Portland Mayor Sam Adams on Neighbourhood Grocery Stores
Tags: corner grocery, local grocery store, localism, neighbourhood stores, portland, portland mayor, sam adams, stephen rees, Transportation, Vancouver
The mayor of Portland has helped me to better appreciate my neighbourhood grocery store.
At his lecture yesterday evening on "Active Transportation in Portland," Portland mayor and former transportation commissioner Sam Adams described his vision of a "20-minute neighbourhood". It includes grocery stores, laundromats, and pretty much all the services that people need in a typical day. These need to be located close enough together to be reasonably accessible by active (non-motorized) transportation. Since two thirds of the average household's daily trips are not the "journey-to-work" trips most frequently studied by transportation planners, substantial reductions in car-dependency can be achieved by cutting down on the number of automobile trips that neighbourhood residents make to "pick stuff up".
Mr. Adams made the surprising suggestion that the best transportation investment a local government can make might be an investment in affordable land or market research in support of corner grocery stores. Some neighbourhood stores might need subsidies in order to fill the essential role of a walkable destination with a decent selection of food and affordable prices.
Times seem hard for many corner stores here in Vancouver, and several have recently closed their doors (as documented in this amazing Flickr photostream). Yet, for me, being able to walk to a neighbourhood grocery store was an important factor in my decision of where to live. More than just a great place to buy chocolate, a good local grocery store enables the people who live nearby to enjoy a short walk on their way to pick up dinner ingredients instead of having to face down traffic in an automobile.
To read more about Sam Adams' presentation, check out the detailed account written by Richmond transportation planner and Green Party candidate Stephen Rees.
Pat on 