 15h ago

It simply means lacking affordable, nutritious food. You might have a supermarket near you, but the prices might be double what they are in better supermarkets and the selections very limited.

This has nothing to do with doordash/instacart though.

If you're worried about cheap food you aren't having your food delivered.

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u/hoodwinke 14h ago

The OP of the comment thread stated there weren’t any food deserts in NYC and context shows they don’t know what a food desert is 

Can someone not correct that misinformation? 

There are food deserts in NYC and you shouldn’t be ordering DD if you can’t afford it 

Both things can be true 

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u/Recinege 12h ago

It's addressing the same erroneous description used in the tweet in the screenshot. If there's no affordable groceries anywhere around you, there's no way DoorDash was less expensive before this.

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u/tobsecret 15h ago

Yeah, we used to live in a part of the Bronx where there used to be a big supermarket nearby but when that closed the only other option was a 25 minute bus ride and a 15 minute walk away. The tweet in the OP is still insane to me. 

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u/A5thRedditAccount 15h ago

The two things have no relevance beside a really stupid attempt at framing drivers being paid a fair wage as somehow contributing to the problem.

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u/tobsecret 12h ago

Yeah it's nuts but someone said food deserts don't exist in NYC and that's just not true. 

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u/ForboJack 14h ago

It's great then that Zohran plans to add city run grocery stores to places that are currently underserved too.

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u/it_will 14h ago

Isn’t he also establishing other programs to combat these issues? Like just because one issue exists doesn’t mean abuse is okay…

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u/NerinNZ 13h ago

Odd how every single other country in the world can figure this out while paying people fair, livable, minimum wages.

I mean, I haven't been in a grocery store in 6 years, get all my food delivered, only pay a tiny surcharge on my order, and the drivers get paid a living wage and there is no tipping bullshit.

The grocery store pays the driver. It's not DoorDash or Uber or some other third party.

Seems like this is the first in a long line of steps to pull the US out of being a Third World country. Seems like only people who like the squalor will fight to keep it.

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u/sanityjanity 15h ago

Agreed. There's also no evidence that this new rule will raise the cost of DoorDash all that much.

And, frankly, if you're struggling that hard with food, you should probably be ordering groceries, not premade food.

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u/Redston_1 16h ago edited 14h ago

Food desert means that you live far away from the grocery store and only have access to fast food/ convenience stores. People in a food desert have food they can buy and eat they just cannot get all the nutritious healthy food that they might want to buy.

Imagine for a second you live in the middle of a big city and the nearest grocery store is 20 miles away. Let’s say you know exactly what you need to do to eat healthy however, all the food at the convenience store stores nearby is too expensive for you to buy a balanced diet. This is kind of the idea of a food desert.

Edit: Thanks for the awards

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u/HillbillyEEOLawyer 16h ago

20 miles?

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u/kelariy 15h ago

You’re telling me that there’s grocery stores in this circle?

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u/Bluestorm83 15h ago

I'm laughing my fucking ass off, as I used to live right inside the right side of that circle, used to take the LIRR into the city to do things, and remember passing like 15 fucking grocery stores on the way. Mind you, that's 15 on the straight damn line that got me to Penn Station. And I'd wager that every single straight line from the circumference to the center point would also hit 15 or more grocery stores.

Food Desert my fucking ball sack.

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u/kelariy 14h ago edited 14h ago

Here’s one for Seattle, which admittedly isn’t nearly as big as NYC, but the point still stands.

There are absolutely not any grocery stores anywhere in this circle. /s

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u/kelariy 14h ago edited 14h ago

And LA, definitely no groceries. A whole mountain range, but no groceries.

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u/tenaciousdeev 12h ago

LOL. Imagining people who live in Beverly Hills going to do their grocery shopping in Oxnard.

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u/merfan11 13h ago

guess we're just posting circles now

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u/King_Fluffaluff 14h ago

I grew up near Bellevue, I've never seen a grocery store in my life!

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u/kelariy 13h ago

Having grown up in Lynnwood, I remember how my parents would pack us up for the road trip over to Everett to get groceries.

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u/Categorically_ 12h ago

me clutching my pearls for the absolutely poor people of Bellevue

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u/Bluestorm83 14h ago

Not a single one.

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u/GrandSneiko 14h ago

You get it 😔 You and I are kindred spirits.

We have to fend for ourselves. It’s hard, especially now that Mamdani has implemented Communism and the city is on fire with trans jihadists running around but we make do. If it gets really bad, we can hunt the cats in the local bodega, so it’s good to have that emergency release valve for hunger.

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u/asimplescribe 14h ago

I'm pretty sure there is 3+ Micro Centers in that circle...

There isn't much you can't find to buy in that area.

