Source: In These Times
by J Patrick Patterson
“Across the country, entire neighborhoods are losing their grocery stores — and not just big chains, but independents as well as family-owned shops and markets. It’s part of a broader pattern of food access disappearing where it’s needed most, often in poorer neighborhoods, larger Black or Latino communities and areas with a history of disinvestment. Some companies, like Walmart and Kroger, promote themselves as ‘a community partner’ only to turn around and cite the very same conditions as reasons to leave. In the South and West Sides of Chicago and parts of Detroit or Kansas City, Mo., grocery stores have left, citing low profits, crime or aging infrastructure. Other times, stores simply consolidate or move to wealthier suburbs. Have city-run stores been tried? Yep! But mostly in rural areas. Baldwin, Fla. (a town of about 1,300) opened its own grocery store, in 2019, after the last independently owned one closed.” (12/03/25)