CharacterBrief9121 t1_isyjkdv wrote on October 19, 2022 at 5:13 PM

Reply to comment by ThunderySleep in As Wawa shutters Center City stores, Philly DA Krasner plays defense by User_Name13

Dudes bringing up a good point, that closing these stores will make it harder for people near those closed stores will have a harder time finding food. Which is mostly true, I’m sure some people did use it as their primary food resource. But your understanding of a food desert is flawed. I wouldn’t say restaurants are something that doesn’t make a food desert. Take for example a small town, pop less than 1,000. 2 stores in town for over 15 mi any direction. The two stores? 1 gas station/store/subway and 1 family pizza joint. Sure at both places you could spend five times as much as the ingredients would be more the same meal, but that’s also traveling the 15 miles. You could eat but at a premium. Neither of those places could you buy everything you would need to make basic meals and 2 use EBT. You can use EBT at a gas station but not for prepared/hot food. That’s a good desert but it has a “Wawa” and it has a restaurant. Do you understand what a food desert is now? You are probably closer to one than you think. I live in one myself I just have the ability and resources to drive that far to get food.

ThunderySleep t1_isyl4z7 wrote on October 19, 2022 at 5:23 PM

Technically, it's one less option, but I've lived where these locations are. There are more food options there than anywhere else I've lived, and I've been lucky enough to mostly live in nice places as an adult. Grocery stores, take-out places, casual restaurants, fine-dining, I mean everything. It's the major appeal of that area.

I totally agree food deserts area real, and philadelphia has them. And this conversation is starting making sense if imagining a general outsider perspective of X store closing in X city, but if you're familiar with the areas these stores are in it's the antithesis of a food desert. Closer to a culinary mecca. I'm talking 200+ options on grubhub, fancy coffee shops on every corner, suishi places every other block, any cuisine you can think of, etc, on top of the regular grocery stores (which are pricey, but it's an expensive area).

As for Wawa in/around philly, they're mostly in the nicer areas that aren't at all food deserts, or they're in car-traffic heavy areas, like the plaza off Deleware ave. If there were Wawas sprinkled through Grey's Ferry, I could see their point better, but I don't think food deserts are super relevant to these particular stores closing.

CharacterBrief9121 t1_isylhao wrote on October 19, 2022 at 5:25 PM

I don’t live in Philly but have been there a few times. I don’t know enough about it. But in my town when the chain groceries came in everything else died. And it was Weis and Wegmanns. Not bad stores either it just crushed any competition. Virtually the same as Walmart and small shops. Impossible to compete.

ThunderySleep t1_isym6t2 wrote on October 19, 2022 at 5:30 PM

Big box stores definitely did a number on down-town America. It's been revived some places, but mostly in nicer, kind of touristy areas that can support enough restaurants and fancier boutique shops to create foot traffic. I'm just saying, these stores in particular aren't located in what would be a food desert by anyone's definition if they saw them.