Are "food deserts" real? Never in my life in rural Alabama have I seen one.
I grew up in Atlanta and you could see it in quite a number of places around town, thought it's a very subtle thing. You'd be driving past an apartment complex in a poorer neighborhood. At first it doesn't look any different but look closer at the stores around that neighborhood.
It's usually going to be a mix of gas stations, fast food joints, dollar stores and maybe a Kroger (forget Walmart or Publix, they only serve the nicer parts of town with a few exceptions). Other than the Kroger, there's really no other options for fresh food, and if you live >1 mile from the Kroger then it's going to be challenge to walk there.
Often times a food desert seems hidden to someone in a car, you drive along and see some gas stations then down the road you see a Kroger or another grocery store. While to you in a car it's just "the store is down the street", to someone walking the store might as well not be there.
And the problem with fixing food deserts is that fresh produce is much lower margin than other items in the store. A full sized grocery store can handle that and keep produce as a loss leader but a place like Dollar General simply cannot afford to keep produce on the shelf unless they price it higher in which case it becomes unaffordable for the people that need it most.
I think another factor that I agree with is the lack of fresh produce especially in ghettos, in rural areas I think if it's difficult for you to get food you should really consider growing your own. Sure it's a bit of work, but you learn a lot and the Internet is a great source of information for gardening and recipes.
[1] https://www.aecf.org/blog/exploring-americas-food-deserts
I was born and raised in a place where the nearest grocery store was ~30 miles away. The median annual household income in 2000 was <$30k. My senior class in high school consistent of 32 people. I literally visited the homes of classmates who had dirt floors and no running water.
People who live in those areas have access to automobiles. Most of them have at least one operable vehicle per family; those that don't cooperate with friends, family, and neighbors to get what they need. To this day I regularly pick up hitchhikers when I'm driving through the area.
I think the real argument here is that the term "food desert" seems much more extreme than the experience actually is. None of those people are going hungry because they can't get to the grocery store. The few that are going hungry, are going hungry because they're so strung out on drugs that they aren't capable of planning ahead even 24 hours.
In other words, the lack of easy access to resources isn't the issue - it's the relatively large number of adults in poverty who are in that situation because of their own behavior. Whether they're capable of changing that behavior isn't the point here - they would be in a similar situation even if they were literally next door to a grocery store.
“one mile from a supermarket in urban or suburban areas and more than 10 miles from a supermarket in rural areas”
The initial idea was urban areas are often mostly served by small convenience stores with high markups and few choices. However, being able to walk or use public transport can both work it’s really more a question of effort not distance.
I don’t even know if a grocery store’s customers can fit within a one mile radius circle without urban density.
I guess YMMV on this one. When I drive through suburbs, there are always people walking there. Watch especially how the staff arrives at your suburban stores & restaurants.
You are very clever to point out that people can actually walk around in a suburb, doesn't change the point.
This conversation is by definition about people living on the margins. Similarly, the "vast vast majority" of people do not qualify for SNAP.
Pointing out that most people don't live on the margins is clever, but not particularly relevant, in a discussion about people who live at the very edge of society.
In other words, we have two things, and want to make one the cause of the other, but that's not entirely clear. Maybe the grocery stores die in areas where the population doesn't frequent grocery stores for whatever reason, or maybe people don't frequent grocery stores because they died, or maybe a mix of both.
In public policy the question is generally if something has a measurable impact, and if that impact is worth the investment. Multiple small but very cheap improvements may be better than large but extremely expensive ones.
Food deserts are a symptom of a problem, but the solution isn't necessarily to directly treat that symptom.
It seems clear the default was chosen to use round numbers, be easy to calculate, and make the issue seem more important. Stricter criteria mean fewer people fall into the category, but it also means those people have more significance challenges.
I also couldn’t reasonably live where I am at all without a car or regular assistance.
https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/geography/guidance/g...
Many people would consider small towns "rural" but if the town is small enough, it can be an entirely "walkable" "urban" area - because there's a walmart, a gas station, and a hospital, all in a town that is less than a mile across.
But we don’t have a meaningful commercial area at all in the town.
And I’m not walking anywhere except recreationally in the woods.
Places where nearly everyone has a working car and can generally afford gas, whether rural or not, generally won't be food deserts unless stores selling affordable healthy food are all pretty far away.
If the convenience store across the street from my city apartment that has bananas, onions, garlic, and a wide assortment of frozen, canned, and dehydrated food doesn't count, the rural local general store likely also doesn't count.
Sadly, some percentage of people don't WANT to eat healthy.
(The local convenience store has many staples like bananas, onions, potatoes, etc, and cheaper than Walmart.)
