First, the question must be asked, “Why are these places ‘food deserts’ in the first place?”
Much of the time, the answer will be for the same reason that take out food delivery has “redlined” them as unsafe. Even the USPS refuses to do home delivery to homes or apartments there, instead either providing drop boxes and keys, or requiring residents to pick up their mail at the post office.
In the worst of such places, police are forbidden to be alone there, must work in teams, and whenever the ‘natives’ are restless, and/or their local government will not support the police, even the dispatchers do not bother to send officers when they get emergency calls.
Major retailers won’t move there, and even ‘mom & pop’ stores quit after being robbed repeatedly in between angry shoplifting by “gimmee dats”.
So, now all the welfare kings and queens won’t even have to walk a 1/2 mile to get food?
RIDICULOUS!
Now, if they have to pay for delivery, I’m up with that.
No.
We’ve lived here for 50+ years and it’s 20 miles to the grocery store. Before that, the family lived 40 miles from a grocery store. No public transportation but no problems.
As for USPS? Ha! Mail is supposed to be delivered around noon. Most times it doesn’t show up until 5 pm. Sometimes is isn’t delivered or picked up at all. Then there’s the mail that is delivered to the wrong address. UPS isn’t any better. They hid packages by tossing them in the bushes or sliding them under vehicles. The last food item they delivered to the neighbor, they sneaked it to the door because it was leaking and ruined. The guy parked away from the door. We were sitting by the door with the windows open and didn’t see him.
Do you want service like that for your meals? I don’t.
Do you want more taxes going to this? I don’t.
The EBT crowd and get off the couch, catch a bus and do their own shopping. I don’t get front door grocery delivery so I shouldn’t have to pay for them to get this super duper extra special pampering.
if the post office gets involved, the food will be delivered to the wrong address anyhow.
Yes, this “food desert” BS is just that—BS.
Whoever said all your food needs to be available within a half mile? Those who are poor in the US get all kinds of subsidies, and most localities have volunteer and/or government programs to help the poor.
These “food deserts” that we are supposed to be so upset about are inner-city neighborhoods that have robust bus and subway services, etc.
And our postal service needs to go—we can more effectively competitively bid and contract to third-party providers rather than government employees who have grown inefficient under union protection that never should have been allowed near government employees anyway.
Thoughts?
1. cradle to grave evolves to stove to door service.
2. put it out for bid with
a. FED EX
b. UPS
C. Uber
Food deserts, eh?
Guess that’s why the population of those “food deserts” is vastly overweight.
Count on the Guardian to come up with the wrong solution to the wrong problem every time.
I’m pretty sure I’m 10 miles from the nearest supermarket—didn’t know I was in a ‘food desert’. But, the only time the mail carrier’s truck is refrigerated is when the temps are below 30 (they drive with the windows down). Why would the postal service even have “refrigerated trucks”? The three students with odd-sounding names, must not get out much.
Food insecure and food deserts. Leftist BS talk for more welfare. Food deserts is code for stores won’t stay in business in neighborhoods where they are robbed and shot at constantly. Free money for groceries isn’t enough, now they want it delivered to them too.
What a bunch of ma1arkey! 1 out of 7 people I know IS NOT FOOD DEPRIVED and we are a very rural. Your just plain stupid if you are starving in city and I don’t care how poor you are.
Email has killed USPS, but Amazon (and other) deliveries are saving it I believe.
And Amazon will probably be moving into grocery delivery. There is no doubt a market for having your basic predictable grocery staples delivered weekly to your door, you then only go to the market for the odds and ends.
That’s assuming it can be done at a reasonable price. If delivery was done by USPS, that would probably put them back on the road to being profitable. I do believe USPS should be privatized, though. Hence, my remark that maybe Amazon should just buy them.
MREs, but not fresh food. We don’t want the post office to deliver wilted produce.
Second, USPS service stinks. My lazy incompetent mailman always puts my mail in the mailbox of my neighbor, leaving it for her, who is not paid to sort the mail, to remove my mail from the pile in her mailbox and put it into mine. Last week, it was raining like a monsoon and my magazine got completely ruined from being in my neighbor's leaky plastic junk mailbox instead of my steel lockable waterproof mailbox. I called (once again) to complain. If you used USPS to deliver food, it would moulder and rot before it reached its recipients, and attract vermin to mailboxes.
Good lord.
Private groups already have a well developed system of food distribution in urban areas. In my area it is called Harvesters. They have tractor trailers to pick up donated food and move it around. They also solicit trucking companies to donate spare space on their loads.
From their hub in town, churches, food pantries, etc can pick up the food. Its already a well developed system, without getting the post office involved. They also deliver once a week to schools, to give the kids a backpack of food for the weekend...because they get free school food during the week but can’t depend on their craptastic parents to provide food over the weekend. Its thousands of backpacks a week.
Admittedly the local county government does make a block grant to this group every year, but its a lot more privatized than the post office would be.
I've only spent a little time in NYC, but I am assuming these "food deserts" exist there, right? How could they, with a freaking 'bodega' on every corner? I'll never understand the nutty left.