How common are urban areas with no grocery stores?

[kunilou]

I checked with my son who lives on Chicago's North Side. His area is too affluent to fit the USDA definition, but he says the nearest fresh produce and meat is a 20-minute walk, and that store is expensive.

My son is 26 years old, healthy and walks everywhere anyway, but take a 75-year old woman with arthritis, during the winter, on a limited income and I can see the problems.

[Rampant Coypu]

I looked at the USDA map and found the two food deserts I expected to find in Houston. Huge one around the University of Houston and Texas Southern University in 3rd ward. Closest large supermarkets are the Kroger in Eastwood, the Fiesta at Wheeler and San Jacinto, and the HEB at Scott and OST. Not that bad a walk for young folks, but a long hard walk for old people. Urban Harvest has a farmer's market at their headquarters, but that's also in Eastwood and even farther than Kroger. 3rd Ward mostly has small grocery stores without much selection of fresh produce and meat.

These areas have fairly good bus service and will have light rail service in about a year.

The other urban food desert is a part of 5th Ward, the wasteland featured in so many Geto Boys videos. That was a long time ago. Black folks are rare there now. I think the current population in 5th trucks veggies in, but the prices may be a little high.

[Nunzio Tavulari]

I think that we've slipped somewhat from the point of the original post.

One reason I've heard a few times for the rise of obesity is that in some urban areas, people don't have grocery stores within their reach. This results in them eating a lot of fast food which increases obesity.

As I understand it, it's not that it's impossible to get to a grocery store, but that McDonalds is more convenient. If there's a fast food joint a quarter mile away and a market a mile away, most will feed their families fast food. This is bad both nutritionally and monetarily.