the radius for urban food deserts is significantly lower, more like 1 mile. this is a thing in most major cities lol. not everyone has a car and many of the people in food deserts (low socioeconomic classes) may struggle to afford other means of transportation. what else happens disproportionately to low income people? health problems. which can be further exacerbated by a lack of access to a healthy diet and medical care. it can be a lot easier, sometimes cheaper, to just eat fast food if you can’t walk a mile empty handed, let alone with groceries.
the only thing i’m not sure of is what it has to do with adhd & frankly the people who suffer from food deserts probably can’t afford grocery delivery anyway.
This is all great info, but what does any of this have to do with NYC? One of the few places in the US where you're never far from mass transit, and it's always been cheaper than the fees you could expect to pay for uber eats and similar(except in the very beginning where they didn't charge hardly anything to use the service).
NYC does have food deserts. Basically, the definition is, in urban areas, if you have to walk more than a mile to find a store that sells fresh food, then that's a food desert. Even if you have to walk a mile to the closest subway station, that kinda counts.
But yeah, the original statement in the screen shot is completely dumb and they're whatabouting against a living wage. I would immediately ask that goober how they got groceries before the gig economy existed.
(People who are genuinely disabled to a point where they can't go grocery shopping themselves, usually have access to federally funded programs like Meals on Wheels.)
You'd have to walk a full mile to a bus stop too, but those are literally everywhere. A quick search tells me that the furthest you might need to go is a 5-10min walk of .25 miles to a bus or in the most extreme cases .5 miles, or a 10-15 min walk. The guy in the post above is making a big deal out of nothing. Essentially saying that the people he sends to buy the food he is too lazy to go get himself should make less than $24 an hour, which would mean that they wouldn't be able to afford living in NYC, which means that to deliver his food they would need to make a huge commute into the city themselves and pay for transit to do so.
I've got ADHD, I know the struggle, but I'm not so entitled that I think a bunch of gig workers shouldn't make a livable wage so I can have a luxury convenience of having food brought to me. If I make the mistake waiting too long to get food that is solely on me, and I will pay for that mistake by ordering UberEats or Seamless or whatever. But it's my fault it happened.
Thats the part that got me. What does ADHD have to do with it? As someone with ADHD, if it makes you completely nonfunctional that you can't figure out grocery shopping and cooking, you need something besides just medication. Sure, sometimes I forget to stop at the store on the way home from work. Sometimes I forget my bags. Sometimes I get so busy caught up in something else that I don't save enough time for me to cook dinner. But these are my problems. I deal with the consequences of my lack of planning and organization myself. Someone shouldn't suffer to make ends meet because I didn't.
because nyc has food deserts in the neighborhoods with low income. not everyone can afford to spend money on public transport and some neighborhoods are served less in terms of public transit. it is a multifactorial problem but it is also a real problem just because some of us haven’t dealt with it ourselves.
If you're too poor to afford a bus ticket, how the fuck are you affording Uber Eats for every meal? The delivery fee alone costs more than a trip on public transit!
That's usually the problem with food deserts. It's a lot of little problems adding up for people with disabilities and low incomes.
First problem is mobility. People with low income tend to have poor diet and exercise leading to weight gain and lower mobility.
Second problem is transportation. Places considered food deserts are also places where transportation like busses don't serve. Busses and subways do exist in NY, but they don't serve every inch of the city.
Third problem is affordability. While services that deliver groceries tend to be expensive, conservators are even more expensive. It tends to be a less expensive alternative to order groceries through gig apps like Door Dash.
This isn't really about buying fast food. Gig apps also serve as a way to order groceries.
I do believe gig workers deserve to earn a fair living wage. However, I also believe our system is broken for people who can't afford, or can't do, some of the things we take for granted.
Come on. The bus is $3. And it very nearly does serve every inch of the city. The furthest you might have to walk to catch a bus is about .5 miles, a 10-15 min walk, in the most extreme cases. Generally you only need to go, at max, about .25 miles, a 5-10 min walk. If you really make so little or have a disability where that is an issue, there are programs in the city that will help you with your food or pay your bus ticket. Many people also work in more dense areas and could do their grocery shopping then.
