Our favorite hobby columnist explores the true nature of the urban grocery gap:
Hybrid buses and shiny trains aren't going to solve those problems. Buses and trains are networked transportation with virtually no flexibility. Yet we continue to spend millions of dollars on mass transit that ultimately subsidizes the convenience of Vikings season-ticket holders from Bloomington more than it makes grocery shopping less expensive and more convenient for a Leon Davis.
Despite Rybak's credulity, existence of a "grocery gap" makes perfect sense, and it is largely the result of utopian policies that ignore everyday realities like grocery shopping via a bus or train. The solution to the grocery gap is not Rybak meeting with executives from Lunds, Whole Foods and Kowalski's markets--not the places to stretch your food budget, unless you're shopping for "Lobster Helper."
The solution is providing convenient transportation from urban areas to existing grocery stores. (How about a jitney service from urban neighborhoods to suburban markets?)
Solution? What a novel approach. The truth of the matter is that the Twin Cities planning powers that be really aren't interested in practical solutions to the problems that they pretend to care so much about, but rather their grandoise vision of how things ought to be.
King weighs in with an economic perspective on the "grocery gap."
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