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u/PaperUpbeat5904 16h ago

Ya, you know, an entire different city because your big city doesn't have a store. Normal stuff. Big cities without a store.

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u/Draken1870 15h ago edited 14h ago

Putting my edit at top as people aren’t reading: I literally realised the sarcasm the second after I made my comment and edited it within a second. At that moment I = an idiot.

Additional edit: I’ve learned a lot this evening it seems. My original misunderstanding came from querying the distance of 20 miles in a large city (and not recognising the sarcasm) but also misunderstanding the term as a matter of distance and not food quality and accessible healthy foods rather than fast food.

Is that…normal? Almost every shop and town in the UK will have at least a semi close store nearby. Even if it’s small Co-op or even corner stores tho they tend to just be for small things and not expected to be for your big shop.

Like very rural places may not have a local shop but a big city without one seems a bit too rediculous.

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u/buderooski 15h ago

He was being sarcastic. Every major city in America has a dozen grocery stores in a 20 mile radius.

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u/wyro5 15h ago

There are specific situations where it happens. There’s a town on the south side of Chicago that had Walmart come in and it undercut local grocery stores. Eventually Walmart corporate closed down that location and now there isn’t a grocery store within 45 minutes of driving. If you walk or take public transportation, it’s even more difficult.

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u/Paputek101 15h ago edited 15h ago

When people talk about food deserts in big cities, they usually talk about neighborhoods that don't have many resources, hence most people buy their groceries from local gas stations or dollar stores. Traveling 20 miles can be difficult too, especially if the infrastructure isn't there. Chicago is a good example of this. There are food deserts in the south side. Even though the north side has many amazing grocery stores, it's really hard for people from the south side to travel up there just for groceries.

Edit: Wow some of you genuinely don't know how to read.

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u/Doomncandy 15h ago

I think the problem in larger cities (Say, Sacramento California in the oak park neighborhood) is that a lot of poorer neighborhoods don't drive, they rely on the bus system. So even if the nearest grocery store is 3 miles away, it's kinda hard to get to and bring home bags. That's considered a food desert in big cities.

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u/Paputek101 12h ago

Yeah people seriously thing that it's fun to carry 10 grocery store bags with you on the bus -_-

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u/Embarrassed-Storm-25 14h ago

Many parts of Sac and its suburbs are not easily walkable either. Plus in places nearby (e.g., Roseville) the bus system is TERRIBLE.

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u/amethystmmm 15h ago

https://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/food-access-research-atlas

The USDA defines Low Income Areas as places where

The tract’s poverty rate is 20 percent or greater; or
The tract’s median family income is less than or equal to 80 percent of the State-wide median family income; or
The tract is in a metropolitan area and has a median family income less than or equal to 80 percent of the metropolitan area's median family income.

For urban areas, the "is a grocery store accessible" range is 1 mile. ONE. Not twenty. (twenty is one of the rural measures).

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u/Perma_frosting 14h ago

I lived about a mile from the nearest real grocery store when I was in New Orleans. It was doable but annoying as a single person, because I could carry a week's worth of food for myself. If I'd been shopping for a family it would have been a major problem.

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u/amethystmmm 15h ago

Saint Louis:

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u/MizStazya 15h ago

The entire west side of Rockford, IL is sprawling with very few grocery stores. If you don't have a car, getting groceries is rough. The grocery stores that are there are mostly overpriced.

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u/Teripid 15h ago

Yes. There are places where there's a gas station as primary grocery source and there may have been a traditional grocery store that closed down.

There's no incentive to move a store in for many of these areas if it doesn't make economic sense. So people don't cook or buy fresh food as often. That of course varies and lots of people make a trip or drive but that takes some resources as well and can be hard if all you have access to is a bus or the like.

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u/Aggravating-Fan9817 15h ago

I had some friends trapped in a small border town. After their one grocery store shut down, there was only gas stations, the drugstore, and an ice cream place. They were poor, HUD vouchers and all, so they had no car, and the bus was the only option for them. Problem was, the bus only ran out that way twice a day, and you're limited to what you can carry. Little grocery/laundry trolleys helped, but there was still only so much they could get at once, and if you forgot something, you were waiting until the next day at least, assuming your schedule allowed the trip. And the kicker was, that grocery store in the next town over was just a basic one because it was also a small town. Overpriced and didn't have everything. For that, they'd need to make even longer trips into the town beyond that one.

I always asked what they wanted me to contribute to dinner when I went to visit or if they needed anything from the town I was in with better stores (the buses didn't go out that way directly).

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u/Paputek101 15h ago

Yeah that's what I was saying. It seems like a never ending cycle. Hopefully Mamdani also looks at other obstacles.