I live in a small town of more than 5000 people, so it's technically urban. It takes me 5 minutes to get to the grocery store, but it's technically more than a mile so I am in a food dressert even though I have easy access to fresh produce.
If a person is poor enough to qualify for food stamps, is it reasonable to expect them to have enough land and resources (fertilizer, etc.) to grow enough food for a family, while also earning a living? Should that be the only option?
Finally, of the group of people who do not have reliable access to cars, the poor are a significant portion. "Just jump in your car and drive down the road" is not an option for millions of Americans.
But yes, if you are relatively well-off, there's no such thing as a food desert. If you have a few tens of acres of land, a tractor, and car, even being 50 or 100 miles from a store is not a problem. SNAP isn't for those people.
Maybe in your state, but this is definitely not universal in America.
That assumes: having a car, and having some arable land + time on hand to grow and care for crops.
Those are big assumptions, you need money to have a car and land, poor people lack... Money.
I suspect this is targeted more at urban areas - in NYC there are a ton of neighborhoods where the local grocery store options are limited to bodegas, most of which carry primarily or entirely processed and pre-packaged foods. Nothing wrong with that inherently, but lack of access to fresh produce and meats makes it more difficult for families to eat healthy.
Many of those neighborhoods are gentrifying, or near neighborhoods that are, and the higher income folks that move in can afford to have someone instacart or uber eats better quality groceries from a few neighborhoods over, an option not available to people on EBT.
For Uber it makes sense because the physical distance is likely not substantial, which allows the economics to work for the drivers, particularly if they can do it on an e-bike or scooter. In rural areas I would be concerned that the round-trip drive times are less appealing - I've already seen a lot of discussion on the dasher subreddit about how rural restaurant delivery is less preferable because of distance and a perception that tipping is not good relative to the effort required.
When I visit Cambridge in MA the only real options seem to be a few Whole Foods and a couple Trader Joe’s scattered around and some specialty markets. (May be some other options here and there.)
Not true. Unless you live in a truly rural town with less than 5000 people, you are counted as "urban" and any more than 1 mile from a grocery store is a food dessert.
I am 5 minutes from a grocery store and technically in a food dessert. Its silly.
I don’t understand what the purpose of the “food desert” definition is if it’s so strict as to include huge numbers of people for whom it doesn’t matter.
This feels like the kind of buzzword that an organization dreams up to make their work sound extra important while undermining the true problem by diluting it too broadly.
> They drive because it’s easier to haul groceries that way.
> Once you’re driving it’s not a big deal if the grocery store is within 1 mile or 5 miles.
Imagine you're between jobs, receive government aid for food, and can't afford to fuel your car. How will you get to the store?
Imagine you don't have a car. How will you get to the store?
Imagine you don't have friends or family. How will you get to the store?
Your assumption of being able to drive is an unreasonably strict definition of a person.
Perhaps. Or perhaps you afforded the purchase of the car years ago. Your situation has changed since then and now you have a car that you can no longer afford to maintain.
No, I am not. I am relating to the people around me in rural Texas.
> Are they a disabled veteran who's blind, can't speak and has autism too?
Why are you so dismissive and condescending about your fellow people's problems?
> None of those people exist here, not in singlewides, duplexes, apartments or living in their relatives basements.
When life puts you in their shoes then I hope the people around you won't think you don't exist. Or, if they do, then I hope your awful opinion of them will change.
> There are more people living in their car than people without cars where I live in Alabama
I suspect that you don't get out much. There are many roads and many homes. Have you visited every single one?
> Do you live in a rural area?
I do. I live in rural Texas. I can look out of my window and see cattle and horses. My yard is larger than many suburban neighborhood parks. My nearest neighbor is a 10 minute walk away. My nearest grocery store is 15 miles.
> In Alabama alone, close to two million residents live in a food desert, and almost 150,000 of them live in Birmingham. This accounts for 69% of the city’s total population. A 2019 update also found that there is at least one area that is identified as a food desert in each of Birmingham’s nine City Council Districts.
The University of Alabama's Innovation for Rural Alabama site has some information on food deserts in rural Alabama [2].
[1] https://sites.uab.edu/humanrights/2022/06/13/food-insecurity...
[2] http://innovationforruralalabama.ua.edu/food-deserts.html
Food Deserts are typically defined as 10 or more miles from a grocery; but where no public transportation infrastructure exists, are practically much more compact.
Anecdotally, in a ~ suburban Alabama county, I have family that was 7 miles from a grocery until dollar general came in about 5 years ago.
Here's a related article https://abc3340.com/news/local/wal-marts-shutdown-in-creates...