Michelle Obama Supports Mayor Emanuel's Fight Against Food Deserts

[mucifer]

"There is some progress and attention coming to Mayor Emanuel's campaign to address the problems of food deserts within Chicago's various neighborhoods. We heard that Save-a-Lot food stores were opening up in areas where there is no immediate access to fresh and affordable groceries earlier this year, and Mayor Emanuel's efforts will bring First Lady Michelle Obama to Illinois to advocate the mayor's cause.

By tying in his campaign against food deserts with Michelle Obama's own "Let's Move!" campaign, Mayor Emanuel's efforts will be boosted by the First Lady's participation in a food summit Mayor Emanuel is presiding over on October 25."

more at http://chicagoist.com/2011/10/09/michelle_obama_supports_mayor_emanu.php

Mayor Emanuel isn't all bad. He's a bit of a mixed bag.

[leveymg]

1. "Food desert" an Orwellian term for Invite Wal*Mart into the Inner City.

F-ck Hiz Honor.

[MH1]

2. are you saying that food deserts don't exist?

are you equating Michael Nutter (mayor of Phila) efforts at addressing food deserts with inviting WalMart into lower income Philadelphia neighborhoods? (Fail.)

[leveymg]

3. No, I'm saying f-ck you to Mayor Rahm Emanuel and Wal*Mart.

Michelle should stay away from both.

[MH1]

5. Are Save-a-Lot food stores affiliated with WalMart?

I don't know much about them. Walked into one once and didn't find what I was looking for. However from what I remember it would be better than nothing, or better than high priced convenience store 'food'.

[leveymg]

7. I'm not the only one making these points, and it isn't just Chicago

#
Why is Michelle Obama's food initiative promoting Walmart? | Grist
www.grist.org/food/2011-07-21-walmart-michelle-obama-and-the-fu...Cached
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Jul 21, 2011 – He was speaking at Michelle Obama's event announcing that several ... heroic headlines for saying it will bring fresh food to places that lack it. ...
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Walmart's Fresh Food Makeover | The Nation
www.thenation.com/article/163396/walmarts-fresh-food-makeoverCached
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Sep 14, 2011 – Walmart's Fresh Food Makeover | The Nation ... In July Michelle Obama announced a joint plan by Walmart, Walgreens and SuperValu, along ...
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Food Desert | Michelle Obama, Wal-Mart and the 'food desert' issue ...
articles.latimes.com/.../la-heb-fruits-vegetables-poor-communities201...Cached
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Jul 22, 2011 – Michelle Obama, Wal-Mart and the 'food desert' problem ... a chain store and others are doing to try to make fresh fruits and vegetables more ...

[MH1]

9. But what about Sav-a-lot stores? Are they ok or part of the problem?

and either way, if walmart is the only place someone can get food, I'm not going to begrudge it. But I'd much rather see another store.

[Enrique]

25. I think they're very good

I don't see them having the same issues as Wal-Mart, and from the consumer point of view they are very good stores.

[MH1]

10. 'Page not found'

your links don't work.

[walerosco]

13. Better walmart than nothing

right?

[stevenleser]

28. That person doesnt care that people are dying because of food deserts. Their priority is attacking

Walmart and Rahm.

[chill_wind]

15. No. They're owned by SuperValu, which also owns Acme, Farm Fresh

and a bunch of other grocer retail subsidiaries.

http://www.supervalu.com/sv-webapp/retail/retail.jsp

http://save-a-lot.com/about-save-a-lot

http://save-a-lot.com/affordable-healthier-eating

I live in one of those downtown, down-turned urban areas and we have two of them within a couple miles (also several other pricier chains and a Walmart). Thank god for them, is all I can say. It's nice to have choices, but I mostly shop there three out of four trips for the affordability of every day staples. They're a very basic grocer, not at all a superstore or much upscale foodstuffs, which keeps costs and prices very good.

[boston bean]

31. didn't Michelle Obama sit on the board for Treehouse Foods and Walmart

is their largest customer?

[mucifer]

4. All I know is that as a hospice nurse I visit a lot of neighborhoods

in Chicago and they do not have the same options for healthy food as we do on the north side. They really don't have grocery stores in many areas. There are a few vegetarian independently owned restaurants on the south and west side neighborhoods. But, there really are not many grocery store. I see this in the homes I visit and I hear this from the families I visit. I see lots of kids eating lots of chips and pop.

[izquierdista]

6. Mall-Fart needs an invitation?

They go anywhere they think they can have a bunch of captive shoppers who live paycheck to paycheck.

[mopinko]

26. no, there is quite the history with them in chicago.

and there are very, very few parcels of land big enough for them, anyway. at least not in any areas where there are customers.
there is one walmart inside the city limits, and i doubt there will be another any time soon.

[mucifer]

8. Mayor Emanuel Seeks to Expand Urban Farming

"On Tuesday, Mayor Rahm Emanuel announced that the City of Chicago will introduce a new ordinance on Thursday to expand community gardens and urban farms. The ordinance will stimulate economic development, create jobs, and increase the accessibility of healthy food options in Chicago food deserts.

“It is unacceptable that thousands of Chicagoans live in communities that lack access to fresh foods,” said Mayor Emanuel, while at the ribbon-cutting for the urban farm Iron Street Farm. “I am committed to adopting innovative solutions that will increase access to fresh fruits and vegetables while creating jobs in order to ensure Chicagoans have the food options they need to lead a healthy lifestyle.”

