I happened to be at 2 gas station/ convenience stores today and it occurred to me that the drug addicted lower class must generally live within walking distance of a Stewarts (here in NY) or other station. It seemed like the social hub as they come and go for cigs, beers, cop something on the side and scope things out. Most walk, some ride up on bicycles but i figure one could probably map this out and see the quality of housing and resident improve as the circle broadens. Just wondering if you own in what I'll call the convenience zone and can confirm this first hand, or have similar anecdotal experience.

In South Philly we have corner stores that act as basically convenience stores but they are not open all night. years ago almost all needs were met through these mom and pop businesses. Today, we have supermarkets and other stores in shopping centers on the edge of South Philly. The lower classes, however, do not have cars to get there. For them, they have to get everything at the corner stores.

Bodegas in Class D and below are common. Where I used to have rentals (and live-- inner city Rochester NY) there were bodegas everywhere. My kids wound beg me to go on their own but I would never let them due to afore mentioned crime.

here its home delivery but mainly they stand at the end of the driveway waiting for that next customer to come up.

Definitely see that here on the north side of town. We have Rapid Robert and Fast 'N Friendly. $5 gets you a large slice of pizza and a Big Gulp.

Actual grocery stores are rare. There's a couple of Wal-Mart Neighborhood Markets, but most places are way beyond walking distance.

One of the big problems frequently cited by anti-poverty advocates is the lack of grocery stores and decent food in lower class neighborhoods. I doubt the root of that problem is because grocery stores have no desire to make money: lower class money spends as well as middle and upper class money, and as noted above they tend to buy a lot of higher profit margin things like sweets, sodas, liquor and cigs. Rather, it's often the rampant crime and theft.

Sort of a sad, self-re-enforcing cycle. Poverty leads to crime, crime leads to most businesses fleeing those neighborhoods, which makes it cost more to live there, which leads to more poverty...

I don't know how you knock the poor mindset out of folks. Giving more money, more housing, more assistance, more education, etc doesn't seem to work.

"The Poor will be with you always..." Truer words on the topic have never been spoken.

Trying to picture where the convenience stores are located. There aren't many stand alone convenience stores and they are located in older neighborhoods where rent might be lower, or it might not. Older neighborhoods are closer to the lake and closer to downtown, so they aren't necessarily cheap places to live and a lot of those areas have gentrified.

small p ... yes, you are correct. Most of those that are in that type of a convenience type store as you originally mentioned are placed in a "not as nice area" for one reason or another. We have one that is being proposed in an area that is NOT in that situation currently and the neighbors are freaking out about it. The "funny" thing is that the city just built a high rise (if you will) that is mostly for income based tenants but tried to get it where they were more "middle class" (their words) with a few of the apartments ... 60%+ were specifically for the income based tenants. Now the Stewarts shop is being proposed a year later about 2 blocks away.

For a long time, most convenience stores were located in the vicinity of a low income apartment complex. More recently, the Wawa corporation (convenience and gas) have been building in high traffic areas with just about zero housing.

We have a regional convenience store chain that has pretty much cornered the market. They have them at a corner of every neighborhood. While the stores are all built identical, you can still easily tell what kind of neighborhood you are in by the store layout.

In the lower end they have coolers with ice filled with the extra large 24 oz cans of beer right up front. Behind the counter are piles of flavored cigars and a large rack of cigarettes. A bucket of the little bottles of fireball liquor sits on the end of the counter. There will likely be a group or two of people hanging out on either side of the building with bicycles propped up against the building and usually someone sitting in a street rod over in the corner.

This summer I was at a multi doing some yard work and a tenant walks out to see if I needed anything from the convenience store a couple blocks away.

I said no, but thanks and she drove her car over to get a big gulp. The short time I was there she left three times for the c-store in her car. Had to get cigs, got another big gulp then had to get something for lunch.