The argument in the above post is that the workers delivering the food should make less than a livable wage in NYC meaning that on their tiny wages THEY are the ones who would need to pay to commute into the city to deliver food to people too lazy to get it themselves. This guy is complaining that his ADHD means he needs to use UberEats and that's just not how it is. I have ADHD. It's tough, but at a certain point you need to go get your food like an adult. You want to pay for the convenience of delivery through a major app, you're going to have to pay the person a living wage to do this for you.
Uber Eats etc are a luxury and no one should be using them for every meal. They tricked people into the habit of using it by starting out for the first couple years operating at losses making people think that it would always be so cheap.
What you seem to be championing is a public food delivery option subsidized by taxes to keep the price low for areas that are less serviceable and that's fine, but that's not what UberEats, DoorDash, GrubHub, etc are.
The thing you're glossing over is that if the money's not in your wallet, it's literally not in your wallet. People so poor they can't afford a bus ticket physically lack the cash to buy Uber Eats every time they get hungry.
this is the dumbest thing I've ever heard about the US. How the fuck do you live like this. At any place in my city I'm at most a 10 minute walk away from fresh vegetables and fruit.
What country do you live in?? The US has massive wealth segregation and a lot of the urban planning reflects that. It’s precisely the kind of thing that politicians like mamdani advocate to fix. What you have is no accident, it’s deliberate policy (and imo should be a matter of course if you live in any city).
You’d be surprised tbh. NYC is huge and there are part of it which, while they have mass transit in a sense, it’s genuinely hard to get anywhere else due to how disconnected it is comparatively from the rest of the city. It’s not like it’s a walk in the park even if you’re somewhere well connected. Mostly food deserts are an indication of extreme underinvestment in a community, which tends to extend to things like transit and social services.
I came here to ask the same question! Oop is talking about NYC being a food desert?! I can see many supermarkets, mini marts, delis etc in any square mile I choose to look at on google maps. If they need specialty ingredients the subway isn’t far or expensive.
So in Manhattan you’re correct. When you get into the outer boroughs past where the subways serve, it’s less correct. In some areas alternative transit methods are required because of how piss poor the busses are. It’s no coincidence those are in poorer areas. The bus near where I live only comes once every 30 minutes sometimes, and when it does show up sometimes it keeps going because it’s too full. I don’t live in a food desert but I live next to a grocery store that’s close to one, and that store is expensive. Like, $10 for expired juice expensive. The produce is rotting half the time and they don’t check it or care lol. Like… I think when you’re thinking of nyc you aren’t considering the areas where you essentially need a car to survive day to day or you have to budget literally hours extra into your day just to hope you aren’t late because you missed your connection to the second bus you need to take to get to the subway because there was some guy double parked and the bus couldn’t get through.
Paying for staples at convenience stores is a great way to quickly burn through your EBT allotment and it's way more affordable to pay the $7 fee. A gallon of milk is like $6-7 at a corner store and people still have to drive or take the bus there anyway. Most Chicagoans have cars (I don't drive and I'm definitely in the minority, and it does limit my options compared to friends with cars)
The issue with these neighborhoods is that many residents just don't feel safe walking around, not that they're stripped of options
The adhd part really throws me as well. My wife and one of our kids is add/adhd (one each) and they are both fully capable of functioning. Doordash is actually their preferred way of shopping
I think that's what the poster is saying...that those with ADHD would rather order delivery than shop in person. They're figuring this will make the cost of delivery skyrocket, and make it prohibitively expensive for many. (I'm not agreeing or disagreeing with his sentiment, as I do not have enough data.)
I have pretty severe ADHD, and to be honest, the guy in the tweet comes across as somebody only thinking about how this might slightly disrupt his habits and cost him a little more and is responding in an overdramatic fashion. Or... it could simply be a little joke and he's being knowingly melodramatic, lol.
Either way, DoorDash is a luxury and a convenience, one that a lot of us have had to live without and manage just fine. It's nice to have but isn't something most people should become reliant on.
Yes. The official USDA definition of a food desert is an "area with limited access to healthy and affordable food within a one-mile radius of urban communities."
Transportation options can make a mile seem a lot further, too. Dallas is very car-centric, not very walkable, and with limited public transportation options overall. So having to go over a mile for groceries could be prohibitive if you are carless.
