This week our neighborhood coop is closing its doors and moving.
This is not a seismic shift in the grocery game, but it is fairly significant change to our neighborhood. The quick walk to get a gallon of milk or the one final ingredient to a family meal, will now be met with car keys and not walking shoes.
While it’s easy to look at and criticize the coop for their move to a bigger space which will have “a really big meat and cheese section,” according to one employee, the move creates a void in the village commerce.
In the book Home from Nowhere, J.H. Kunstler cites reputable research studies that point to a correlation between commute length and heart disease. There are many contributing factors, but our dependence on autos, strip malls, stoplights and sprawl do indeed take us out of a more active lifestyle. Will my expanded cheese and meat section expand my waistline?
One of my major satisfiers with our neighborhood is the walkability of it all. I may need to drive for work, but once home the need to drive diminishes. On most nights, we cram our three children into a double stroller and cruise to the coop or another community point. You can find entertainment, food and other non-essentials without the use of your car. A pretty nice way to live.
If it isn’t obvious, I am merely trying to distract myself on this subject. Citing heart disease and commute correlations and other medical research, is a way to advance my argument. An argument, incidentally, that I cannot win. All thriving communities go through some form of change and it took some excellent leadership to navigate this Market move. Perhaps the coop move won’t be a significant change to the neighborhood, maybe we can plan a little more and eliminate the gallon of milk stroll, but here’s one coop member that is mourning the move and not excited about having his cheese moved.
Graham:
Thanks for your reply. In my post this past week, I tried to write about the coop move and my lack of enthusiasm about the change. So 6 blocks, 12 blocks….the distance didn’t matter to me as much as the change and the adjustment. My background is in Change Management, so the whole piece was a bit of satire which obviously would be lost on you. At some point, I’ll be thrilled to stroll to the Coop again, but for now I’m in a bit of a funk about the move to Mourningside (pun, intended).
I’ll think about that bottle of red, thanks!
Dude, the co-op moved about 6 blocks! Walk you lazy butt down there and you won’t have to worry about your waistline or heart disease. It’s now across the street from the wine shop. Stop in and get a bottle of red — that’s also good for your heart, whiner.
Yes, but you still have Clancy’s meat market – those ladies ROCK – so I don’t feel “too bad” for you!