guerrilla curatorship

This is a really beautiful example to set for the rest of the country, because the issue of access to fresh and local (or often any) groceries in low-income neighborhoods is a real one in cities all over the country, including San Francisco. This especially insightful excerpt gets at the core of the issue:

“That no big chains have yet taken advantage of the fund suggests that the added costs and financial risks involved in building a store in a low-income neighborhood or a small town are not the primary reasons supermarket chains have avoided these locations.
Many independents, on the other hand, see real opportunities in these neighborhoods and have the flexibility to adapt their stores to fit into historic buildings or odd-shaped lots. For them, the fund not only overcomes the higher costs of opening stores in these locations. It solves what may well be a more pivotal factor driving the grocery store gap: independent retailers, unlike chains, lack access to sufficient capital.”

In San Francisco, much of the discussion and hand-wringing over grocery access (there is no major grocery store serving the Bayview/Hunter’s Point or the Tenderloin, and the recent Cala Foods pullout of San Francisco County was cause for concern in other neighborhoods too) has focused on marrying large-footprint grocery stores (mostly big chain tenants) with mixed-use housing developments. The economic development problem with this is inherently profit-oriented; developers want to build in neighborhoods where they can garner the highest sales price per square foot. Hence, Potrero Hill got a Whole Foods in a tony loft development, the upper Haight squabbles about how “ugly” their mixed-use Whole Foods development may or may not be, and even the Mayor’s office can’t get a fucking Safeway in the whole southeastern corner of the city in less than two years..

Some kind of angel investor micro-lending fund to neighborhood grocers: too much to hope for? Another major hurdle to placing grocery stores in San Francisco neighborhoods is our citywide chokehold on the permit process for chain stores (which it should be noted I support, generally and within reason.) This shouldn’t be fronted as an excuse for lack of grocery access, however. Neighborhood markets can provide everything residents need in the way of fresh produce, at a price point consistent with the local cost of living. You might call me optimistic, but (a) this is my neighborhood market and it is everything I need it to be and more, and (b) I think this PA example is a big indication that these things are possible, attainable and necessary.