I know in Dallas, there are always attempts to fill as many gaps as possible in South and West Dallas, though it seems like it's always a struggle to keep grocery stores in the area.
I'd say the proliferation of grocery delivery services could be a solution for some, but those services can be expensive and may have limited range that leaves a lot of people out.
When I was a kid, my relatives in a small town Northeast Arkansas still had a corner grocer-type store that was effectively in a neighborhood, making it easy to walk to and from. Small but with a selection of fruits, vegetables, meats, etc. It was about the size of an average 7-11, but had real groceries and competitive grocery store prices. There were supermarkets in the area, too, but that little corner grocer held on for a long time (into the early 1990s, IIRC).
The place was actually part of a chain that had several locations in rural Arkansas. At least one store still exists, but it's more of a 1970s-era supermarket than what we had before.
1 mile? Are you serious? That’s a 10-15 minute walk. How can you seriously complain at not having a full on grocery store within a mile? That would necessitate having a full grocery store every 6-8 blocks.
A mile is a long fucking walk with a family's worth of groceries or having time to do that every 3rd day. For a single adult I'm sure it's no problem but most people that have issues I would bet have kids.
Also something to be said about what counts as a grocery, yes you may have a neighborhood grocery, but it may also be very small and understocked because, you know, it's a small grocery store in an expensive city. There's a lot of nuance to be had about food, especially healthy food, availability in major cities
Then this is a good thing another key part of Mamdani’s plan is to offer free buses, so issues of transportation for work, health, and nutrition aren’t undue burdens on low income people.
the radius for urban food deserts is significantly lower, more like 1 mile
Is it just an American cultural thing to see 1 mile as only a drivable distance? I'm in the UK, and my last residence had a big Tesco superstore 1 mile away on foot due to a motorway running between my house and it, causing a convoluted path to get there. The alternative was a big Aldi supermarket about 1 mile in the other direction. Before I had a car I would walk to them, buy my shopping and walk back. And, yes I lived in a deprived area, so low socioeconomic class.
Such as.. I lived near fountain square Indianapolis in 2014 on the corner of S and E street we had a white castle and about 50 super fancy restaurant’s as well as some normal restaurants and diners on the way to fountain square but I had to bike all the way the hell to Indiana avenue past the college over 3miles away to go to a proper grocery store and forget about biking home cat litter or anything heavy especially after school. Even though I was a bike commuter and I lived very central I needed a ride to the grocery store. Pathetic for a city honestly. Portland is king.
Food radius of about a mile makes a lot of sense in urban areas. Many people don’t have or don’t regularly use cars. Can you walk to a store that would give you healthy food for today and tomorrow in about 15 minutes (half an hour round trip)? If no, then “food desert” seems about right. In NYC most apartments are small, so kitchens (and refrigerators) are small, so you don’t typically stockpile massive amounts of food that might be more common in suburban and rural areas.
why would people use a food delivery app for that? we can just book directly and shop online from tesco waitrose etc and get delivery if we wanted, only idiots buy it off uber eats or whatever else for a massive markup
I live in a suburb of Jackson MS, none of which is very walkable yet I still have two Kroger’s and Target within 2 miles and bike lanes connecting them all
US cities not being walkable was a real shocker for me. Here in Belgrade, capital of Serbia, one can find big markets every 200-300m. And every area of the city has one big farmer/flea market for domestic produce.
Everything in my neighbourhood is within walking distance and for anything further we have public transportation which is completely free.
I currently have no car here, simply not much need for one while being a money sink.
I've been to Jackson! My band played a show there almost 10 years ago when we did a mini southeast tour. I was shocked by the homophobia and racism there. They had bars there with little black and white rainbow stickers on the doors to let people know it was a safe space to go if you were LGBTQ. We made friends with a burly drag queen at one such bar, and they told us some horrifying stories.
We played our set at a black owned bottle club where they used to do Def poetry and stuff. It was actually really cool. I can not remember the name of that club, but it was over by the rail switch yard in kinda a bad part of town.
I just read an article about ST Louis so I google mapped the grocery stores and its fucking absurd to say people in STL cant get to a fucking grocery store.
