Yet another post about the demise of rural grocery stores

Several folks called my attention to Jack Healy's story in the New York Times today--this one about the loss of rural grocery stores.  The headline is poignant, "Farm Country Feeds America.  But Just Try Buying Groceries There."  The dateline is Winchester, Illinois, population 1,650.   Here's the lede:

The only grocery store in his 1,500-person hometown in central Illinois had shut its doors, and [John Paul]  Coonrod, a local lawyer, was racing to get a community-run market off the ground. He had found space in an old shoe store, raised $85,000 from neighbors and even secured a liquor license to sell craft beer. 

Healy also provides anecdotes regarding grocery stores in Kansas, Florida and New Mexico.  And he talks about politics and terminology.  Here are two fascinating excerpts: 

Many of the places losing their grocery stores are conservative towns that value industrial agriculture and low taxes. About 75 percent of the people in the county containing Winchester voted for President Trump. But people in these communities have also approved public money to kick-start local markets, and they are supporting co-ops whose cloth-bag values and hand-stuffed packs of arugula can feel more Berkeley than Mayberry.

And on the marketing or terminology note: 

“Communities tell me: We don’t want to use the term co-op,” said Sean Park, a program manager for the Illinois Institute for Rural Affairs. He has helped guide rural towns through setting up their own markets. “It’s ironic because it was farmers who pioneered co-ops. They’re O.K. with ‘community store.’ They’re the same thing, but you’ve got to speak the language.” 

It's a terrific story, but as I read it, I experienced "deja vu all over again" because I've read so many stories and written so many posts over the dozen-year life of Legal Ruralism about rural communities losing their grocery stores.  Indeed, when I searched legal ruralism for "grocery store," dozens of posts came up.  It also reminded me of this op-ed in thew New York Times a few years ago, "Vermont Town Seeks a Heart, Soul (Also Milk and  Eggs)."  I'd intended to write a post about it, in relation to this post about a Colorado grocery store during that same period, but I never got around to it.  Here's an excerpt from the piece about the Vermont store in danger of closing, in Ripton, population 588.

If towns could write personal ads, this one would be taking pen in hand for the first time in 42 years — making a pitch for companionship, a pitch aimed at finding someone who might be willing to take a chance on something a little out of the Twittery Trumpy twitchy mainstream.

* * * 

[W]e’re about to lose the heart and soul of our community, the husband and wife who have run our general store since 1976.

Dick and Sue Collitt are retiring, and we need someone to buy them out and take their place. Because if you don’t have a store, you can’t really have a town. True, we live in an age when stores seem like relics.

These stories all grapple with the consequences of a town losing its grocery store.  Can you have a town without one?  is it more or less critical than the post office?  or the school?  to sustaining a place?