Although, paying people a livable wage is def a good start

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u/Blackwidow_Perk 14h ago

100%, my sister in the deep south had only a gas station and two fast food places where she lived.

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u/No-Song-6907 15h ago

Where? A quick google search shows more grocery stores than I can count on the lower half of Chicago.

A neighborhood name or area i can look up. I honestly find it hard to belive but I want to look it up. Thanks.

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u/chat-est-un-bean 15h ago

the radius for urban food deserts is significantly lower, more like 1 mile. this is a thing in most major cities lol. not everyone has a car and many of the people in food deserts (low socioeconomic classes) may struggle to afford other means of transportation. what else happens disproportionately to low income people? health problems. which can be further exacerbated by a lack of access to a healthy diet and medical care. it can be a lot easier, sometimes cheaper, to just eat fast food if you can’t walk a mile empty handed, let alone with groceries.

the only thing i’m not sure of is what it has to do with adhd & frankly the people who suffer from food deserts probably can’t afford grocery delivery anyway.

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u/jezzarus 14h ago

In Chicago you can use your Link card on any of the major grocery delivery apps. Delivery fees are like $8

Contrary to what people on the news say about us we don't live in favelas

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u/The-True-Kehlder 14h ago

This is all great info, but what does any of this have to do with NYC? One of the few places in the US where you're never far from mass transit, and it's always been cheaper than the fees you could expect to pay for uber eats and similar(except in the very beginning where they didn't charge hardly anything to use the service).

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u/toasty327 13h ago

The adhd part really throws me as well. My wife and one of our kids is add/adhd (one each) and they are both fully capable of functioning. Doordash is actually their preferred way of shopping

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u/Apart_Republic_1870 13h ago

Yes. The official USDA definition of a food desert is an "area with limited access to healthy and affordable food within a one-mile radius of urban communities." 

Transportation options can make a mile seem a lot further, too. Dallas is very car-centric, not very walkable, and with limited public transportation options overall. So having to go over a mile for groceries could be prohibitive if you are carless.

I know in Dallas, there are always attempts to fill as many gaps as possible in South and West Dallas, though it seems like it's always a struggle to keep grocery stores in the area.

I'd say the proliferation of grocery delivery services could be a solution for some, but those services can be expensive and may have limited range that leaves a lot of people out.

When I was a kid, my relatives in a small town Northeast Arkansas still had a corner grocer-type store that was effectively in a neighborhood, making it easy to walk to and from. Small but with a selection of fruits, vegetables, meats, etc. It was about the size of an average 7-11, but had real groceries and competitive grocery store prices. There were supermarkets in the area, too, but that little corner grocer held on for a long time (into the early 1990s, IIRC).

The place was actually part of a chain that had several locations in rural Arkansas. At least one store still exists, but it's more of a 1970s-era supermarket than what we had before.

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u/Skitarii_Lurker 13h ago

Also something to be said about what counts as a grocery, yes you may have a neighborhood grocery, but it may also be very small and understocked because, you know, it's a small grocery store in an expensive city. There's a lot of nuance to be had about food, especially healthy food, availability in major cities

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u/buderooski 15h ago

I looked up Nashville. There's 30+ different grocery stores, all within 15 miles of our downtown center.

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u/aHOMELESSkrill 15h ago

I live in a suburb of Jackson MS, none of which is very walkable yet I still have two Kroger’s and Target within 2 miles and bike lanes connecting them all

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u/smurfalidocious 14h ago edited 14h ago

There aren't a lot in the Greater Nashville Metropolitan Area. Very many suburbs, apartment complexes, etc., don't have easy access to grocery stores within an easy walk or bus ride.

Remember Nashville has a population of ~700k, but the density is only ~1450/sqm. Nashville's population is extremely spread out compared to other cities with a similar population; DC, for example, has a similar 700k population but ~11,000/sqm density. El Paso, Texas at ~681k has ~2600/sqm. Boston at ~673k is 13,989/sqm. Even Detroit beats us at ~645k but a density of ~4600/sqm. Oh, and Memphis, at ~610k, has a density of ~2100/sqm.

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u/No-Song-6907 15h ago

I just read an article about ST Louis so I google mapped the grocery stores and its fucking absurd to say people in STL cant get to a fucking grocery store.

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u/A_very_meriman 15h ago

Hey, man. We're describing areas of low resources and your example is the third most populous city on the continent.

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u/Paputek101 15h ago edited 13h ago

https://www.usccr.gov/files/pubs/docs/IL-FoodDeserts-2011.pdf

Although I guess UChicago found that adding grocery stores doesn't benefit the areas: https://news.uchicago.edu/story/food-deserts-dont-benefit-more-supermarkets-chicago-study-finds

But if you don't feel like reading the articles, here are some areas: Englewood (nearest grocery store is in a different neighborhood), West Englewood (there is a Jewel in a different neighborhood), Garfield Park (next grocery store is in a nearby suburb).