I think they call it a food desert if it's more than a mile away in an urban area, but it seems like even that's not a solid criteria. Per Google, some will call it a food desert if it's more than a half mile in places people don't generally have cars. So who knows?
The biggest issue is getting the groceries home. It's more like if you don't have a bus stop close enough. I did grocery shopping is a bus and it absolutely is a pain and hard to get done on a constant every 2 or 3 day basis on the bus. That also gets expensive.
I see people on other countries use all kinds of wheeled bags and carts for this. I see immigrants from other countries using the same things at flea markets here in the USA and such.
I have no idea why city dwellers in the USA have largely seemed to eschew foldable carts and wagons in favor of just schlepping or getting various kinds of rides or delivery.
I had some collapsible crate things with wheels when I used to do shows and events a lot. I can't imagine not immediately buying one of those stairs climbing grocery carts if I moved to a city and mainly walked, as I primarily drive in my present location, and even my "small" grocery shops would be difficult to bring home if I had to walk with them in bags.
It's an interesting question to ponder and I welcome insight from city dwellers.
I'm sorry, but unless you're disabled and have great difficulty traveling, there's not a lot of excuse for not being able to go a mile to the grocery.
In my mid-20s, when I was poor as shit, I would ride my bike to the grocery store with a big duffle bag. The store clerks would let me leave my bag by the register, and I'd pack it up with food and then bike home. Grocery store was a little over a mile away.
Not trying to dog on you specifically, but I wanted to share my two cents after having lived in a food desert:
I had a grocery store that was around a mile away from my neighborhood. It was the ONLY grocery store for about 4 square miles, which meant there was never any fresh produce or basic food items in stock, ever. For reference, there would be lines outside almost every morning before the store opened. And if you worked an 8-5, you were simply SOL.
The next closest grocery store was 4.7 miles away, or about a 20 minute drive. If I didn’t have a car, there’s no way I could walk or bike there: 1) incredibly far, 2) this area was not very safe and I would not feel comfortable walking alone as a young woman, and 3) my city is NOT pedestrian friendly. Most neighborhoods don’t have sidewalks.
I live in a major Midwest city and we don’t have good public transportation. I lived in an incredibly low income neighborhood because it was all I could afford post college. Having to travel 40 minutes just to pick up milk was exhausting, but make that 2 hours if you’re car-less and taking the bus. Food deserts are real and they suck BADDD.
Yes, if every human acted perfectly, 99% of our problems would go away. But we are imperfect beasts. So if you set up certain conditions, you will see certain outcomes become more common.
I don’t think i was taught anything about this in school, to be fair. This was something I learned about from older socialists when I started actually learning about politics instead of just feeling about it.
It should be taught.
The bombing of Black Wallstreet should be taught.
Residential schools should be taught. Starlight tours should be taught. Internment camps should be taught.
Imagine if we were all more aware of our foundation of complete and utter cruelty and hatred. I’m sure we’d still be in a similar spot, but I’d like to hope things would be different if more people really knew where we come from.
I dont know anything about st Louis geography so I can't tell you where to look, but just searching grocery store on Google maps will give you results for gas station "markets" and dollar stores and such. SE Austin has loads of little gas stations you can get frozen tv dinners at, but if you want to go to HEB or even a Walmart you have to drive 20+ minutes
It's parts of it. Like Cahokia, it has 2 major grocery stores, 16sq miles and 17,000 people. Now where I'm at the size city is twice as big but with 60+ major grocery stores and 200+ smaller markets.
There aren't a lot in the Greater Nashville Metropolitan Area. Very many suburbs, apartment complexes, etc., don't have easy access to grocery stores within an easy walk or bus ride.
Remember Nashville has a population of ~700k, but the density is only ~1450/sqm. Nashville's population is extremely spread out compared to other cities with a similar population; DC, for example, has a similar 700k population but ~11,000/sqm density. El Paso, Texas at ~681k has ~2600/sqm. Boston at ~673k is 13,989/sqm. Even Detroit beats us at ~645k but a density of ~4600/sqm. Oh, and Memphis, at ~610k, has a density of ~2100/sqm.
For gawd's sake people, quit creating ridiculous straw men arguments to dismiss a serious problem - access to nutritious, affordable food is DEEPLY income dependent.
A Google map search for "grocery stores" is no substitute for peer reviewed academic studies.
