Linkity-link: April 18th, 2008

In today’s episode, we have articles on the outcome of suburbanization on food accessibility, the crackdown of dissent at the University of Ottawa, and the sad and long-reaching effects of the Iraq Occupation on American soldiers. Enjoy!

Grocery shopping hard for poor, study says (Canwest): A new study by Gilliland and Larson, from the University of Western Ontario, shows the effect suburbanization has had on poor and working-class inner-city communities.

Gilliland and his co-author, Kristian Larsen, used computerized mapping to plot the location of London [Ontario]’s supermarkets in 1961 and 2005. Then, using census data, city maps and bus schedules, they calculated each neighbourhood’s access to grocery stores using real-life criteria such as a 1,000-metre walk (10 to 15 minutes) or a 10-minute bus ride with a short walk on each end.

Not only is access in many areas worse now, they found, but the poorest neighbourhoods are the most stranded.

“If you think about a single mother with limited income without a vehicle — if you can’t hop in your car and drive to a supermarket, you must shop locally,” Gilliland says. “You’re going to be buying your groceries at local convenience stores.”

That forces people to pay an average of 1.6 times more for a groceries, he says, perpetuating a financial “downward spiral” for those already in a precarious position.

This is what happens when we leave major decisions like the distribution of food up to the market; cheap building lots and abundant parking space, not to mention the fact that suburban people are more profitable shoppers for grocery stores, leads to these ‘food deserts’ in the city core. Of course, while I appreciate the excellent research, I don’t necessarily agree with the researcher’s solutions:

Cities need to find ways to boost the population density of city centres to draw more retailers in, Gilliland says, and they can offer tax breaks or development fee reductions to further entice them. It’s a complex issue, he says, because people want to live where there are grocery stores and grocery stores want to open where there are people.

Let’s stop fiddling with ‘incentives’ to make the market function as we want it to, and start demanding people-centered food distribution!

U of O proposes student code of conduct by Pauline Tam (Ottawa Citizen): The U of Ottawa, like many other universities across Canada, are in the process of creating/revising their internal student disciplinary processes. The U of O, like some other schools, want to include a ’student code of conduct’ which would regulate the non-academic activities of students. There is certainly a place for academic juries, wherein allegations of cheating, plagarism, and general academic dishonesty can be fairly heard and dealt with; however, the proclivity of University administrations to want to create enclaves or mini-cities (including taking over the regular functions of the police) is a bad move, and needs to be resisted.

The problem, of course, is that the duplication of criminal juries for minor petty crimes (usually property crimes) rarely include the same basic protections that the already-flawed criminal justice system does. The appeals process is often biased in favour of the university, with signifigant barriers or dangers (such as the risk of an increased penalty!) facing students who wish to appeal a ‘conviction’.

And, as is the case at U of O, they are often used to stifle dissent on campus. Whereas the Administration is much less likely to ‘press charges’† and have students arrested due to the negative publicity that would cause (and the increased likelihood for further protests!), the ability to issue penalties (suspensions, notations on the students transcript, even expulsion) for ‘uncivil disobedience’ and dissent would allow a much more effective crackdown on students.

At the same time, [a UofO vice-president] acknowledged that recent clashes [i.e. student dierect action] had played a role. Mr. Feldthusen cited a meeting of the university’s academic governing body last week, which dozens of students tried to disrupt by banging on windows from outside the conference room.

A similar protest occurred a week earlier during a meeting of the university’s board of governors….

During the past two years on a campus not normally known for rowdy protests, students have mobilized over everything from high tuition fees to language rights and campus safety.

More recently, the clashes have been over the growing presence of corporations on campus. Students have also launched a sustained campaign to restore a controversial course on social activism taught by physics professor Denis Rancourt until it was cancelled last year.

While this trend towards more robust campus judicial systems seems fairly nation-wide (at least in Anglo Canada), it also seems very clear that the recent upsurge in student mobilizations is a large part in it at UO as well.

† Although in Canada it is up to the police, not the individual, to decide whether to do ‘press charges’, in most circumstances the police force is willing to accede to the request of the harmed party, especially in circumstances where large, politically-powerful institutions like Univeristies are concerned.

Nearly 1 in 5 vets reports mental problems by Pauline Jelinek (AP): A recent study by the American RAND Corporation, a normally-military friendly think tank set up the US Government in the mid 1940s, indicates that almost 20% of American veterans are suffering from either depression or post-traumatic stress disorder, and/or from brain injuries, as a result of their involvement in the Afghanistan and Iraq occupations. Only half of them have sought treatment for their condition.

It brings to mind the stereotype, which was not unfounded, of returned Vietnam veterans with severe mental health problems that often resulted in violence back home. We’ve already see the effect war has on domestic violence. America can expect to reap what it has sown – a generation of damaged young men and women, soon to be forgotten by it’s government.