More like this please. In Saturday’s Oregonian, Paige Parker has a fabulous story on the profound equity implications of pedestrian-unfriendly communities.
More on the article in a second but first, a rant. Walkability is not just an amenity. Is it not a lifestyle accessory for the well-heeled. It is, for many people, an issue of basic social and economic justice. Zoning that segregates housing from retail—and that reduces walkability and transit access—has serious consequences for equity. So it’s wonderful to see a newspaper article treat it that way.
Without the resources to own and operate a car, low-income families can face huge obstacles to meeting basic needs.
Low-income and minority families, prone to obesity and dietary-related diseases, are also more likely to live in communities where nutritious food is hard to come by, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation reports. These are otherwise known as “food deserts.” Nationally, the typical low-income neighborhood has 30 percent fewer supermarkets than higher-income neighborhoods.
To illustrate the difficulty, Parker profiles a northeast Portland family who must spend several hours on transit, just to access an affordable grocery store. It’s easy to think of this as little more than a big headache, but that’s wrong-headed. It’s a real economic hardship for those who can least afford it.
…the closest markets are convenience stores. They’re sugar shacks of a kind, given their selection of cigarettes, beer and processed foods. At one, the produce section amounts to a few bruised tomatoes, limes and jalapenos. The other charges $4.89 for a gallon of milk, about $2 more than a regular supermarket.
And it’s a relatively serious public health hazard too. Confined to these type of markets, it’s not just what you eat — processed, low-nutrition foods—but what you don’t eat. In fact:
In a 2002 study of 10,000 people, University of North Carolina researchers found African Americans ate an average of 32 percent more fruits and vegetables for each supermarket in their census tract.
The article goes on to take a close look at the economics behind grocery store locations—pretty fascinating stuff in my book. The Oregonian story is based in part on the Regional Equity Atlas Project from the Livable Communities Coalition. It’s very cool. And while I’m giving out props I should mention Jennifer Langston’s similarly terrific article in the Seattle P-I about six months ago.
In some later post, I’d like to hash out some of the policy proposals that often get floated in discussions like this. I’m kinda skeptical:
A coalition of health advocates, farmers and others have launched a farmers market. Now neighbors are itching for a natural food store… City officials would like to expand community gardens to get low-income residents growing their own fruits and vegetables.
I mean, nothing against these things. I love my farmers market and I love my backyard garden. But these can be extraordinarily expensive, not to mention time-intensive. Frankly, they’re luxuries that are beyond the reach of many low-income families. And I don’t think a natural food store—where prices are almost certain to be higher — is the answer. I’m much more interested in how we can beef up transit service or use zoning to incentivize better grocery access.
But I’m curious to know what readers think. What’s the best solution here?
Snowflake Seven
Food Deserts have been an advocacy topic in Los Angeles for some time. And the corporate world’s response (slow and tentative) can be glimpsed in this LA Times article, Filling in ‘food deserts’. If you are curious what a Fresh’n Easy looks like check out the brand design review.The problem is that the type of solution Fresh’n Easy represents (there are other similar projects) fails to address the structural problems that build these deserts. Groceries are not the only category of economic activity in short supply or non-existent in these areas.
Sungsu
Let’s not forget bicycle infrastructure as an equalizing force. With an inexpensive trailer, you can easily get a week’s worth of groceries.As Pucher and Buehler put it, “Moreover, cycling is quite economical, costing much less than both the private car and public transport, both in direct user costs and public infrastructure costs. Precisely because it is affordable by virtually everyone, cycling is among the most equitable of all transport modes.”http://www.thunderheadalliance.org/site/images/uploads/MakingCyclingIrresistible.pdf
Matt the Engineer
I second the use of transit for inexpensive groceries. When I visited Shanghai I rode the world’s fastest train from the airport to the end of the regular metro. What business was located at this out-of-the-way end of the Shanghai metro? A huge grocery store called, confusingly, “Metro”*. There were people streaming from Metro to the metro with grocery bags in their hands. It turns out that much of the dense housing is located right at metro stations and people ride it to and from work as well as to and from the grocery store.* yes, we walked towards it thinking it was the metro, until we saw people coming out with shopping carts
Eric
In Vancouver BC the most affordable places to shop for fruits and vegetables are the vegetable markets along the old streetcar routes (now trolley bus routes). It is the transit ridership that creates the volume of pedestrian traffic that keeps these stores alive, since most don’t have any off-street parking. Of course this also allows people to just walk to local stores.Grouping businesses along transit corridors (without parking lots) worked a century ago, and it still works. But not if the bus only comes every 20 minutes.
joshuadf
First of all, vegetables at a farmers market are not more expensive, and are often more appetizing that the worn out ones at a “cheap” supermarket. There was a program in Philadelphia to get fresh fruit and vegetables into the convenience stores which is a great idea.Separately, the reason for the low prices on sweet snacks is that a lot of them come from subsidized calories: corn and soybeans, as described in Michael Pollan’s latest article Dear Mr Next President: Food, Food, Food. Fix the farm bill and cut down on the high fructose corn syrup being pumped into low income neighborhoods.