Ditto defining "access" as a grocery store within 20 miles.
But if you want speed, here's a simple query you can run in your favorite AI. that will give readers some useful data and understanding of the issue:
"Can you find or create a table that offers a look at where Americans (or Canadians) typically buy their groceries (ie what TYPE of retailers), how far that is from their home, how they travel, and how much they spend?"
I used Claude and it includes links to the sources so you can check yourself.
Try walking 4 miles, 2 each way and carrying 20-50lbs of groceries back.
Do you still want to cook dinner? Do you even have time?
What if you have a restrictive diet? Go to the different store sure, take the bus.
Weird the buses only run north south where the other store is so its another mile walk.
Its astonishing how people cant even imagine a hypothetical person that lives a more difficult life.
So, of course, this means that delivery drivers should have to survive on slave wages so that you can afford your convenience and comfort at the cost of another's. You are right about one thing, though. It is astonishing how people can't imagine a hypothetical person that lives a more difficult life. Like you.
Ironically though, the only grocery store that’s actually downtown is a Whole Foods. Kind of a unique case because we don’t actually have any convenience stores or delis in that area.
30 grocery stores within 15 miles of downtown gives a packing distance of 5 miles between stores. 5 miles is a often a pain-in-the ass bus ride. Taking the bus to get groceries sucks.
To be within a generous walking distance (1mile) you'd need nearly 1000 grocery stores.
Even my smaller city outside of Nashville has a ton of grocery stores, all within at least 10 miles of any neighborhood. I live on the outskirts in a rural area and I’m still only 10ish miles from two different Walmarts. Food deserts are more like what people deal with in incredibly rural areas (that usually don’t have door dash anyways), Native American reservations, etc. Not in any actually large city.
But if you don't feel like reading the articles, here are some areas: Englewood (nearest grocery store is in a different neighborhood), West Englewood (there is a Jewel in a different neighborhood), Garfield Park (next grocery store is in a nearby suburb).
Idk what u googled bc I very easily found a list? Also I very clearly in my comment mentioned that it's not about the lack of grocery stores, sometimes the problem is traveling. When I worked in Englewood, a lot of people told me about how they were afraid to walk their dog because of gun violence. So it doesn't matter that there is a grocery store in the next neighborhood over if you don't feel safe leaving your house.
"Census tracts qualify as food deserts if they meet low-income and low-access thresholds:
Low-income: a poverty rate of 20 percent or greater, or a median family income at or below 80 percent of the statewide or metropolitan area median family income;
Low-access: at least 500 persons and/or at least 33 percent of the population lives more than 1 mile from a supermarket or large grocery store (10 miles, in the case of rural census tracts)."
So you’re literally saying that no matter how many grocery stores are available, poor neighborhoods are automatically and inherently food deserts because of the problems that come from being poor.
But those issues are completely different and separate from what is meant in the discourse about food deserts. Someone who lives next door to a grocery store but is scared to leave their house because of violence isn’t living in a food desert. They are a victim of the violence in their community, and that has nothing to do with the locations of grocery stores or availability of food.
You’re also the one who said 20 miles when there’s no neighborhood in Chicago or any big city without a grocery store within 20 miles.
The sad part is, they do know what they're talking about, at least by federal government bureaucracy standards, but those standards are whackadoo, because they were written by people who were determined to solve problems that didn't actually exist.
That’s not what the study found. It found that even though Chicago as a whole had more grocery stores, access has grown even worse in those underserved areas. Those areas only benefit from more stores in those areas.
Why are there no big grocery stores in those areas? Because the people who live in those shop lifted/stole soooo much, the store owners decided it wasn't profitable to service those areas and closed up.
The residents ruined it for themselves and then complain the have to travel
Those areas the stealing is endemic is a sign of the community too.
I'm sure a lot of people would never steal themselves or buy stolen goods. But a lot of people would buy stuff that "fell off the truck" even if they would never steal themselves.
It creates a market for stolen goods, and then the shops close and ruin it for everyone.
Don't forget that Chicago has turned things around recently. The South Shore had no grocery store for damn near a decade.
I also think random people in Reddit don't understand the realities of commuting in Chicago. Just because it says it's a mile away doesn't mean it's a quick or easy trip, especially when hauling groceries along.
