I grew up in El Paso. My parents are working class and we lived in a working class neighborhood. My grandmother would bring fresh pomegranites, jicama and other fruits from Mexico whenever she crossed the border to visit us.

Here in Houston, I can find fresh jicama and all sorts fruits (including cactus and platanos), for reasonable prices at Fiesta.

While I was in the Valley (South Texas) in June, I was able to buy cheap fresh avacadoes, was regularly given free limes (abundant in this citrus growing mecca), and fruit stands laden with watermelon, mangos, and other goodies dotted almost every side street.

In Central Texas, peach vendors also dot the highways. Good peaches!

When I lived in Manhattan 4 years ago, fruit was expensive and it was hard to find anything good. I did find pomegranits though. YUM.

Its all well and good to tout organic, fresh la ti da, but what's wrong with advocating baby steps? You can't expect someone in the inner city to suddenly embrace organic slow cooking after years of tasty calorically dense fast food. Conventionally grown produce won't kill you.

Instead of the elitist notion that we all have to turn into Alice Waters' devoted followers, why not accept that while grocery tomatoes are not the tastiest, they do have some nutritive value?

I grew up on iceberg lettuce and hothouse tomato salads, mac n' cheese, tuna casserole and franks n' beans, and I managed to grow pretty tall and not too wide.

Check out what a friend of mine, Darcy Freedman, is doing about this issue in Nashville. She's a doctoral student in public health/community psychology.

Allison,

I'll be the first to admit I don't have all the facts on the South Central Community Garden and so did a search online as you recommended and it seems that, very broadly, the history is that the community turned abandonded land into something worthwhile and very meaningful for the area and provided food for below-poverty-line families and now that the land has become valuable, the developer who was paid $4.5 million for the city and bought it back for $5 million years later, wants it back. Good article here http://www.lacitybeat.com/article.php?id=3200&IssueNum=138

And the developer seems like a nice chap all round: http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2006/6/13/124849/669

"[Landowner Ralph] Horowitz noted that the farmers were squatting on land zoned for warehouses and factories. The landowner said in a telephone interview that he was paying $25,000 to $30,000 a month in mortgage and other land costs.

"We've made, in the last three years, enough of a donation to those farmers," he said. "I just want my land back."

Horowitz accused the farmers of ingratitude, saying they had sued him and their supporters had picketed his home and office.

"I feel that the gardeners have been on the land for 14 years, almost 15 years for free. After 15 years, you say thank you," he said."

If there's something I am missing in all of this, I am happy to be educated otherwise. Just seems like a tragedy to me to bulldoze a thriving urban garden, the biggest in the country for a Wal-Mart warehouse. Sigh.

"Even when large retailers are eyeing an urban locale, nuts-and-bolts concerns such as complex zoning laws, high land prices and few available lots" -- this is a bogus argument. Ever been to a seriously depressed inner-city neighborhood, especially one that's predominantly African American? The first things you notice are the vacant lots and empty storefronts, the wholesale abandonment of the neighborhood rather than investment in it. There is no scarcity of available commercial-zoned land in our cities' food deserts. There is an abundance of it, much of it, I'd wager, available for a song. And just one affordably priced supermarket in the middle of one of these food deserts would pull customers from as far as two or three miles away, so ability to turn a profit is not an issue; such a store would do staggering volume, much greater than a comparable store in an affluent neighborhood thick with supermarkets, simply because of the absence of competition.

No, these are not the reasons why large supermarket chains are not situating stores in inner-city neighborhoods. The only legitimate reason I can think of is fear of crime. I can think of many illegitimate reasons, but they would not reflect well on the supermarket operators.

To address the concerns that many have been voicing regarding the South Central garden, I strongly suggest doing a bit more research online. The situation there is not nearly as simple as a "greedy developer" versus the earnest gardeners. While I was inclined to think so at first (with so much evidence of such greediness taking place everyday, how could I not) the truth is much more complicated and frustrating. Unpaid rent, blatant racism (not of the variety one would assume), and grand standing politicians make the plot a bit more intricate.

My Mexican-American Los Angeles neighborhood does indeed have fewer organic and "whole food" offerings than the ritzier neighbhorhoods, but to say that we don't cook or aren't interested in healthy choices is offensive and ridiculous. A key difference is the way we approach making a meal. Often buying groceries is more than an "in and out" affair. In addition to the florescent-lit megaliths which stock aisles upon aisles of sugar and starch, there is a bounty of small privately owned stores. In preparing a menu, many people in the neighborhood will hit up not only the huge grocery mart, but a produce stand, a bakery, and a corner bodega.

The Mexican diet is known for its inclusion of fresh fruits and vegetables, and it is a blessing that we Southern Californians have easier access to such foods than our northern compatriots.

Luckily capitalism seems to be favoring our neighborhood and those like it, regardless of government intervention. To compete with our friendly bodegas, the chain stores are now carrying soy milk, decent (if not organic) produce, and traditional ethnic spices. I have a feeling many people would react with surprise to find that the 5-dollar papaya they bought at Whole Foods is vending for 2 for a dollar in my part of town.

It is important to remember that it's the white folks who came up with microwaves, tv dinners, and potatoes=vegetables, while the Mexicans were busy feasting on nopales, papaya, and agave.