What would happen if the small stores in the neighborhood where you live disappeared?
It is important to support small stores, as they are an essential part of bringing a neighbourhood to life. And what do we mean by those neighbourhood shops?
Those shops that you ran to as a child to buy whatever last minute food your mother needed to finish cooking. The bakery where you smell freshly baked bread every time you past. That corner greengrocer’s where you see all the fresh fruit and vegetables every time you walk through the door.
What would we do without those little shops?
Small stores vs large supermarkets
When a large supermarket opens within or close to a neighbourhood, it becomes a big competitor against small shops. This is because large supermarkets usually have a variety of products and have more interesting prices.
But in a certain way. this is not true. Shopping in neighbourhood shops is more interesting than you think, considering that they are local shops with local products from the surrounding area, the fresh food is of a higher quality and you receive a totally personalised treatment from the shopkeepers. Additionally, if you are interested, we have previously talked about the advantages of shopping locally.
By this, we mean that large supermarkets ruin small shops, which see their clientele dwindle to the point of having to close down. And what happens when that big supermarket in the neighbourhood closes? It has squeezed out all the small shops in the area and now the neighbourhood is left with no stores to shop in.
Do you know about the Comunitaria project that promotes
local commerce in disadvantaged neighbourhoods?
What is the effect of small stores closing in neighbourhood?
To keep a neighbourhood alive, it needs local shops. Small shops bring many advantages to a neighbourhood, both economically and socially.
On the other hand, if these neighbourhood shops disappear, the following can happen:
- Neighbourhoods become isolated, people have to leave it to shop.
- Older people find it more difficult to shop, because they have to travel several kilometres to go shopping.
- Direct job losses.
- Money stops coming into the neighbourhood, leading to impoverishment.
- More difficulties for neighbours to interact with each other.
In short, it would be a lifeless neighbourhood, economically stagnant, in which the inequalities of the people living there would increase significantly. This could lead to the neighbourhood becoming a slum.
Currently, there are slums in which this situation is already the daily reality, and Comunitaria is involved in supporting these small shops with the aim of improving the economic situation of these neighbourhoods.