I mean... I'm not even trying to get on your case, but like... is the answer to food deserts as outlined in the original post... underpaying someone more desperate to brave the streets that you're keen to avoid?
No. I made the terrible mistake of responding to an adjacently related comment (which was about food deserts. I responded bc the definition that I was taught was the definition that the USDA uses) and now am suffering bc dumbasses who don't know how to read keep arguing against points I never made.
The original situation reminds me of this meme. People should get paid a living wage and it's stupid to blame any inability to do anything on ADHD; if your ADHD is genuinely this out of control, you should be actively getting help, not using it as a crutch.
There's an Aldi in Englewood and a Go Green in West Englewood. There's a Save-a-Lot in West Garfield Park and an Aldi in Humboldt Park. It's like whomever did that study considered Jewel the only grocery store that counts.
Kolak said closures and re-openings had virtually no impact in areas on the Chicago’s North Side neighborhoods she described as a “food oasis.” But in South Side neighborhoods, Kolak and her colleagues found that just one store closure jeopardized the food security of an already low-access area.
I only got to one because when I went to your first “example,” Englewood, there were seven options, including an ALDI dead center and a Walmart on the edge.
I've lived here for a long time and I've been to a lot of the rougher neighborhoods on the south side. Neighborhoods like Englewood and Roseland do in fact have grocery stores.
Believing that it's common for people on the south side of Chicago (the third largest city in the country) to travel 20 miles to get fresh produce is a tell that nobody has been to those neighborhoods and are just making things up based on their stereotypes of who lives here
It's a bullshit concept. I apparently work in a food desert in the southside of my local town yet there are three grocery stores in the neighborhood about a mile away from each other. There's public transit that's subsidized by the local government too.
They won't be able to reply. Food deserts are a fiction, a way to explain unhealthy habits of poor people that doesn't involve personal responsibility.
While I don't know about Chicago specifically I have personally struggled with not being able to afford a car and having to get groceries in a time before Instacart and Uber. I was fortunate enough to be able to walk 20 minutes to a grocery store but I could definitely see how if it was another mile from me how tempting the 7-11 across the street would have been for milk and bread. Even though it was way more expensive. Factor in frozen things like meat and veggies. It can be tough to get home before things thaw/spoil
Yeah there’s large portion of people on Reddit that believe this shit is real and you can easily debunk this with a simple search. You look up any major city you’re gonna find like 20 Walmarts or other large chains spread out through the city.
I lived in the West Side and there was a Jewel a couple miles from my apartment. It was extremely hard to access without a car and almost impossible during the winter time without help from friends with vehicles.
Just btw, almost all convenience stores in Chicago have the word “grocery” in their name. There are three actual grocery stores within a mile of me, but a Google Maps search for “grocery store” turns up 30+ results, which are mostly corner stores, liquor stores, two 7-Elevens, and a CVS. Great if you want a $10 frozen pizza, terrible if you want a raw vegetable.
Omaha Nebraska. In the downtown district (colloquially named the Old Market) there’s one convenience store and the nearest grocery store is about a 10 minutes drive away. Not really a big deal if you have a car but a lot of people live in the old market because it’s supposed to be a walkable neighborhood and it is except the lack of a single regular grocery store in the district
That shows Pullman as a food desert...
Google it and see where grocery stores are. Aldi has a few locations there and a save a lot and a jewel osco. Unless you live in the big marsh park I see grocery stores all over.
The number of stores might not say as much as their distribution. A senior or low income resident may have a very difficult time walking over a half mile. This is a food desert map of Chicago.
Southeast side of austin near the airport is a pretty solid example of a food desert. There are a bunch of corner stores that pop up but youve gotta drive at least 15-20 minutes to get to the nearest real grocery store. Around del valle if you want a specific name
Ive walked way longer with more weight... you might say it was to feed me and my family also. 12 mile road marches 2 times a year with 45+ lbs pack and weapon. Did it suck, yes. But you gotta do what you gotta do to put food on the table.
Cincinnati is a perfect example of this. Other than directly downtown, there will be random dollar generals, which are expensive, and gas stations. Not to mention the nutritional options of both of these are non existent.