Provided the ordinance passes, it will expand the size limit on community gardens to 25,000 square feet. It will also relax fencing and parking requirements on larger commercial urban farms. Doing so will help maintain overhead costs for the entrepreneurs and community gardens that run the farms.


http://blogs.wttw.com/moreonthestory/2011/07/26/mayor-emanuel-seeks-to-expand-urban-farming/

[MH1]

11. But they'll buy their farm tools at WalMart!!! Unacceptable!!!

:sarcasm:

[AtomicKitten]

16. I'm 100% supportive of that endeavor.

Too many communities in America don't have access to fresh fruit and vegetables.

[saras]

12. Once upon a time, the government plan would be to teach the locals to open their own grocery stores.

But no, that's a silly liberal idea. Can't have those consumers thinking they have a right to a voice in anything.

It looks like if they want self-help and localism, that they're going to have to do it themselves, with no help from upstairs.

[jwirr]

14. Once up on a time there was a thing called credit for the money to

open a grocery store. I do not see the connection between the urban gardening projects and wall-mart? This is going on in other cities - why is it a threat in chicago?

NOTE: I am not a fan of Rahm but I am a fan of urban gardening ideas and bringing healthy food to inner cities has been a project as old as the 60s.

[mucifer]

19. wow you didn't read my link. Rahm pro community farming

He is pushing for an ordinance that will expand the limits on the size of community gardens. t will also relax fencing and parking requirements on larger commercial urban farms. Doing so will help maintain overhead costs for the entrepreneurs and community gardens that run the farms.

Here is the link again: http://blogs.wttw.com/moreonthestory/2011/07/26/mayor-emanuel-seeks-to-expand-urban-farming/

What is your problem with that? I don't understand why you are saying community farming is a threat in Chicago.

[jwirr]

22. Of course I read you link. I can be a fan of urban community gardening

without being a fan of Rahm.

[formercia]

17. A co-op

When I was in College, most of my food came from the local co-op. If the big-boys won't put in a store, let the locals do it for themselves and save a lot of money.

[jwirr]

18. I would have to know more about the economics of the community

before I suggested the locals do it themselves. Most of these areas without access to basic foods are high poverty areas. No one has money. I do like the coop idea. Maybe it could be done by each family buying a share in the coop for a small portion of their monthly food cost each month( the poor often use EBT cards and do not have cash).

[NYC_SKP]

20. K/R and I'm getting the impression that some folks don't know what a food desert is.

It is what we find in too many blighted and, increasingly, blue collar neighborhoods, in which any established small grocers have either closed or stopped carrying quality food, and where the predominant shops are liquor stores, mini-marts, bodegas, etc., that carry junky food.

And quality produce and healthy foods are further and further away.

And there's little or no public transportation to take people to the better food.

And people don't have cars.

It's a form of institutionalized racism and class war.

:patriot:

[SidDithers]

24. Rahm supports it, so it must be bad...nt

Sid

[Hart2008]

21. If its a food summit, will Chris Christie attend?

Sorry, but I couldn't resist!

:hide:

[frazzled]

23. Mixed bag like all mayors, but he's bringing attention for the first time ...

to neighborhoods on the South and West side that were ignored for decades by Mayor Daley. For example:

A Monday afternoon shooting in Downtown Chicago may have dominated the airwaves, but Mayor Rahm Emanuel says the recent slayings of children on the South Side should not be ignored.

Emanuel paid a visit Tuesday to the Englewood home where 6-year-old Arianna Gibson was shot and killed while she slept on her grandmother's couch early Sunday morning.

“I want everybody to understand while that loss was particular to a family, which is why I visited with them, it is a loss to this city and we as a city are less than who we can be and should be when a child’s life is cut short,” Emanuel said, according to the Chicago Sun-Times.

Gibson's death came just four days after 13-year-old Darius Brown was fatally shot while playing basketball near his South Side home. Both children would have started school on Monday.

The mayor stressed that the high-profile shooting on State Street should be no more alarming than Gibson and Brown's deaths in Bronzeville and Englewood, where gun violence is more prevalent.

“I don’t tolerate gun violence or any type of violence anywhere in our city — whether that’s downtown in the business district or whether that’s an innocent child sleeping in her grandmother’s home,” Emanuel said, according to the Chicago Sun-Times. “I reject any value system that thinks that something happening downtown is more important than it happening in Englewood. That child in Englewood — while it’s the child of that mother and the child of that grandmother — that is a loss for the city of Chicago."

Emanuel further emphasized the difference between the South Side shootings and the State Street attack as a matter of intent, telling the Sun-Times that he's "not happy about what happened at State and Wacker," but that, unlike these tragedies, "it wasn't random." Both Brown and Gibson were unintended victims of the assaults that took their lives.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/08/09/emanuel-visits-family-of-_n_922784.html

[mopinko]

27. rahm is doing a lot of good things, #1 of which is listening

to the alderman. we have a big faction of good progressives now, and they do have his ear. seriously.

[Wait Wut]

29. Good job, Mr. Mayor.

It's about time someone started working from the ground up. I've been saying it for years. There are studies proving that nutrition effects a person's learning capabilites, pyschological makeup and, obviously, physical health. To ignore poor neighborhoods is to ignore us all.

Thanks for taking care of my town, Mr. Mayor.

[Honeycombe8]

30. More affordable choices for healthy foods is a really good thing. nt