In the News
Shopping for a Neighborhood
Bringing Back the Grocery Store to the Inner City
Philadelphia Daily News, July 11, 2005
About 40 years ago, supermarket owners began to board up their inner-city neighborhood stores and high-tail it to the suburbs, where the vegetables seemed greener, the shoppers richer and the parking lots bigger.
They followed the "white flight" vapor trails. With 1 percent profit margins the industry norm, owners thought they could improve their bottom line outside the urban areas. Low-income folks, the thinking went, couldn't sustain a profitable supermarket.
That belief has been proven wrong. In the early '90s, supermarkets began to trickle back to the inner cities, sobered by new data that showed "consumer spending power present in such neighborhoods traditionally has been underestimated," according to a 2001 report by Michael A. Stegman and Jennifer S. Lobenhofer for the Center for Community Capitalism at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
But the continued dearth of supermarkets has had a negative impact on inner-city residents.
Limited access to affordable fresh, healthy food has led them to poor nutritional habits, obesity and increased mortality rates. Plus, they must pay more for food at their neighborhood grocery stores, according to a recent report by the Brookings Institution.
But finally here in Pennsylvania, financial enticements and logistical help are being used to lure supermarkets to underserved areas.
The Pennsylvania Fresh Food Financing Initiative, a year-old public/private partnership with the Reinvestment Fund, the Food Trust and the Greater Philadelphia Urban Affairs Coalition, used $10 million in state money to leverage $40 million to finance supermarkets.
Created by state Rep. Dwight Evans, the program has funded five projects - including the ShopRite on Island Avenue - and approved 20 more.
In 2005/06, the program will get another $10 million, and the anticipated leverage from matching private funds (through the Reinvestment Fund) could create an $80 million pool and "a one-stop shop for financing supermarkets and other grocery retailers," Evans' office said.
The city, through its Commerce Department, has also been useful in working with interested supermarket owners.
Whether the city should create a department geared specifically for this task is worth considering.
As would be a marketing study to determine the true demands of neighborhoods for supermarkets.
Now, inner-city grocery stores "have proven not only viable but often more successful than their counterparts in suburbs or elsewhere in the central city," Stegman and Lobenhofer write in their report.
The success stories are there: Shop-Rite, Fresh Grocer (which has signed a lease to operate its fourth Philly store at Progress Plaza), and the recently opened Collins Family Market in Chester.
They've set up shop and are providing the type of food, services and jobs its neighborhood residents want - and need.
Supermarkets do have a significant impact on a neighborhood. We know the bad that happens when they leave. Imagine the good that can happen when they return.