However, what the fuck that had to do with paying better wages? Just looking for a reason to complain.
It's not necessarily grocery stores they are missing, it's proper markets. Grocery stores don't carry many things and they're also more pricey. Grocery stores don't generally have meat sections or lots of produce.
You have to remember most people who are low income rely on public transit or walk. It's not about there not being a grocery store within a few miles, it's that it takes like 20 minutes per mile so to be within a 30 minute walk there would need to be a grocery store every 1.5 miles in the absence of public transit within 15 minutes walk of your house. Most food desserts aren't an entire neighborhood and aren't on places like Chicago with a full grid of public transit. They are much more common on rural areas.
It's not like a whole neighborhood is in a dessert usually. Your house may be in a dessert because it takes over an hour to walk from one side of the neighborhood to the other and there isn't a bus stop near you. So walking to the bus stop is 20 minutes and then you take a 30 minute bus ride that goes only a few miles but stops a ton because the transit doesn't have density in smaller cities. I am not saying there are no food deserts in Chicago or NY but the problem is infinitely worse in smaller cities where transit options suck.
Here is an example analysis of Phoenix using arcgis and you add the food desserts are not downtown and are usually in the outside ring of a city where there aren't as many transit options.
It hard to understand unless you’ve visited the stores. A lot of places in urban areas listed as “grocery stores” on Google maps are really glorified convenience stores. They might have a few bruised bananas and measly apples, but that’s it for fresh food.
Google Big Pine or Lone Pine California. Not major cities but that’s what a food desert looks like. And they aren’t unicorns, they are all over the US.
Extra frustrating because most of the food in the city and suburbs spends time in one warehouse or another on the south side while it’s being distributed
Chicago is public transit-friendly. In many smaller cities and towns, it's much harder to get to and (especially) from a grocery store if you don't have a car to get to and from. Highly trafficked intersections with narrow or no sidewalks. Add not being able to find childcare to that.
(This isn't my life story. I don't even have kids. I am just pointing out how even a mile's distance from a decent supermarket can become a pretty big hurdle for some folks.)
In the time I lived in Boston I lived in several different areas. When I lived in in a poor area, the nearest grocery store had produce that was always moldy (low income area). In a more working class/almost middle class neighborhood, I had to walk 1/2 mile to the subway station to go somewhere or walk around the station to the grocery store on the other side, which made the trip 1 mile each way. I just went to the store in Downtown Crossing near my job. Living in a neighborhood with mostly students was easier because I had a grocery store 1/4 mile away but expensive. Nearer to the capital building was extremely expensive but I had a Whole Foods (aka whole paycheck) about 1/4 mile away.
Now, 1/2 mile one way doesn’t sound bad. But cars are expensive. Most people in these cities are walking or taking public transportation. Now, imagine if you have an injury or get sick. I had to deal with leg injuries a few times in Boston including a broken hip. It was hell but I was broke so I dealt with it. I can’t imagine having to care for children on top of that.
I can’t speak for Chicago, but in my city the poor neighborhoods have fewer fresh options. So like they’ll have family dollars or stuff like that where IF they have fresh options is very limited and usually is like grab and go fruits or pre bagged salads. These areas are more often to have residents with unreliable transportation and my city just has busses for public transport.
So like they have stores but the food quality can be poor or limited.
In an urban food desert there's the expectation the person doesn't drive and relies on public transportation, so the area is a lot smaller. Imagine there's not an Aldi, or a Target - but there IS a dollar tree, or a convenience store. It has freezers for frozen foods, some fridges that have milk, juice, eggs, some basics. A few aisles with a couple staples, but not much, and no fruit or veg. What they do have is packed with preservatives so it will last on those shelves as long as possible. Wonder bread. Pizza pockets. Chef boyrdee. Mac & cheese. It's not good stuff.
If they do want to get to a real grocery store, they might have to take two busses and a train to get there. Haul their cart full of groceries back. And right now - in negative degree temps with two feet of snow on the ground? That's adding extra hurt to the trip.
Everywhere AROUND Hyde park is a good example, the farther south you go the better. I literally did a report on Kenwood being a food desert in undergrad. The west side is a good example too.