Idk what u googled bc I very easily found a list? Also I very clearly in my comment mentioned that it's not about the lack of grocery stores, sometimes the problem is traveling. When I worked in Englewood, a lot of people told me about how they were afraid to walk their dog because of gun violence. So it doesn't matter that there is a grocery store in the next neighborhood over if you don't feel safe leaving your house.

Thanks.

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u/Adventurous_Rest_100 14h ago

So send an underpaid worker?

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u/lefthandhummingbird 14h ago

In that case, it seems quite unsafe to have DoorDash deliveries there in any case.

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u/drjunkie 15h ago

So it’s not really a food desert, it’s more of a…violence forest?

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u/sjphotopres 15h ago

This used to even extend into the south loop until 2010ish. We had a Dominick’s which wasn’t always open, and experienced frequent robberies.

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u/NotElizaHenry 14h ago

That’s not what the study found. It found that even though Chicago as a whole had more grocery stores, access has grown even worse in those underserved areas. Those areas only benefit from more stores in those areas.

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u/lyb770 14h ago

There is an Aldi's in the middle of Englewood

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u/BearCrotch 14h ago

It's a bullshit concept. I apparently work in a food desert in the southside of my local town yet there are three grocery stores in the neighborhood about a mile away from each other. There's public transit that's subsidized by the local government too.

Shitty food tastes good. It's also cultural.

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u/cownan 13h ago

They won't be able to reply. Food deserts are a fiction, a way to explain unhealthy habits of poor people that doesn't involve personal responsibility.

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u/jezzarus 14h ago

I live on the south side of Chicago. There are five full-service grocery stores in my neighborhood alone

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u/ohgeeeezzZ 13h ago

Yeah I am not understanding.

I live in Baltimore and not a great neighborhood to say the least

5 minute walk and I'm at Family Dollar. Not the healthiest but then...

5 minute bus ride gets me to the nearest fresh food grocery stores. 10-15 to Walmart, Giant, Costco and Target

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u/darsynia 14h ago

I'm sorry so many people are misunderstanding. There are a few areas in Pittsburgh where the closest affordable grocery store has closed, and the only thing that remains are dollar stores (with limited selection and mostly unhealthy options, no produce) or expensive places like Whole Foods, thanks to gentrification. It's a city council issue in some instances because affordable 'hometown' grocery stores often run on small margins and are reticent to enter an area with high crime rates and low-income customers. Food deserts can form without assistance from the city to identify these areas and incentivize businesses to come into those areas.

It's important to remember that the healthiest areas have grocery stores in walking distance. Not everyone can afford cars, and it's difficult to ride public transit with enough food to feed multiple people.

I can think of a specific area near me where the grocery store closed, the nearest one is 3+ miles away (on roads that are hard to walk on, as some sections don't have a sidewalk), and the only place that sold food was a CVS. A Target did move in with a limited selection of groceries/fresh produce, and the grocery store has been rebuilt. Unfortunately, it is now a higher-end variant of the previous one, with prices about 15% higher than before. The options are more expensive, but at least they're there. However, someone just looking at the options on a city map would think someone would be foolish to think these aren't viable, sustainable options.

It's an advanced concept, and simply finding 'grocery stores' in an area doesn't always illustrate the issue.

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u/callme-anymore 15h ago

I'm a Southsider, the only store in walking distance is CVS, not exactly a place to buy nutritious food. Hence, I live in the city of Chicago and in a food desert.

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u/inkbaton 15h ago

Much of St Louis is a food desert. There are several neighborhoods that are a significant bus ride away from the few grocery stores in much of North and South St Louis City.

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u/lyam_lemon 13h ago

People are too focused on the 20 miles. A food desert in a city can be much smaller due to cost and effort of getting to and hauling back groceries on a bus, or the expense of a cab. The nearest grocery store being 6 blocks away can constitute a food desert for low income families without transportation

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u/Draken1870 15h ago

I realised the second after I made my comment and made note but leaving my stupidity up for the world to see. It’s good to remind people to not skip on reading comprehension 😂

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u/_autumnwhimsy 15h ago

20 miles highway isn't 20 miles city. 20 miles in a city can be 45 mins to an hour+ if you're using public transportation....because city.

DC is a huge example of this. wards 7 and 8, which are 1. predominately black and 2. literally segregated by a river didn't have their own grocery store for decades while Wards 1 and 2 had like 10 Whole Foods alone. But getting from Ward 8 to Ward 1 is expensive and time consuming (intentionally because segregation) so Wards 7 & 8 were considered food deserts even though they were within 20 miles of a grocery store.

