Dim

If you have lots of poor people in search of cheap food and lots of unemployed people who'd like to work, what's the solution? Ban fast-food restaurants, naturally:

EXPOSITION PARK, Calif. (KABC) -- New stand-alone fast food restaurants have been banned from setting up shop in South Los Angeles, due to rising health concerns by the city council.

How many fast food eateries does one area really need? The Los Angeles City Council thinks South Los Angeles and South East Los Angeles need new choices as these regions face an over-concentration of such restaurants.

"This is not an attempt to control people as to what they can put into their mouths. This is an attempt to diversify their food options," said councilmember Jan Perry.

Perry's new plan bans new so-called "stand alone" fast food restaurants opening within half a mile of existing restaurants.

But of course it's an attempt to control what people put in their mouths. They certainly can't be trusted to decide for themselves what to eat and what kind of places to go to.

In Detroit, meanwhile, residents without access to basic services let alone a decent restaurant might be offered a choice: Move or lose:

Detroit Mayor Dave Bing said this week that he will begin using incentives next year to concentrate city residents in at least seven to nine core areas that will serve as population centers for a newly configured city.

In an interview with the Free Press, Bing stressed that no resident would be forced to move, but that those who remain in areas outside the population centers "need to understand that they're not going to get the kind of services they require."

Good time to be a simple Hoosier lost in flyover country, isn't it?