Eric de Place
Joshuadf,This is exactly the conversation I’d like to have! I don’t deny for a moment that veggies from the farmers market are tastier and more wholesome. In fact, that’s precisely why I make many of my own purchases there. And I’d dearly like these options to be available for lower-income folks. But I worry about the practicality. I have a difficult time believing that farmers markets are cost-competitive with, say, my local big box grocery store. (I’ve shopped at both for years, so I have some experience in this arena.) Farmers markets tend to sell premium goods—often local, organic, and specialty items—that are spendier than the ordinary items in mass market grocers. Moreover, farmers markets are not terribly convenient. With the exception of downtown Seattle’s Pike Place Market, all the other Seattle-area farmers markets are open just a few hours each week. That’s true everywhere else in the NW as far as I’m aware. It’s also practically impossible to purchase everything you need there, which means taking a trip to the big grocer anyway (e.g. you can’t reliably find staples like toilet paper, dish soap, flour, sugar, cold cereal, canned tuna, mayo, etc at the farmers market). So while a farmers market would be a nice addition to the folks profiled in the Oregonian piece, it wouldn’t solve the fundamental problem that they’re barely making ends meet and have limited discretionary time. Please note: I’m not saying that there’s something wrong with farmers markets. Just the opposite—they’re a terrific community asset for dozens of reasons! I’m just saying that they’re more expensive. If you only have $100 to spend on the groceries for your family, I don’t think there’s much question about where you’ll get more food for your money. Toward that end, I’d like to see neighborhood activists push for zoning or incentives to get full-service grocery stores into their neighborhoods. But let’s dig in. I know people get exercised about this issue—so someone tell me why I’m wrong!
Matt the Engineer
I think your basic point is right, but I’m not so sure big box food stores are a huge step forward. [Josh]’s point about corn syrup fits right in with the big box food store issue. My experience in such stores is that you find less fruits and veggies (except nearly white tomatoes and iceberg lettuce), and more cheap processed food. Frozen pizzas with very high fat content. Large tubs of high-fat, high-calorie ice cream at very low prices. Rows and rows of cookies and chips. I eat fairly healthy, and the last time I went into a Food4Less (ok, years ago) I could find very little to eat.For cities like Portland in areas with fairly low densities, I’m not sure what the solution is. Density will bring commerce and choices. Perhaps someone could start up a low-income version of the organic bin delivery? I have a large box of fruits and veggies delivered to my doorstep every other week for $35 (there’s at least 3 services that do this in Seattle – I recommend New Roots). I’m sure they could do it for less money if they used cheaper fruits and veggies, given enough interest.
Maria
Transit is better than nothing, but I don’t envy folks who have to get a week’s worth of groceries, 2 kids, and a stroller on and off the bus – especially if they’re shopping during peak transit use times. If we’re going to seriously expect people to use transit to do their grocery shopping, we’ll need to make a few design tweaks to trains and buses to accommodate people with large packages. There aren’t very many places to put, say, a granny cart on a Seattle bus without blocking the aisle or risking a spill.As a long-term solution, I’m most interested in mixed-income neighborhoods – not just for food deserts, but for all sorts of equity issues with education, environmental justice, etc. – but I don’t think current attempts are really working all that well and I suspect we’re still missing a piece of the puzzle.
Eric de Place
I’m gonna hit a few unrelated points here…1) Matt, low-income organic produce deliveries… I love it! In fact, I love it so much that I’m going to write a blog post about it someday.2) I’m still not convinced about the demerits of the big box grocery stores. Sure, there’s FAR too much in the way of low-nutrition high-sugar junk food, but it’s not as if that’s all they sell. I’ll bet if we picked a basket of grocery staples—carrots, bananas, milk, tuna, mayo, spaghetti, etc—and compared prices we’d find that the big box store is drastically cheaper than either farmers markets, co-ops, or natural food stores. But I suppose we should treat this as an empirical question rather than conjecture. Someone should do a study…3) I’m also still unclear about the points regarding corn/corn syrup/Michael Pollan. As I understand it, there are perverse subsidies built into the food industry that have all sorts of untoward consequences. But one thing they may do is make certain kinds of food cheaper than they’d otherwise be, right? So while there are many reasons to adopt Pollan’s prescriptions, shouldn’t we acknowledge that there are some economic equity benefits to cheap food? Someone set me straight on this… maybe I’m being dense but I just don’t get how abolishing corn subsidies would address the grocery access problems faced by poor people.4. Several commenters—Snowflake, Sungsu, and Maria—have mentioned infrastructure-type changes. I quite agree that we need these, but I want to get more specific. What do we mean? Bigger bus loading features? Better bike lanes? And how do we effectively improve zoning and land use decisions to put some oases in the food deserts?