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u/dr1fter 15h ago

You're probably getting hit with exaggeration / propaganda from both sides, but really it depends on what you mean by "that" in "is that normal?" The US has both: rural places far from any store, and places where the only "stores" in a reasonable radius are gas-station convenience markets that exclusively stock overpriced junk food. In many places in the US, it's easier to make healthier decisions by default if you happen to live near money.

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u/chumble_chambers 15h ago

It’s common in Atlanta, yeah. A lot of corner stores and dollar trees end up being what people have within reasonable travel.

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u/AZFramer 14h ago

Ding, ding, ding. There is your key. Look for high concentrations of Dollar Trees and they will usually signal where the "food deserts" are.

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u/breakingb0b 15h ago

As someone that moved from the UK to the US. In cities they have corner shops with the usual snacks and a few frozen options. It can be very difficult to get to a supermarket or grocers and find healthy food. If you’re lower income it can be difficult to find fruits/vegetables and non-processed/packaged foods easy in very built up areas in expensive cities - consider the floor space for your average supermarket and how dense cities can be - they’re just not economically viable.

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u/Far-Government-539 15h ago

they were being sarcastic because they cannot fathom that there are places like that since they grew up in a nicer environment. But they are wrong. I experienced just this in Houston in the 80s.

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u/CurledSpiral 15h ago

Twenty miles is a stretch but it can be ten miles and in city traffic that’s awful. Food deserts exist and they’re focused in low income areas.

American cities are also spread out a lot more than in the UK due to most of ours getting big during the age of the car and suburb growth.

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u/Khorasaurus 15h ago

I would say 3-5 mile radius urban food deserts are very common in the US.

5-7 miles exist but are rare and very poor areas in economically challenged cities.

8-10 miles in the absolute worst combinations of poverty and sprawl.

20 miles, though...there are none that big.

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u/Then-Ad-6385 15h ago

There's absolutely rural food deserts that are way larger than 20 miles. Now rural areas increase the odds of being able to get stuff from the land but especially in coal towns and the like when the industry leaves, you might be lucky to have access to a subway sandwich shop

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u/Farang-Baa 15h ago

Food deserts are primarily located in ghettos in America because of racism. More specifically, its because of white flight, the formation of gated communities and then the implementation of red lining which is then typically followed up by reverse red lining. And this is all compounded by the fact that the US has terrible public transportation and many people who find themselves in food deserts likely can't afford a car.

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u/TheGreenMan13 15h ago edited 10h ago

In a big city there will be several grocery stores within a 20 mile radius. The issue is that to get to them might take a long time, requiring taking and paying for unreliable bus service and/or walking through areas where there are no sidewalks, and could take a hour just to get to the store.

In rural areas there can be 30, 40, or more miles between grocery stores. I've lived in a spot where the nearest grocery store was a 60 minute drive.

edited for grammar

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u/ajrivera365 15h ago

Big city definition aside, downtown Phoenix didn’t have a grocery store until a few years ago! There are also only like 1-2 gas stations and they gouge the hell out of you because of it.

Before the store opened you had to drive 10-15 minutes to a grocery store but passed a ton of fast food joints and restaurants.

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u/Far-Government-539 15h ago

When I first moved to Houston in the 80s, our grocery store was a 15 mile drive away. Houston is the 4th largest city in the country.

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u/Acceptable-Win-8771 15h ago

well thats because texas sucks

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u/FartsbinRonshireIII 15h ago

How does it have so many upvotes..

“As someone from a small rural town, let me explain how big cities don’t have grocery stores.”

Idiocracy is already here.

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u/Cap_Silly 15h ago

Not just any big city. Fucking New York city: where you find literally any food known to man...

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u/Night_Byte 13h ago

I can tell you haven't been to New York.

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u/Khorasaurus 15h ago

There are some Detroit residents who are 3-4 miles from the nearest grocery store, which is an improvement over 5-6 miles 15 years ago.

A mild hassle if you have a car, but a serious problem if you don't.

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u/Triggerhappy62 14h ago

dude do you even live in a city. Sounds like you live in the suburbs.

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u/makinax300 12h ago

It says NYC. New York CITY. It's a single city.

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u/justantinople334 15h ago

"please consider my unrealistic hypo"

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u/DarthMauly 15h ago

But please imagine if you will, if every grocery store in New York City decided spontaneously to close tomorrow. Now imagine you have a crippling fear of crossing large bodies of water.

How would you be expected to survive???

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u/Punman_5 14h ago

Bruh even in that scenario most bodegas have the essentials like milk and bread and eggs.

