The rough, economically challenged Chicago neighborhood of Englewood is getting a Whole Foods store–and it’s going to be a daring blind date. Englewood has never seen the likes of Whole Foods, and Whole Foods is visiting a hood like Englewood for the first time. The store is slated to open in 2016–and Englewood residents hope it’s a harbinger of good times to come–and jobs, of course. The problem is many of the residents will need the good times to arrive long before they can afford to grab some cage-free eggs at Whole Foods. So how will it work?
Emily Badger explores the risky, unusual move in the Washington Post, but Ms. Badger comes up with more questions than answers. That’s because that’s what there are: more questions than answers. Fully a third of Englewood’s residents, Badger says, live in poverty. At any given time, Whole Foods offers more than 200 varieties of imported cheese. It’s a match that people on Tinder would just swipe away. Stay tuned to see if it works.