Matt the Engineer
I’ll try to tackle #3. Looking at just “food” is simplistic. Starvation is not a large problem in our society, but obesity is, and obesity rates are loosely proportional to income levels. Why is this? One explanation is that inexpensive foods are low in nutrition and high in calories and fat. Combine a tight budget with a limited amount of time and resources (having access to a kitchen, let alone kitchen equipment), and foods like $0.39 frozen burritos (332 calories, 14g fat) become attractive.Herein lies the issue with making some foods cheaper via subsidies. Cheap corn leads to: cheap meat, which almost as a rule has more fat than the alternatives, cheap sugar, which has obvious effects on obesity, and cheap corn products, which are generally fried and have few nutritious attributes.My point is that you need to break food into at least two categories: junk and nutritious. Provide cheap nutritious food to the poor and you’ve genuinely increased economic equity. Provide cheap junk food and you’ve just shifted from budgetary costs to health costs.
joshuadf
Thanks Matt, the one thing I’d add is that diabetes is also very high in low income areas (sadly, what used to be called “adult onset diabetes” is now only “Type 2”). I also recommend the article I linked above to everyone; it is rather long but you get the broad points on the first page. If you’re suspicious of AlterNet, an older one is Unhappy Meals from the New York Times. Eric, you make good points about the lack of convenience, but farmers markets <a href='http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2003733548_farmers04.html'>are not more expensive according to a Seattle University student who was looking only at vegetables. Obviously stay away from the wooly pig, but honestly it’s not like premium meat is cheap at Wal-Mart either, and I did shop at Wal-Mart when I lived in the South. By the way, the Youngstown Cultural Arts Center in South Seattle did your empirical study using USDA grocery staples. Unfortunately “one participant described one of the cheaper supermarkets as ‘the place where food goes to die'” so I doubt it’s high quality—or tasty. The other thing most real food takes is time to cook and some experience on what works for certain foods. That article mention cooking together once a week at the Center so that’s another great idea that would also stretch dollars.Lastly, occasionally I’m “that guy” getting a week’s worth of groceries, 2 kids, and a stroller on and off the bus, and it is a huge pain (though I’m not low income so most of the time I can use my neighborhood Whole Foods). I’d say even with ideal transit access—say light rail stations close to your house and grocery store—it would still be a huge pain compared to walking down the street. Therefore I believe the best bets are “oasis” idea or low-income deliveries. Getting low-cost nutritious food into the existing neighborhood stores would also have the side effect of building social capital, so that’s my preference. I have no interest destroying homes to build a bigger supermarket stuffed with junk, just because the margins look better.
joshuadf
Re-reading the comments, I thought I’d also add that the idea that we need to find all items at one store is a 20th Century peculiarity. People throughout history, and today in most of the developed world, have gone to different vendors for soap and meat. I’m now questioning why I did this for many years and explaining why I try not to.
Seth
Adding another point to the subsidies debate, it is just the subsidy of corn, sugar, soy, etc. but also the lack of subsidies for many other nutritious foods or sustainable farming practices. You are totally correct that having cheap food is good (in fact over history recessions often follow spikes in food costs – mainly due to environmental issues – several years prior). But the choices of what foods we make affordable (and thus become the center of our diet) has more to do with industrial agriculture processes than to do with nutrition or sustainability. There is also an issue in advocating for large-scale supermarkets and farmers markets. Through the agriculture industry, economies of scale cause many supermarkets to not support the local farmers. This combines with that many of the things sold at farmers markets are not very well subsidized to make local farmers in a very poor situation.Supermarkets are also not jumping to go fill in our food deserts. In Seattle Housing Authority’s High Point development (1,600 units) there was planned space for a large scale supermarket. After years of negotiation, not a single company would invest in a supermarket. They even offered impressive tax incentives.In mainland Europe, there is a type of food store that I have never seen in the US: the small market. These stores (such as Aldi, Netto, Coop) are scattered all over towns and cities, sometimes blocks from each other, and provide the truly neighborhood shop. They have almost all of your typical needs (fresh fruit, veg, staples, canned goods, cereals, frozen foods, meat, wine, beer, cheese, eggs, etc), but the are only 2 or 3 aisles large. The food is not always highest quality, or have lots of variety (you wont have a choice of 20 types of peanut butter) but they have what you want for your normal grocery runs – and a walkable distance away.For some reason, this type of shop does not exist in the US, and I think this is a huge contributor to our food desert problem. I have asked several food researchers, and they have guessed that there is some policy that encourages them. Anyone have insight?