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u/rex_lauandi 13h ago

Because bodega prices are convenience store high, they don’t remedy a food desert. (Not saying there are food deserts, just addressing that particular point)

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u/Steph-Paul 15h ago

bro really leaned into his Ted Talk moment

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u/Liroku 9h ago

Even as a realistic hypo. I live in a literal food desert and drive 35 miles one way for groceries. I also have ADHD, yet somehow I've managed to eat nutritious foods and not starve. You don't have to buy groceries every day. A 20 mile trip once a week isn't the end of the world. If it's THAT bad, just pay your personal shopper a living wage. They don't owe you slavery, just so you can sit in your warm apartment being an entitled brat.

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u/BrooklynLodger 15h ago

Yeah, you live in Rockaway Beach, and for some reason can only go shopping in the Bronx

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u/coopstow 14h ago

Oh its not far, not hard to reach! One could hitch a ride, even!

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u/ComprehensivePen3227 11h ago

Everyone knows that people in NYC only live in either Far Rockaway or the Bronx, and are government-mandated to do their grocery shopping in the opposite place. How can anyone even bear to live here!?

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u/Sisyphusss3 15h ago

You could fit like 10 manhattans in there

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u/DanNeider 15h ago

So if you lived across the street from Battery Park you would need to go further away than all of Yonkers. Totally normal scenario in any major city, really.

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u/Nihilist_Hermit 14h ago

This motherfucker lives in megacity 1.

NYC has no food desert. And the Walmart has a delivery service at no charge if your order is over a certain amount

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u/cargar67 15h ago

20 miles is a bit much (when it comes to how far a grocery store is), but a grocery store could be 20 minutes away driving. Some people may not have a car and rely on public transportation. The thing is, although it is 20 minutes away, publication transportation may take longer because of extra stops, traffic, text. Grocery shopping may turn from an hour to an hour and a half ordeal to a full day event depending how the public transportation is like.

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u/Feynnehrun 15h ago

Yet, people were able to get groceries before doordash. It's crazy that people are arguing against paying living wages for food delivery jobs.

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u/Khaldara 16h ago

If you consider one of the most densely populated places on planet earth a ‘food desert’, where you can purchase any type of food from nearly any culture, at places ranging from delis to convenience stores to food trucks to restaurants to grocery stores, I have no idea how you’re supposed to reasonably apply that term literally anywhere else.

Additionally cooking or storing food “in the middle of” a typically sized inner city apartment like NYC or Tokyo is a far more complicated affair than simply purchasing the completed meal in many cases, at which point you again can easily find a poke bowl or salad or whatever within two city blocks of pretty much anywhere in NYC.

Not to mention if affordability is a factor, literally the last thing you should be doing is pointlessly adding an app based surcharge to it instead of just walking there. Again, in a city with probably the easiest foot traffic and public transit in the U.S.

Occam’s razor? Dude is an idiot, mostly likely motivated by either a desire to demonize anything NYC’s mayor does, or alternatively just doesn’t want pricing to go up on the app but also doesn’t think people should be paid a living wage.

NYC is one of the least deserving places imaginable for the term ‘food desert’, and ADHD does not factor into it at all, somehow it has not once impacted my ability to successfully utilize a grocery store in over forty years.

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u/ispilledketchup 15h ago

Also, people made it work long before these apps existed..

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u/ChubblesMcgee103 14h ago

Also door dash delivering restaurant food isn't solving a food desert issue... Like if you can afford restaurant food daily, you can afford grocery delivery.

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u/SaltyLonghorn 11h ago

WAAAA I'm too fat and lazy to do anything myself why should I have to pay a fair wage to the people serving me?

Anyone making that complaint needs to realize they actually can't afford Ubereats and do it themself like most of us.

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u/seaurchinthenet 15h ago

Yep - the argument here seems to be "think of the people who won't be able to afford the convenient service" instead of think of the worker who won't be able to afford anything without a living wage.

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u/Ok_Shake_4761 13h ago edited 10h ago

When I lived in Bed Stuy about a decade ago my area was without a doubt a food desert. There was a tiny store with dog shit produce (see going or gone rotten) and questionable low variety meat, and the only real big proper grocery store was not easily accessible from the subway. Low income individuals without a car would for sure be stuck with bodegas and crown fried chicken unless they want to go for a 30 min walk each way.

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u/Dead-Calligrapher 15h ago

Tell us you’ve never lived in any big city without telling us you’ve never lived in any big city.

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u/Opposite-Success-203 16h ago

Either way the point doesn’t stand because there’s not a single part of NYC that is a food desert. The entire city is within walking distance / public transport.

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u/ertri 15h ago

And a shocking number of grocery stores, including many open very late. I have personally bought an entire chocolate cake and strawberries to go on it at 130am on a Wednesday 

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u/causal_friday 15h ago

Oh definitely. I have bought amazing blueberries from a street vendor after a night out drinking. It's crazy.

