Growing up, I don’t recall ever being concerned about the quality of the food we ate at home. Memphis is metropolitan but located along the Farm Belt. Even non-farm families were more likely to grow some of their own vegetables and spices. Access to
Growing up, I don’t recall ever being concerned about the quality of the food we ate at home. Memphis is metropolitan but located along the Farm Belt. Even non-farm families were more likely to grow some of their own vegetables and spices. Access to fresh food wasn’t a problem.
But living on the South Side of Chicago is a different story. After moving here, it wasn’t long before I had joined the chorus of residents frustrated by the lack of reputable grocery stores in the area. Why should I have to start up my car and take my dollars outside my community to get a decent piece of fruit?
In 2006, a groundbreaking study, "Examining the Impact of Food Deserts on Public Health in Chicago," identified numerous Chicago neighborhoods as food deserts, areas lacking access to quality grocery stores and, therefore, quality food. And, not surprisingly, I was living in one of them.
The study was recently updated by the original authors at the Mari Gallagher Research and Consulting Group and found that the food desert has shrunk by 1.4 square miles, benefiting 24,000 people. But we’re not out of the woods by a long shot. Areas such as Chatham actually got worse after that community lost two grocery stores, according to the Chicago 2009 Food Desert Progress Report, which covers a period up to September 2008.
More than 600,000 people still live in food deserts, most of them African-American and about a third of them children. The research goes right to the heart of what residents are experiencing everyday. But more importantly, it shows statistically the impact of the loss of even one grocery store on a community. In that way, it has become a road map for city planners and grocers who are using the data to identify grocery development sites. Areas most in need are Austin, Fuller Park, Grand Boulevard, Englewood, Greater Grand Crossing and Roseland, according to the study.
“The industry as a whole has rallied to come up with solutions,” said Mari Gallagher, creator and head researcher of the food desert studies. “They want to address market level concerns against human need. We are starting to see evidence of that.”
Here is where the rubber meets the road. Walgreens recently announced that it would expand its food lines in areas identified as food deserts, starting with locations along Madison Street on the West Side. That’s good news in the interim because when grocery stores move out of Black communities, another grocer is less likely to move in. “That has a direct impact on the quality of life and length of life,” Gallagher said.
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