Andrea Faste
Could we ever get clever enough to combine on-line ordering with the delivery systems already out there for meals 0n wheels? Seems like the challenge is really educating about what is healthy and affordable, then providing a way to get it from store to family with limited means.
Daniel Henderson
wow, great thread.I’ll try to leverage my business degree here. Groceries have a huge range of refrigerated and non-refrigerated products, and a very low margin. With this scenario of high overhead and high price sensitivity, grocery is one of the most conservative, risky industries out there. So it doesn’t surprise me that when folks approach grocery stores for expansion into a new area that they don’t jump. Since they are likely to already have stores in the area they would be cannibalizing themselves. And if not, the cost of investing in a new site with such a small profit margin is a high risk gamble, even if it is subsidized.Joshuadf, convenience of course is the reason we want to buy everything in one place. Perhaps if the meat, soap and produce stores were right next to each other then maybe it would be practical enough to stick, but most people are as time-strapped as they are cash-strapped. Many people have little choice or the capability (including education) to change their situation.I’m very interested in the problems of urban renewal—how can you make a livable society without pricing out low income folks just trying to survive? Without this urban renewal is the lack of a successful solution at best, and a failure at worst. I’m in Portland, and when people casually mention gentrification when referring to the status of local developments it makes me cringe. Driving low income people out that have real problems that need solving is no solution. But businesses chase money, so few want to cater to low income customers (ironically the ones who chase the biggest targets with premium goods fall hardest in a recession because many of those goods are luxuries). It appears to be up to well-meaning entrepreneurs and non-profits to tackle low income needs. It seems to me that if we could more effectively frame the loss to society (or more practically the tax base, crime rates, health insurance premiums, etc.) of disenfranchising or failing to support low income folks, then we could cause a shift in perception that results in adequate investment where it is needed.
Matt the Engineer
[Seth] The one thing I noticed when traveling and seeing these mini-supermarkets is density. I’d see them all over in the cities, but as you get out to the less dense areas you see less of them, and once you get out to small towns you start seeing food groups broken up (bakery, meat store, fruit stands, etc.). For those that haven’t seen these, think of a Trader Joe’s cut in half.
Barry
I think the problem is food is too cheap in North America. It drives small farmers off the land, ensures chem-laced gmo monocultures, creates massive health problems among rich and poor alike and produces food(tm) that tastes so bad it requires polysyllabic “flavour” enhancers.North Americans spend far, far less of their income on food than any other nation. Even the English spend twice as much. Ditto for French and Germans and Japanese. Not much starvation in those nations. Not as much food related health problems either. Hmmm. Maybe “cheap food” isn’t the answer to the poor eating well.We need real food again. That will cost more. Actually it costs the correct amount and we live in dreamland that we can trash the soil and culture of our farmlands to live cheap.In other countries i’ve been to, getting food is a part of daily life and entails stops at various places. Villages and towns have weekly farmers markets and daily shops and stalls. The difference in my view is that in most of the world food is part of culture and life. Here it is a hobby or obligation or chore. The once a week gathering of all food stuffs is wacky priorities and not found in any culture that lives close to the land.As far as all those pesky food trips, i gotta say most people now a days tend to forage at multiple food stations per day anyway. The stats on meals out and fast food chow stops vs home meals is amazing. Even for the poor. so i don’t buy that as a problem.As far as the poor and affordable food is concerned, that is easiest of all. Those of us who aren’t poor have to open our pockets just a tad wider and make sure everyone has access to affordable, decent food…just like they do already in other western democracies where food and “culture” still means something.Our problem with food is being too cheap with our culture and agriculture.
Matt the Engineer
Bill Moyers had Michael Pollan on his Journal show this week, and covers many of these issues (link here). I highly recommend subscribing to the Bill Moyers Journal podcast.
morgan
Thank you Barry for bringing the dialogue up several levels of systems perspective. We Americans tend to look into the details for solutions to all our issues. Yet to more forward in changing the big picture, we really do need to make micro shifts in a myriad of nodes.