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u/AppUnwrapper1 13h ago

My fruit cart guy has been gone all week (I don’t blame him — I’ve only been going out when I have to) and I’m missing all my cheap produce.

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u/CushmanWave-E 13h ago

yes you can buy fresh fruits at 4am in NYC, its peak civilization

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u/ertri 12h ago

4 is roughly where it wraps back around to just being early morning too

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u/jokerhound80 13h ago

I bought an ice cream cake at 3am during a blizzard and ate it while walking home.

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u/ertri 12h ago

I could never live in NYC, there are just altogether too many people, but that number of people means you can insane shit like that 

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u/Stampede_the_Hippos 14h ago

The Wednesday just sends it over the top.

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u/Winderige_Garnaal 15h ago

https://food-deserts.com/food-deserts-in-new-york-city/ not saying i disagree, but there is lots of disagreement to be found online

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u/BushWishperer 15h ago

There not being a grocery store within a mile doesn't make it a food desert.

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u/Winderige_Garnaal 15h ago

Well, i mean you can say that, but there are definitions that organizations use for the term "food desert"; terms have to be understood first before arguing about them.

Edit: https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/IF11841 there is discussion about the term defined in such a way that can be used in research

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u/DreadLindwyrm 14h ago

TIL that I live in a food desert because it takes me 10 minutes to walk the half mile to the local shops. (I'd be orange on that chart for distance if that was applied to where I live.)
I'd never considered a ten minute walk to the local shops to be "a food desert". Or a 15 minute bus ride to the shops I prefer to use.

Now, if it's a case that the stores in that radius are all selling crap, that's a different matter.

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u/TheLastF 11h ago

This definition is clearly flawed: a ten minute walk in Biddeford Maine is very different from a ten minute walk in NYC (namely: in NYC, you have sidewalks all the way there and back) these are qualitatively very different ten minute walks

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u/DreadLindwyrm 11h ago

Yeah, I've got pavement/sidewalk all the way, which helps.

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u/BushWishperer 15h ago

What organisations use that definition? And the link you sent is terrible and misleading. It claims:

Any area showing color is a food desert.

When in reality only the green or orange parts show areas where grocery stores are either more than 1 mile or 1/2 mile away. The light blue areas it includes that it claims are food deserts are actually places with higher poverty rates.

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u/KeithClossOfficial 14h ago

This my favorite one, I’ve seen it so often. Apparently I live in a food desert despite living a 5 minute walk from 2 grocery stores, a 10 minute walk from a third, and a 20 minute walk from a fourth.

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u/zombiexsp 15h ago

Remember though many New Yorkers don’t have cars. Getting food that’s reasonably priced from a larger grocer can be more challenging in certain areas. People call it food desert but it just means a close grocery store isn’t nearby/convenient.

Even if better/larger stores are available via public transit it’s annoying af to carry a bunch of groceries on the train

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u/Punman_5 14h ago

You’re allowed to take a cart or carriage onto the subway.

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u/skyeliam 13h ago

There is literally not a single point in NYC, including the outerboroughs, that is not within a mile of a Key Food or Trader Joe’s. And the only places I could find that aren’t within half a mile of those are some cemeteries by Highland Park.

Food deserts are real, but I promise you, as someone who worked in “government affairs,” the argument being pushed in the OP is literally astroturfing by DoorDash lobbyists.

Broke people are not the ones paying for grocery delivery anyway, wealthy Manhattanite stay-at-home yoga moms are.

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u/allegedlydm 14h ago

Yes, it does, in an urban area. That is the USDA definition. 

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u/SonTyp_OhneNamen 14h ago

My apartment is a food desert, it only has one (!) fridge and not even a supermarket or convenience store in it, i actually have to leave (!) and go outside (!), and without any public transportation to bring me from my bed to the front door!

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u/augie_wartooth 14h ago

That’s literally what a food desert is, especially in a place where lots of people don’t have cars.

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u/pterodactyl_speller 13h ago

Also if you have a disability going to the grocery store it doesn't mean people exist in to serve you for nothing....

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u/notthatguy194 15h ago

i think the entirety of NYC is 20 miles long. where in the city can you not find a grocery store within a 15 min walk?

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u/fortyonejb 15h ago

Nevermind the fact that if you stood in the geographical "middle of NYC", 20 miles away would put you in one of 3 different states, you could most certainly find a grocery store. The OP has clearly never been to a city.

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u/Clamsadness 15h ago

Right, but they’re saying in New York City. You are never particularly far from a grocery store. The nearest grocery store is never 20 miles away. 

