Where'd the Grocery Store Go?

Are you certain there are no bad guys here? (0.00 / 0)

May I nominate two? 

NYC "Planning" Commissioner Amanda Burden and her employer, Mayor Michael Bloomberg look to me like good candidates for "the bad guy" in this story. They've facilitated wild over-building booms and super-high residental and commercial rents. Thus, Ms. Burden's Lack of Planning Commission approves projects without regard to their neighborhood impacts. Developers need not provide for schools, stores or transit under Mr. Bloomberg's laissez-faire doctrine.

As rents soar, very large, low-margin businesss like supermarkets, cannot pay the increases. Commercial rent control, vital to ensure the survival of needed neighborhood businesses, is not on the free-market agenda of Mr. Bloomberg and his employees.  

 

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by: Daniel Millstone @ Tue May 06, 2008 at 11:00:31 AM UTC

commercial rent control and false consciousness (0.00 / 0)

I second the well-deserved nominations of Mayor Bloomberg and  "Lack of Planning" Commisioner Burden. There are indeed "bad guys" on this issue, though the blame for the failure to enact commercial rent control should extend to many recent mayors, many leaders of the City Council--and to our unfair system of government where New York City does not have home rule and cannot enact needed rent control measures on its own but can only do so through the state government.    

Let me add a vignette regarding what I view as false consciousness regarding commercial rent control. A decade ago, a beloved video store in my neighborhood announced it was closing. This was before everyone had turned to DVDs; rental of VCR tapes was still common. The store was closing, like many, because while making a profit, the owners' lease was up and they were facing a staggering rent increase that would wipe out all their earnings.

In a conversation with one of the owners days before the store finally closed, I mentioned the need for commercial rent control and how Ruth Messinger had spoken out on this issue while Borough President of Manhattan. To my dismay, this owner--just about to lose his business because of a massive rent increase--made it clear that he was opposed to commercial rent control. Because if HE owned the building, he wouldn't want government telling him that he couldn't get the maximum rent for the storefront. He identified more with his theoretical right to make every possible dollar as landlord than with his actual position as a tenant who was losing a longtime business with strong community roots because New York City has no commercial rent control.

I've never quite recovered from that conversation. 

 

 

 

 

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by: Bob Lamm @ Tue May 06, 2008 at 12:02:28 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

getting grocery stores back in the neighborhood (0.00 / 0)

A few years ago, the grocery store a few blocks from me closed, and banners for a new CVS soon appeared outside the building.  The neighbors were annoyed--there were already three drugstores within two blocks, and little need for another one.  People began protesting outside of the new CVS and distributing flyers calling for a boycott.  As a result either of the boycott, or of its own idiocy in opening so close to three other drugstores, the CVS closed within a matter of months.  And. . . a paint store took its place--even less useful for most of the neighborhood.  On the one hand, this was a great example of community organizing--people really did work together on an issue of common concern. . . but on the other hand, no one could figure out how to get what we really needed.

A few years later, my favorite fruit & vegetable stand closed unceremoniously-- I went shopping there one day, and then a few days later, walked by and noticed that it had closed without even a note of explanation.  I'm assuming it went the way of the video store in the same building, and of so many other businesses in the neighborhood that are giving way to banks and, um, more banks.  

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by: Rabbi Jill Jacobs @ Tue May 06, 2008 at 13:56:14 PM UTC

Plant the flag (0.00 / 0)

My friend used to have this fantasy that every time an empty store front opened up in Manhattan, two guys immediately started running toward the store from opposite directions - one waving a Starbucks flag, the other a CVS. Whoever got there first and planted the flag determined the next occupant of the space.

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by: Hannah Farber @ Tue May 06, 2008 at 14:05:11 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

a small solution: green carts? (0.00 / 0)

recently the council and bloomberg in coordination with the department of health passed a green carts bill that would increase the number of vending licenses to areas where there is a low density of fresh fruits and vegetables. (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/24/nyregion/thecity/24cart.html?scp=4&sq=fruit+carts+new+york&st=nyt)

 it seems like a small solution, and the bill raised the ire of the bodega association, and the small biz crowd, but i think it's smart. in neighbourhoods like east new york, grocery stores are closing, bodegas carry the essentials, but not a selection of fruit and vegetables. why not have carts offer fresh produce? seems to work on the upper west side where there's more supermarkets and fruit carts in two city blocks than a whole zip code in brooklyn or queens.

 of course, we'll have to see how the doh executes the bill...

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by: Angela Lee @ Fri May 09, 2008 at 13:31:32 PM UTC

It strikes me that the Bloomberg push-carts are at least as likely to (0.00 / 0)

make the problem worse as they are to increase fresh food availability. The push carts pay no rent and will thus be able to sell at prices lower than rent, worker and electricity paying stores. Won't, to the degree they are successful, push-carts push more food stores out of business? 

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by: Daniel Millstone @ Fri May 09, 2008 at 19:01:49 PM UTC

not necessarily (0.00 / 0)

i remember an interesting article a while back in City Limits about a study that had been done that looked at the impact street vendors had on local retail stores. it concluded (if i remember correctly) that vendors help local retail stores more than they hurt them because they attract more shoppers to an area.

if the area stores don't really sell produce anyway, the pushcarts aren't competition.  and vibrant neighborhoods reduce crime and help all businesses.

the bigger problem for union groceries in NY are the large fancy food stores (like whole foods) that are not union and are rapidly taking market share. ironically, the food prices at those stores are much higher, despite paying their workers lower wages.

"When something important is going on, silence is a lie." -- A.M. Rosenthal

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by: Mik Moore @ Fri May 09, 2008 at 19:17:01 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

electronic repellent (0.00 / 0)

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by: guoxing @ Thu Oct 20, 2011 at 03:39:33 AM UTC