According to the 2010 census, 50,888 people live in Charlestown, the downtown, Beacon Hill, the North End/Waterfront and the West End. This region has two supermarkets, Whole Foods at Charles River Plaza and Johnnie’s in Charlestown.

The same census showed 41,250 residents in Urbana, Illinois. I’ve seen with my own eyes the seven supermarkets within that city’s borders and about a dozen more in the neighboring city of Champaign.

What are we doing wrong?

Nothing, said Mike Tesler, a Bentley University retailing professor and a principal at Retail Concepts.

“The answer isn’t in the demographics or the consumers,” he said. “Supermarkets are large corporations, and it’s all about incremental dollars and expanding where they are going to get the most profits.”

Compared to the burbs or small cities, large cities’ sites are more expensive, they require more permitting, parking is a problem, and they may have to hire pricier union labor for the build-out. Moreover, even if residents want a supermarket, someone will complain. “It’s Boston,” Tesler explained.

Traditional supermarkets have lost market share each year to Whole Foods and Trader Joe’s on the specialty end and Target and Wal-Mart on the low-price end. Cities are uncertain for them. “The last thing your traditional supermarkets are are risk-takers,” said Tesler.

He said the only way a supermarket would consider a location like downtown Boston is if they were assured they’d have no setting-up problems.

That’s why it looks as if Stop & Shop or another supermarket is likely to set up shop in Downtown North, also known as the Bulfinch Triangle. The Boston Redevelopment Authority, working with developer Trinity Financial, is minimizing the risks.

You probably think what you’re reading is nuts because all reports from the dailies to neighborhood newspapers are lamenting the demise of the supermarket.

Apparently no one talked to the BRA. Senior Manager Peter Gori said he is confident a supermarket will arrive. Serious conversation is going on between Trinity and Stop & Shop about taking over the 21,000 square foot retail space Trinity has made available on the ground floor of its proposed One Canal Street residential complex, he said.

Even though it is half the size of the second-floor space the supermarket originally was supposed to occupy, it is a better location. It is easier for pedestrians to get to. It is more visible from busy North Washington Street. Trinity and the BRA will make sure there are no permitting issues or, helped by Lia Tota’s supermarket committee, no troublesome neighbors. Tota, the director of ABCD in the North End, has led the pursuit of a supermarket.

Plus, if a larger site—one at the TD Garden’s long-delayed development, for example—should become available, Stop & Shop’s lease would have to allow them to move.

A spokeswoman for Stop & Shop wouldn’t comment. And Trinity’s project manager Sarah Barnat did not discuss these conversations in a meeting with the North End/Waterfront Residents’ Association a couple of weeks ago.

Nevertheless, Gori said the BRA was “single-minded” about getting a grocery store on the site. He was confident this would work out with Stop & Shop, and if not with that company, with another company because the space was so attractive. His agency is greasing the wheels, which Tesler said is the only strategy that would make a supermarket happen downtown.

Gori said the negotiations are now down to the terms of the deal. By the time you read this, they may be finished. If Stop & Shop can’t work it out, another supermarket will, he said.

It won’t be Wegmans, according to spokeswoman Jo Natale. She said Wegmans’ proposed store in Newton is a “new concept.” It is “urban” and its 70,000 square feet space is “small.” I figured that a supermarket chain whose concept of urban is Newton, and thinks small is 70,000 square feet wouldn’t have a clue about setting up shop in downtown Boston. I must confess I’m baffled by the appeal of these large stores. Have you ever shopped in a mega-supermarket? Inefficient, time consuming, and endless varieties of the same, dreary Pop-Tart type of items. Obviously there is something I’m not getting.

One question lingers. Do we really need another supermarket downtown? Lia Tota says yes because no one she knows shops at Whole Foods. But I checked with Charlestown and North End residents in their 40s and 50s, who said they shop regularly at Whole Foods and did not find an additional supermarket an urgent need. That doesn’t mean, though, they wouldn’t make use of one.

So let’s hope Peter Gori’s optimism is well-placed. In the best of all worlds, it will still take three years before a supermarket could open. So let’s also hope the Boston Public Market gets going on schedule. And just to make sure we have everything our hearts’ desire, let’s invite a Trader Joe’s for its good prices and quirky products. Mike Tesler said having several different kinds of grocery stores in the same area makes life better for all.

Now if only the BRA would go after a downtown elementary school with the same zest it has pursued a supermarket.