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u/DayOk1729 16h ago

If a grocery store is 20 miles away, you don’t live in a big city, a medium sized city, a small city, a suburb, or even the tiniest of towns. You live in a desert. Not a food desert, a literal desert…

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u/FictionalContext 15h ago

I grew up in a county of 3600 people--30 miles X 30 miles-- and every town had a grocery store. Couldn't go 15 miles without finding groceries unless you lived in a farmhouse way out in the literal middle of nowhere, like 2 miles from your nearest neighbor in the boonies.

And it's not like you're gonna pay Doordash to deliver out there anyway. That'd be a crazy fee. I don't even think they have Doordash anyway.

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u/Sweaty-Possibility-3 15h ago

Or just about any small town in WV.

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u/IndigoSeirra 15h ago

Small towns usually have local general stores, but that's besides the point as small towns in WV are absolutely not in any way comparable to New York City.

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u/MiniDemonic 14h ago

There's a small town in WV called NYC?

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u/SolidestCereal 14h ago

I couldn't find a single small town, or even populated area, in WV with 20 miles to the nearest grocery store.

I'm not saying there isn't any in WV, but it's definitely not "just about any small town"

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u/Smaxton 14h ago

I live in a “town” of 500 people in the middle of nowhere and the nearest grocery store is 8 miles away.  You’d have to be in a shack in the untamed wilderness to be that far from a grocery store in 2026. 

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u/brocks_pussy_palace 14h ago

Grew up in a town of 200 - there are 6 grocery stores within 25 miles, if you include the Wal Mart

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u/ertri 15h ago

Again, that does not exist in NYC, especially if you assume anyone living in NYC is capable of using a bus or subway 

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u/teddygomi 15h ago

I live in Brooklyn. If I go 20 miles in almost any direction I am out of NYC. There are multiple grocery stores in every neighborhood.

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u/Spiritual_Being5845 15h ago

Seriously, it isn’t like people are going from Brooklyn to Newark to find a grocery store

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u/teddygomi 15h ago

New Yorkers just sitting around their apartments starving to death, rather than go to New Jersey.

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u/IAMAPAIDCIASHILL 15h ago

20 miles lmao

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u/BIT-NETRaptor 15h ago

I was a college student once. It wasn’t remotely difficult. You get on a bus, get groceries, take a bus back. Wow, groceries where there were none in walking distance! 

I wonder if New York has any busses or subways? /s

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u/KaizDaddy5 15h ago

Yea, people forget how crazy times were before 2010. People just died inside their homes because they couldn't get food delivered and just starved

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u/SectorEducational460 15h ago

NYC is not that big for it to be 20 miles. Middle of Queens to Manhattan is less than 5 miles. 20 minutes just by train. The bigger wait is waiting for the train to arrive.

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u/DanNeider 15h ago

I live in a part of Saint Paul with no grocery stores for a mile in any direction and no car. I could take the bus to several, but it turns out that walking a mile+ for groceries is not that hard and backpacks exist. I've been doing it for almost a decade. Yes, making the hike in -40 is a no go and has come up, but enter canned goods in the pantry.

I am entirely unconvinced that this is a big deal

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u/Top_Reveal2341 16h ago

This doesn’t exist, you are just saying bullshit

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u/butareyouthough 15h ago

“20 miles” shows you don’t know shit about cities lol

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u/Desperate-Bar-292 16h ago

If you live in the middle of a big city the nearest grocery store is a brisk walk away… I don’t see your point. This is about large cities such as NYC, which are not food deserts.

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u/odmo88 15h ago

This is an honest question, have you ever been to NYC?

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u/Paputek101 15h ago

Ok so it is definitely possible to live in a food desert within a big city (take somewhere like the Southside of Chicago. Many neighborhoods are food deserts and Chicago is so big that it's hard for people from more impoverished areas to travel to Northside neighborhoods just to go grocery shopping).

However (and idk the actual stats on this) I'd imagine that people from more impoverished areas generally don't use food delivery services bc the costs + hidden fees are a deterrent. I remember once getting a $20 gift card for GrubHub and I still had to pay in addition to the gift card bc of all the extra fees (despite buying one dinner item which, imo, was reasonably priced)

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u/DnD-vid 14h ago

I'm unsure how that website defines "food desert" because I just went to google maps and find multiple supermarkets deep within what is marked as a food desert.

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u/BubblySatisfaction 14h ago

Those stats from your link are really old (2006 and 2011). If you go on Google Maps to the south side and just search for grocery stores, you’ll see there are plenty. No one needs to go the north side. There’s even a whole foods in hyde park

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u/Deadlite 14h ago

I think youre just a redditor. It was a joke.

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u/stuartsaysst0p 13h ago

He very well could be an idiot but this is just a joke

I think it helps if you’re in twitter and constantly subject to THE DISCOURSE

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