Detroit Spirals Further into Misery: Last Grocery Stores Close

The only grocery store in my old neighborhood closed recently and they're turning it into a massive dollar store :\.

It is depressing that the citizens of Detroit have no grocery stores. But on the bright side they don't have to worry about getting stuck with a shopping cart where one of the wheels is busted. God I hate that. It's like "Hello, I came here to buy some Mott's apple juice. Not simulate the experience of using a jackhammer. Thank you very much."

I don't even understand how that works. Is it the run on effect from some kind of pantry shortage?

A *EDIT*, as it were?

All of Detroit's problems will be over once OCP starts building New Detroit.

Hold on one second. The article says that there will be "no national chain supermarkets." That doesn't mean no grocery stores, that just means no chains. I ran a Google Map search for "grocery stores Detroit" and got a bunch of hits.

Okay, we're supposed to hate the big chains for destroying the family-owned stores, but now we're supposed to hate the family-owned stores for destroying the big chains? I'm so confused, Detroit.

Yeah, I didn't read the whole thing. Sorry. Trying to pry myself away from CHUD to get some work done and failing! miserably!

Cost may be a problem, but I don't know that quality will be. The local grocery stores I visit tend to have higher-quality products than the chains, and these aren't really snooty specialty stores, just neighborhood groceries. They are a little pricier, but there must be a way to do it on the cheap. It sounds to me like a good opportunity for some enterprising local business people, if someone was willing to take it.

Yeah, but we all know whoever swoops in there will exploit the situation.

(I know, arguing against big business, its a weird day for me)

If I had known all I had to do to get rid of Wal-Mart was to sell crack on the corner, I would have given up meth.

My apologies -- fixed!

Not quite sure what you mean by that, as I thought we were referring to the quality of products in the store, and not life in general, but I don't think the quality of life is going to improve at all because there aren't any chain grocery stores. I was just saying that, lacking a national chain that's willing to step up and provide this resource to the people, some locals should see what they can do.

Jesus, Overlord, I don't fucking know! If the people care about their community, perceive this as a problem, and can get support, then someone's going to at least try. A large local chain closed around here a few years back and three other local chains stepped up and filled their stores. Let's see if capitalism swoops in and saves the day, hm? If not, perhaps Wal-Mart can continue to take advantage of economically disadvantaged people. Hooray for them.

We should just wall off Detroit and call it Thunderdome.

At least then someone would sell hot dogs, right?

Escape from Detroit.

"Must. Get. To. Windsor."

Yeah, but they'd be made of human meat.

Well, more human meat than normal hot dogs.

It is true that the local corner grocery stores are much better when it comes to service. I go to one out here run by an old Italian couple. They're so polite. When I first went there they didn't carry Mott's apple juice but now they do. I walk in all the time and Giuseppe greets me with "Hello Mr. (name withheld)! I gotta ya Mott's right here!"

Let me guess, did the guy gesture to his crotch when he said "right here!"

That's New York.

Well how am I to know what are the idiosyncrasies of the Sacramento's Italian population.

Hey, the Italian community is part of what makes Sacramento such a so-so place to live.

To learn more about Sacramento's Italian culture, please visit here:

http://www.italiancenter.net/

Silly me, I was thinking of going to Italy when I can go to SACRAMENTO! I think the last time I was there it was five years ago and I went skydiving.

Skydiving in Sacramento? Man, I'd have to think real hard if it was worth pulling that ripcord.

He katana'd those supermarkets good

I think the bigger question would be if you didn't pull that rip chord. Just who would get all of those dvds?

I don't understand. Detroit doesn't have enough people who eat to support a national grocery store?

It's offical folks, Detroit is the real world's version of Carcer City. I think we need to keep an eye out on Brian Cox, just to make sure he doesn't get out of line.

But the Lions are 2-0. I thought that meant everything is great.

That's New Orleans. Idiot.

