That seems backwards to me. When I lived in suburbia grocery shopping was always a "trip" 5+ min drive, find a place to park, walk through the parking lot into a large store, etc. Grabbing even one thing meant at least 15 min of overhead so you'd usually try to stock up.

Whereas now I can be inside of three convenience stores and a full service grocer within 3 minutes of walking. If I drive I pass several other full grocers on the 8min/2.5 mile trip home.

This is in Milwaukee, not a NY or Sf type of place. Most people in my neighborhood still drive everywhere, you just don't have to.

> I think it's the non-car dependent folks that (good or bad) have "no option".

In cities people typically have a grocery store within 5 to 10 minutes walk from home.

San Francisco is quite walkable by American standards but certain areas are very lacking. For example the southeast portion of the city has a dearth of hospitals and the Tenderloin and Bayview neighborhoods have a startling lack of grocery stores.

The southeast could definitely have a dearth of hospitals (I think everyone should live near a hospital within a few minutes of them, esp. with San Francisco traffic), but Tenderloin has a grocery store (with fresh veggies, eggs, milk, etc) on nearly every block, with many having TWO. I get that quite a few people refuse to shop anywhere that isn't 70+k sqft, like Costco or Whole Paycheck, but these areas are not food deserts.

No, The Tenderloin does not have grocery stores on every block. They have liquor stores (corner stores, bodegas, whatever you wanna call them) that typically have a mediocre selection of fresh produce (if any at all).

It's not about having a large floor plan, it's about access to fresh food. The Bayview sees the same thing, although as SFGate points out Fresh and Easy did try. They failed too.

http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Tenderloin-struggles-t...

> In cities people typically have a grocery store within 5 to 10 minutes walk from home.

That really depends on the city, and on which part of the city one lives in: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_desert

Because I can afford to do so, I choose to live in a nice walkable neighborhood where I do have a grocery store within walking distance, but this is absolutely not the case in most poor urban neighborhoods, including many areas of my city.

The USDA's Food Desert definition is total bullshit, for example, you could drop me nearly anywhere in Tukwila, WA and I could be in a large grocery store within 10 minutes of walking. If we include smaller stores, I can be in a store buying eggs, milk, fresh veggies & fruit of higher quality than Costco or Whole Paycheck in a 6 to 7 minute walk, and pay with EBT at any of them (if I qualified).

This is exactly why attempts to tackle this supposed "food desert" problem have fallen flat on their face. These areas aren't food deserts, they just don't have a mega-store every other block, thus they are incorrectly classified as a food desert.

With some basic cleanup, the USDA could focus on areas that are actual food deserts, where there is a need and their efforts won't go to waste.

Edit: removed extra comma.

Mileage varies. In my city, the poor neighborhoods are a 30 minute bus ride from a proper grocery. It's a 10 minute drive max.

Most people there get food from a bodega type place.

Thats the thing though, a "proper" grocery in most HN readers minds is a large supermarket. Most actual groceries aren't sold by chains though, bodegas, corner delis, green grocers, and an assortment of Asian, Mexican and other small grocers sell a huge chunk of the fresh fruit and vegetables here in the US, since they have the upper hand when it comes to location, price and quality.

That being said, many are quick to dismiss them since they don't have the nicest/largest stores, or the most advanced systems. By doing so your ignoring reality, as that is how most people get their food, hence why they (generally) accept EBT.

In my state, almost everyone takes EBT. Even farmers markets. A proper grocery in my mind sells produce, dairy, a locally appropriate fresh meat selection and dry goods.

In an urban market, these type of stores are 15,000-30,000 sqft. We have a few markets like this in my city, but they are in nicer areas.

Poor folk have corner stores that are <3000 sqft. We don't have the Asian produce markets or Mexican markets that you are thinking of. They generally don't sell produce, and if they do they low quality and 2x expensive.

We had a crisis about a decade ago because 80% of these stores were temporarily shut down after the owners were arrested for accepting food stamps for heroin. They aren't nice places that anyone chooses to do business with.

Not in the US. San Francisco is one of the US's densest cities, and eastern SoMa is one of its densest neighborhoods, right next to downtown. It's about a square mile, and there are no real grocery stores in it at all (east of 4th St).

What are you talking about? East of 4th in SoMa I count 7 grocery stores, and if your unwilling to shop at anything sub-70k sqft, there are two. Most of the neighborhood east of 4th is within 1 to 2 blocks of a grocery store (with eggs, fresh fruit/veggies, and other essentials), and within 4 blocks of a megastore like Whole Paycheck or Costco if you really want their prepackaged crap.

This is just like the whole "Food Desert" scheme by the USDA, where they try to create stores in areas with local grocers already. For example, they define Tukwila, WA as a food desert [1], yet there are multiple places within the area they defined that stock fresh food and are EBT approved (Seafood City, 99 Ranch, Costco, Cash & Carry, etc).

This is why the attempts to get rid of these supposed deserts fall flat. Those that need or want to shop local already do, at places others like yourself ignore cause they feel they aren't of high enough caliber.

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

I've never considered that shopping habits might play a role in the whole US/EU wash-or-don't discussion.

Where I live most people go to the supermarket regularly. I go almost daily, for example. As a result, stuff doesn't need to have a very long shelf life (and refrigerators here are, to many of my American friends, hilariously small).

When I'm biking a lot I tend to make a small grocery store trio daily instead of a huge one weekly.