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Today's opinion piece in the @ajc by @GStaples_AJC makes the argument that dollar store bans are elitist and counter-productive. I'm not unsympathetic, but have some thoughts. 1/
On the one hand, the choice shouldn't be between supermarkets & dollar stores. The former were made for sprawling, middle-class suburbs and the latter for rural/urban neighborhoods with low to moderate incomes. Banning dollar stores won't make supermarkets work in those areas. 2/
Dollar stores do serve a real need--they're often geographically accessible and allow folks with limited means to stretch their dollars. And models like Dollar General Market (while definitely the exception, not the norm) provide a number of healthy foods. 3/
On the other hand, dollar stores are problematic in a number of ways. Many (probably most) aren't much better than convenience stores in terms of food quality. They employ fewer people than small grocers, pay them less, and put them needlessly at risk. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/07/06/the-true-cost-of-dollar-stores 4/
While we need more evidence about their effects on other local retailers, dollar stores are antithetical to community-based development. It's difficult for local residents to create a startup that can initially compete with their economies of scale. 5/
Put another way, dollar stores may be partly a symptom of the problem of low wages and precarious employment. But that's also part of their DNA. Their growth and profits are predicated on practices that exploit low-wage workers and their communities. 6/
In a (hopefully very soon) forthcoming paper, I found that in urban areas, all three major chains show a clear locational preference for communities of color, even when controlling for household income. 7/
To me, this falls in line with larger histories of redlining that extract wealth from these communities while undercutting efforts for local control and autonomy. 8/
In short, this isn't primarily about demand and free markets. It's about providing communities with the resources to create a food system and economy that works for them. Dollar stores contribute very little toward that goal. end/
And since I forgot to link to the original article above, I'll add it here: https://www.ajc.com/life/opinion-are-dollar-stores-the-problem-or-the-symptom-of-larger-issue/S4BVYMCY4NFGTOJRBSAXH7GIZQ/
