Observations of the West side

I have heard many times before how difficult it is for poor neighborhoods to get their hands on healthy food. I have seen some of the statistics for some of the poor neighborhoods in the city of Chicago before, and realized it was a problem, but it wasn't until this morning that I really paid much attention.

I drive on North Ave all the way west out of the city to get to work every morning. This morning (as I had a small green smoothie for breakfast and knew that I needed protein) I started observing how many fast food restaurants I pass by on my way to work. I did not keep an official tally, but this is what I believe I counted just in the city (not including the burbs):


Church's Chicken - 1
Popeye's Chicken - 1
KFC - 1
Wendy's - 2
Burger King - 2
Dunkin Donuts - 3
Subway - 3
McDonalds - 4
Mom & Pop Hot dog/Gyro/Beef - 8

Grocery stores:
Save A Lot - 1
Walmart - 1
Mexican fruit/veggie markets - 3

Drug stores:
Walgreens - 2

Liquor stores - 10

Again, I did not officially count, this is just me running things through my head, but yup...there are two actual grocery type stores, there plus the Mexican markets...but in the poorest parts of my drive, it's all fast food and liquor stores, with a few small shops that sell overpriced bread and canned goods.

There might be more available not on North Ave, but I doubt it...this just adds to the obesity epidemic...but I don't have the funds to buy up property to build a city farm stand :( maybe I'll start investigating how to go about working with the city to do that though.