Should Dave Bing impose a moratorium on fast-food restaurants in the city?

[DetroitPole]

Yes, this is entirely different than the moratorium on gas stations. A closed gas station creates a brownfield. Counter-intuitively, there are stations closing and opening all over Detroit all the time.

Both sides are wrong. The city would be insane to impose a moratorium on one of the only commercial enterprises that is willing and able to survive in the city. The tax base is obvious reason, but also these are jobs - not great jobs, but for every one of them you take away you create a potential drug dealer, gang banger, prison inmate, or body at the morgue in a city where inner-city employment is virtually non-existent. It is also nice to have some functioning businesses in a city that is 1/3 vacant, and more eyes and ears and lights makes for a safer city.

However, obesity, heart disease, and diabetes are killing the African-American community. Obesity is a huge problem in the US as a whole - even among the people with wealth, transportation, an education, and a variety of dining and shopping options. How do you expect someone with virtually no disposable income, little or no education, no reliable transportation, and their only retail options nearby are a liquor store and McDonald's to make the "right" choices????

Most fast food is not normal, nutrient-dense, fresh, healthy food. No, it is not a matter of getting a burger instead of a Big Mac. There is still virtually no nutritional value to that meal, even if the calories and fat are lower. Even the seemingly healthy options like salads are often loaded with calories from the dressing and crutons.

You could have a fast food restaurant on every corner and yes, it still would make sense to call Detroit a food desert, because unfortunately a McDonald's is not the same as a grocery store with fresh produce, dairy, meat, and a deli. Perhaps we should say a nutritious food desert, if we're now just counting anything you can ingest without instantly dying as "food."

Solution? Fat tax sounds great. No reason we can't revisit it. Fast food restaurants can still open if they're willing to pay the piper, and the city still makes money.