Comments on Bouphonia: Food Deserts and Fortifications

London, Ontario, huh? That's my hometown. I mean...

2008-05-03T23:44:00.000-07:00

London, Ontario, huh? That's my hometown. I mean, I live here, right now. I can see why it would be atypical for a Canadian city -- our transit sucks, comparatively speaking; the city isn't really a city as most people would understand it, but rather a loosely-linked congeries of suburban-like areas spread over a vast distance and incorporated into a single municipality; there's an appalling amount of single-use development here (entire neighbourhoods with nothing zoned anything but residential, entire neighbourhoods with no non-residential zoning, all of which is low-density housing, very little mixed-income housing), and most of the city is built in "car scale" as opposed to "human scale." (That is, even if you can get somewhere on the bus, chances are, you're going to have to walk quite a distance to get from the bus stop to where you're actually going because everything's so spread out and surrounded with pristine lagoons of lined asphalt.)

It's a hard city in which to be low-income; I know, because I've been doing it for ten years or so. It's not quite the same as Toronto, which is hard because it's so expensive. London is hard because you really might as well not exist, and not only will most of the people try their damndest to unsee you, the landscape will as well -- noplace much to go if you don't have money, nothing much to do if you don't have money, et cetera.

phila, you almost never fail to alleviate any vagr...

2008-04-24T18:07:00.000-07:00

phila, you almost never fail to alleviate any vagrant shreds of inadvertent optimism which might attend a lovely spring day in el Valle Medio de Rio Grande del Norte...

What can I say? It's a gift.

Burning Zozobra really should've made you immune, though....

roger--yup...higher prices and lower quality stock...

2008-04-24T12:54:00.000-07:00

roger--
yup...higher prices and lower quality stocks...

phila, you almost never fail to alleviate any vagrant shreds of inadvertent optimism which might attend a lovely spring day in el Valle Medio de Rio Grande del Norte...

i seem to recall that safeway was found to have hi...

2008-04-24T06:34:00.000-07:00

i seem to recall that safeway was found to have higher prices in poorer neighborhoods in oakland than in more affluent areas.

Isn't it funny how people are freaking out about f...

2008-04-23T16:28:00.000-07:00

Isn't it funny how people are freaking out about food supplies but no one mentions all the food Americans throw away on a daily basis?

Well, that would involve Blaming America First. Which is forbidden somewhere in the Bible, IIRC.

they should probably be equipped to deliver an ele...

2008-04-23T15:32:00.000-07:00

they should probably be equipped to deliver an electric shock, or a squirt of some noxious liquid, that'll discourage hungry birds and bats.

If the units are cheap enough, they won't bother...too bad for the birds and bats, alas.

Isn't it funny how people are freaking out about f...

2008-04-23T15:26:00.000-07:00

Isn't it funny how people are freaking out about food supplies but no one mentions all the food Americans throw away on a daily basis?