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.
The term is “food desert” and the USDA keeps track of them. Many areas on the linked map are rural, but many are urban.
You pose this question as though you were skeptical that it even happens. A lot of the anger toward Korean corner market owners in South Central L.A. in the 1992 L.A. riots was because they could sell whatever they wanted at any price, since no supermarkets were around to compete. So a lot of what they were selling then was junk food, as that’s easier to store, etc., than fresh produce. That and liquor. Banks have been the same way–they were staying out of those communities, ostensibly because they perceived a risk of high crime.
Even today it’s still a problem, though efforts have been made to change the situation. You have to go pretty far to get to a supermarket in south L.A., and a lot of the people are bound to buses for transport.
I have heard that Detroit proper is notorious for this phenomenon among other things. Just so everyone understands however, we aren’t talking about the lack of any place to buy food. We are talking about a lack of true supermarkets where people can buy the ingredients to make healthy meals themselves. Some urban areas have plenty of places to buy fast food or junk food but almost nowhere to buy fresh fruits and vegetables or uncooked meat and baking ingredients.
I live in a food desert. The nearest grocery store, a Whole Foods that is out of the reach of many residents, is 1.5 miles away (in an area where most people do not drive.) There is a regularly grocery store about 2.5 miles up the road, through some not exceptionally safe areas.
We do have a couple of corner stores. One stocks junk, another stocks real food but at an extremely high markup ($7.00 for a jar of Prego pasta sauce, for example.) The local drug store has a large selection of food, but all of it is shelf-stable junk food. A lot of people, myself included, end up doing a lot of primary shopping there. There is a (pricey) farmer’s market once a week, a cooperative community garden I don’t know much about, and recently an NGO started sending a mobile produce shop.
Why is this? I imagine it’s because urban land is still expensive, but the area is low-income and would draw from only a small area (nobody would go in to this neighborhood to shop from outside the immediate area, as they might in a suburban supermarket.) There is a lot of development going on in the general area, but it makes a lot more sense to build condos than supermarkets.
How close would the store have to be in order for it to not be considered a food desert?
Yeah, I was curious about that, too. From the USDA:
There’s a notorious stretch of north St. Louis, extending far beyond the city limits, where you can go for miles and not find a decent supermarket.
As for what causes it, a lot of things. Low sales (compared to what a similar-sized suburban store would get) and crime (both against the store and its customers) are two things I constantly hear. Another one, specific to St. Louis City, is that supposedly whenever a major developer tries to come in, both city officials and neighborhood groups pressure them to scale up whatever the original project is. That doesn’t explain the desert part out in the county, though, or for that matter, the same problem next door in Illinois.
Do you mind me asking where you live in DC that you are 1.5 miles from a Whole Foods (of which there are, I think, 5 in DC) but not any other grocery stores?
I’ve got a question.
Would a “low-income” urban area where 33% of the population is more than a mile from a supermarket or large grocery store still be considered a food desert if it were dotted with small grocery stores, butcher shops and fruit-and vegetable stores ? That’s the kind of neighborhood I live in now. One supermarket and one large grocery store- plenty of people live more than a mile from either but no one lives a mile from an ordinary grocery store, a butcher or a fruit store.
Shaw
Yep. The ‘cornerstores’ or mini-marts are predominantly the only sources of groceries or food for the people in these neighborhoods; aside from fast-foods restaurants.
from the Los Angeles Times which I am totally unfamiliar with.
Well of course people who have never had access to fresh produce won’t know how to, or have the will to, cook with them overnight. Cyclical, generational problems will take time to fix, I wouldn’t expect otherwise.
There is at least some dispute abut the extent of food deserts in Detroit.
Recent studies have challenged this view.
Note that the Locator does not list Shaw as a food desert, probably because overall income is too high.
Wal-Mart has proposed opening a handful of stores in DC, but it has been heavily protested.
You must have been watching the HBO special on obesity.
Yes, there are food deserts. High crime and shoplifting has a lot to do with it. It is very difficult to control shrinkage in a large store. A small bodega can more easily control what goes on in the store.
The Koreans came into New York and set up green grocers. A lot of them were very successful in the more affluent neighborhood. They didn’t really want to go into the minority ghettos. It can be very difficult to operate as a minority with an already disadvantaged minority. The Koreans have a business model where families pool their resources, work like hell and systematically put each family on a sound financial basis.
Some of the sidewalk produce stands are very successful. They can set up a stand across the street from a supermarket (supermarket in NY terms; they would be seen as a grocery store in most places) and move more produce than the supermarket. Now some have small generators to power lights so they can operate into the night hours. NYC has allowed licenses to get these types of stands into areas where there are no green grocers and it appears to be quite successful. So much produce comes into the Hunt’s Point market that after the restaurants, hotels and grocery chains have picked out the best stuff there is enough fresh, quality produce for the street stands that can be sold at a low cost. It does seem to work out.
Maybe. Shaw is a rapidly gentifying mixed-income area (I’m on the Bloomingdale end), and there may be enough well-off people to pull the overall income up. None the less, there are a lot of people who do not have access to quality food at a normal price. Some of us are lucky enough to get produce delivered or to shop at the overpriced corner stores, but that’s not a reality for a lot of people. Hell, I’m pretty fearless, but I get a bit uncomfortable lugging groceries from the Harris Teeter in Columbia Heights or the Safeway by Busboys and Poets- Pleasant Plains is sketchy, and the areas around 8th street get uncomfortable. These are not particularly safe areas, especially at the times that I get off of work/school. Prince Charles paid a visit last year to a nearby community garden as part of his focus on sustainable food. It is a real, actual, existing problem.
I feel like if they opened a Walmart, it probably would not be in Shaw. It’s at an awkward point now, where it has facilities for the very poor and for the very well-off, but not for the in between.
I used to live in a food desert that was middle income. The nearest supermarket was three miles away but fast food was only a mile. Couple that with the fact that the supermarkets required me to get on congested roads which tripled the travel time while the route to fast food was on neighborhood roads that had little traffic.
I did all my shopping fifteen miles away on the route to or from work. If I ran out of something Friday night, it wouldn’t be renewed until Monday at the very least. My job also had long and erratic hours and sometimes I just wanted to get home instead of departing from the highway to go grocery shopping.
In my experience, fast food is found in greater numbers and in more convenient locations than supermarkets.
Wow, a grocery store 1.5 miles away is considered a food desert? That sounds more like a transportation desert.
Or law enforcement desert. The nearest grocery store is almost 1.5 miles away from me, and if it weren’t Florida where literally half the year you can’t walk anywhere without breaking a sweat I would think nothing of walking there for my food if I didn’t have a car.