EDIT: Well, not this year. Everything must suck down there again.

It's amazing how my handle can get worked into any story regarding Detroit.

It's not just Grocery Stores. Even the (extremely) few upper class areas of the city have no recognizable shopping districts (department stores, shoe stores, etc) to speak of. But shopping is the least of this cities problems, considering It's a 50% chance that no one will respond to any given 911 call.

For those not aquainted with this fair city, peruse the google links you hit when you search for Ruins of Detroit

I've actually got a fairly nice yupscale grocery store right next to me, but generally, all of us urban hipsters drive to the stores/shopping malls in the burbs.

However, the majority of the cities inhabitants don't have working vehicles, so are dependent on possibly the most pathetic public transportation systems in the U.S. A Badly run bus service is it, unless you count "The People Mover", which is a tiny monorail that covers an extremely small section of downtown, so is almost exclusively used by people hitting a Tiger/Redwings game.

It can't be all bad in Detroit, the Lions are 2 and 0!

ETA:Holy shit I've got to start refreshing the page before i post.

So did Urban Hell occur before Robocop, or did the population just get inspired and go on a two decade rampage?

The People Mover! Is that like the Wedway (sp) People Mover they used to have at Epcot Center in the 80s? Because that was a shitty little monorail that was used to showcase some of the horrific future world exhibits. I never though they would build one in real life. But if they did, Detriot is the perfect home for it.

Like many others, Detroit fascinates me. What's the next headline? - "Local Police, Doctors and Firemen Leave the City." Excellent.

That was actually in Tomorrowland in the Magic Kingdom, and it's still there, just renamed the Tomorrowland Transit Authority, and still zipping along through absolutely nothing. We still ride it every time we go though -- you get a cool view of Space Mountain and you get off your feet for a couple of minutes.

Check out some of the photo's on those google links. They're amazingly accurate representation of what 95% of the city looks like. The small pockets of niceness that do exist are positioned in a rather haphazard way. For instance, you can go to the very nice grocery store/strip mall kitty corner to my location, but it's ill advised for someone who's not African-American to walk into the seedy liquor store across the street from it.

The niceness of Downtown exists in roughly a 4 square mile area, from the Renaissance Center up to the stadiums and over to Greektown (which really should be called "Greek Block"), but there's a lot of abandoned buildings interspersed around it. Heading North from there you enter a post-apocalyptic area referred to as Cass Corridor, and woe be on to the hapless traveler who finds themselves making a wrong turn to highway 75. There's a few other pockets of sanity (Wayne State University, University of Detroit Campus, Indian Village, Rivertown, Corktown, etc.) but once you're out past into the sprawl, it's pretty much Mad Max territory until you hit the 8 Mile/Telegraph/Gratiot borders. Than you get varying niceness suburb cities, which is where the huge majority of the people live.

Detroit is the biggest case of White flight in recorded history, so the "metro-Detroit" area is a monument to urban sprawl. It's almost spread out to the capitol city of Lansing, which is in the dead center of the state.

A botched response to a hurricane.

I've been shot at in my mispent youth, and had many other physical altercations, but nothing to speak of in the past 15 years. Of course, I live in a gated building/parking lot so it limits my exposure pretty heavily.

Street crime in the main downtown area is surprisingly low, because no one walks around outside of Greektown and the stadium areas, and there's a bastion of (useless)Wayne County sherrifs in the area. People leave places and head directly to their car. Outside of the main downtown area is where all the real stuff goes down.

And yes, it's a lost cause. Back when Dennis Archer was in charge 12 years ago, there was a real upswing in the cities hopes after the 20+ years of Coleman Young destroying the city. Since Kwame ("That not my Navigator") Kilpatrick took charge, it's back to massive corruption as usual.

It's only hope really is OCP paving it over to make New Detroit.

I can only wonder what it's like for the folks over in Winsdor. I mean how are things on the other side of the bridge?