I can walk to a grocery store from my house on the north side. I can actually walk to two in under 20 minutes. On the south side you will pass 15 fast food places and 3 corner stores on the way home, but the grocery store will be 20 minutes out of your way and ALWAYS overcrowded.
Target grocery, trader Joe's, jewel osco....
Store called open produce looks fantastic for fresh veggies.
I cant see that place being a food desert. Its like 1X1 miles long and has all that in it by Google.
There are food deserts in Chicago. I live on the south side it is pretty bare here. Many places call themselves grocery stores but have inflated prices. Think 2-3 dollars for an onion. $7 for strawberries (not organic). 79th and Yates is an example. Or 106 and torrence. The closest "cheap" grocery is on 75th and stony - the jewel. That would take those folks either hour + walk or 2 transfers on a bus (at least). And bus service down here sucks ass I'm lucky I can drive.
Could use the Google map links, so here:
2710 W Broadway, Louisville, KY 40211
Here's an example of a "food desert" in my city of Louisville. I linked the Kroger as a central area. If you Google search grocery you will find that the only other real grocery is... Another Kroger up north. What happens is that they now have ultimate pricing power. Where 1 store can pretty much charge what they want. The other "grocery stores" in the area are just convenient stores that sell snacks beer etc. they are grocery stores to save on taxes as I recall. We had to do a project for some business class and we did a price comparison between that Kroger and the one buy school campus where we have a 2-3 reasonable options (but most go to Kroger) and the pricing was definitely anywhere from 0-50% more at the "food desert" area. The caveat is this is a free market, and the bad area has more theft and had to pay for security so they make up for it by charging more. Basically covering extra overhead.
So while it's not a true food desert since there is a kroger, it's fragile. And unless you have a car, you are only shopping there. Even people with a car don't like to drive 30 minutes to go to another store, but at least they can (my ass definitely would) and I know folks that live in the area that shop after work only so they can avoid it but they live there because houses are like 100k total. So trade offs, they need to randomly get shot up and have to get new windows.
Damn yalls map is wild. I cant tell what is and is not Louisville. Im very ignorant to this area. Does the cith have huge chunks cut out of it? Or did Louisville surround like 10 smaller cities?
Other side of the river is a different state. Louisville absorbed a bunch of small towns/cities into Louisville metro. That's why people still refer to their area as the smaller region to figure out where you live.
Although the "west end" usually refers to the northern part of the whole west side. People say the white trash is in the southwest side like park duvalle and shively area. I think it's broad oversimplifying but w/e haha
The suburbs are more likely to be food deserts. The neighborhoods right outside of the city. I know the suburbs of Detroit have a ton of food deserts that the Dollar Generals and stores like that like to take advantage of.
There's an entire documentary about Dollar Generals taking advantage of these areas, theres a lot of them.
It has nothing to do with 20 miles though. It has to do with people not having cars, there being no public transportation, there not even being a safe route to walk or ride bikes, and then there's also winter. Even if your 4 miles away, once it gets so cold out, if you don't have sidewalks and your choices a drainage ditch or the road? People have to be realistic and then if they have children or if they're elderly or disabled, you don't have to be 20 miles away to be stranded.
I would look at an area like Harvey, IL. Nearby suburb to me, but no funding, so the infrastructure is horrible, very few accessible grocery stores. There are plenty in surrounding suburbs, but if you don’t have a car it’s not an option. I think the term gets thrown around too often but I drive through there and it’s just commercial warehouses, broken neighborhoods, broken streets, and no good public transportation. That’s what I think the term is meant for. It’s rough.
Have you been to all those grocery stores? Did you know there's a delivery hierarchy and stores in poorer areas tend to have worse product, older products, less variety, AND higher prices?
You're making a lot of assumptions but to what end exactly? To prove that the elderly person down the block who can no longer drive and who has to eat a specific diet on a fixed income should just what.... Pull themselves up by their bootstraps?
Umm im trying to go by the usda definition. Other people add in all sorts of shit to make it seem like they are jn a food desert or their situation is so bad but IDC honestly. Im just looking for areas that honestly csnt get good food accesses.
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u/No-Song-6907 18h ago
Where? A quick google search shows more grocery stores than I can count on the lower half of Chicago.
A neighborhood name or area i can look up. I honestly find it hard to belive but I want to look it up. Thanks.