mindstalk | Re: Thoughts (Reply)

>>The US has around 8500 people per supermarket, and 2000 per (usually shitty) convenience store. <<

Yeah, it depends on the size of the store. A super-WalMart is a lot bigger than an ordinary grocery store, and some independent groceries are pretty small, before you even get down to the specialty ones. We were at Ashar today, which is an African specialty grocery, and is not much bigger than my living room (smaller than the living-dining greatroom actually).

I looked up Bismarck, the town closest to my parents' place. Population is 579. It's walkable. In fact I used to walk a couple miles home from the junior high. At that time it had a decent little grocery store, smaller than most convenience stores, plus a dairy that would sell you fresh flash-pasteurized milk. Both are now long gone, which means people have to drive half an hour to Danville for all shopping. I think that sucks.

But over in Mattoon, a considerably bigger town, the My Store (a small grocery) where my grandparents liked to shop is still open. Sometimes we get a few things from there which aren't easily found elsewhere. And it's probably still supported by foot traffic, as well as folks driving in from farther away.

I think it's interesting to look at the kinds and sizes of stores that a place supports. Champaign-Urbana (where we were today) has an African store, used to be a Mexican one there but I think there's one in a different place, at least one Asian, an international food store that has repeatedly outgrown its space over, hmm, 30 years or so, etc. Arcola's just a small town but it had a Mexican grocery store for a while, because there were lots of Mexican folks there; still has a couple good Mexican restaurants. And those local stores don't suck money out of the economy the way WalMart or other chainstores do.