A Death in the Neighborhood—Part 2

The closing of one of our neighborhood supermarkets was a blow to the neighborhood (See "A Death in the Neighborhood—Part 1.") Fortunately, a very good local grocery chain has now bought the site and plans to open a new store on it later this year or early next. "Now Hiring" signs are already up, and the site is full of workers and construction vans. In the long run, what had been a sad death may turn out to be an improvement for the neighborhood.

The new owners plan to rehabilitate the old building rather than tearing it down and rebuilding. This will not only save money for them; it will save energy and resources for the planet. Big-box stores like this old supermarket were designed to be disposable, but they need not be. In any future worth mentioning, we will need to use existing buildings creatively, unless they have gone irretrievably to the bad.

So our neighborhood will get a good store, locally-owned, with high-quality foods, and within walking distance of a very large population. This is a better ending than the more typical story: neighborhood store (and shopping district) dies a slow, agonizing death because of competition from big-box stores outside of town.

In the long run, driving to the big box store will become too expensive and too dangerous for the environment, and we will need the neighborhood store again. Many towns won't have it. Our neighborhood, luckily, will.