Reader Confirms What This Blog Said 3 Years Ago: Belmont Heights Needs a Grocery Store

The map below shows food deserts in Chicago. It's from the front page article in this week's Chicago Reader, From Farm to Food Desert. A food desert is defined as an area where the average distance to a grocery store (that sells unprocessed fruits and vegetables) is over three miles away. When the Dominick's in Norridge on Forest Preserve and Harlem closed three years ago, this blog noted that there was no full service grocer within, or within walking distance, of Belmont Heights. The map below simply confirms this fact. The expansion of Target's grocery department in the HIP will help alleviate the situation but prices there have not been regularly competitive and it is still not a dedicated, full-service grocery store.