Food Deserts

iVillage Member
Registered: 02-19-2008
Food Deserts
Sun, 02-08-2009 - 6:24pm

I'd like a Wal-Mart and Target supercenter near me. I'm glad they're considering location where they are more needed.

I vaguely recall Wal-Mart getting a hostile welcome from Chicago the last time they were about to move in. I wonder if the current economic situation has changed some minds?

http://www.wbbm780.com/Wal-Mart-May-Create-A-Dozen-Sites-To-Combat--Food-/3809746

Wal-Mart May Create A Dozen Sites To Combat 'Food Deserts'

CHICAGO -- Wal-Mart is scouting 12 properties in Chicago's "food desert" neighborhoods for new stores that sell groceries, according to a Wal-Mart spokesman.

About 500,000 Chicagoans live in food deserts with no easy access to mainstream grocery stores.

The Sun-Times previously reported that a pair of sites that once housed Ryerson Steel plants -- at 83rd and Stewart in Chatham and 111th and the Bishop Ford Expy. in Pullman -- could be first in line for new Wal-Marts, primarily because they appear to be the paths of least resistance. Wal-Mart is believed to also be looking to build at 47th and State, 63rd and Halsted, and 63rd and State.

The Daley administration last September issued a list of six sites in need of a grocery store that included 63rd and Halsted, 79th and Wentworth, Madison and Western, Cicero and Madison, 4700 to 5100 S. State St., and 115th and Michigan.

Wal-Mart spokesman John Bisio said there is a new sense of urgency from aldermen due to the worsening economy and job losses.