With food deserts being a reality in major urban cities, and with a disconnect between rural places and urban settings on this subject, my trip to Toronto made me wonder about its role in the food desert issue.
Toronto is like most major cities in North America: in certain neighborhoods, finding fresh fruit and vegetables is pretty easy. In other neighborhoods, that task is much tougher.
But having spent time in a number of major cities in the U.S. and Canada, in the core of Toronto, there appear to be a lot more places to get fresh fruit and vegetables in Canada's largest city.
I noticed as I rode the streetcars and walked the streets of the core of Toronto — lots of little storefronts featuring fresh fruits and vegetables. Stores open 7 days a week and open late.
I live in a major city (Chicago) and I didn't see as many produce storefronts here per area as much as I saw in Toronto. This doesn't mean that this trend has spread throughout Toronto.
But seeing these storefronts of fruit spilling onto the sidewalk did make me think that this might be a better solution.
Many poor neighborhoods suffer because they are waiting for major grocery chains to build huge stores where they live. And those large grocery chains haven't come through in the food desert neighborhoods. They have their reasons, reality-based or otherwise.
But maybe the solution lies in smaller places, where the majority of what they carry is fresh produce. Stores that don't require huge tracts of land or major companies to get involved. Having a smaller store — where fresh produce dominates the landscape — would seem to be a better solution, especially when the alternative is the status quo.
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