Beyond the Supermarket Solution: Linking Food Deserts, Neighborhood Context, and Everyday Mobility

Abstract

Most research on urban food deserts has employed spatial measures of accessibility, recording distances to various food stores from place of residence. Despite the popularity of this approach, empirical support for its prediction of dietary and health outcomes has been inconsistent. One reason might be the ways in which food deserts frame food access as fundamentally an issue of food supply. This article suggests a complementary approach that examines how store characteristics, neighborhood context, and individual mobility interact to shape food provisioning practices. I recruited thirty-eight participants living in two low-income neighborhoods of Minneapolis, Minnesota, tracking their daily mobility and the food sources they used over a five-day study period. Follow-up interviews gathered more information on the food stores used by participants. Project results show that participants were highly mobile in their food shopping, visiting 153 different locations on 217 different shopping trips at an average distance of 3.4 km from home. Reported store quality was closely tied to neighborhoods' economic and racial composition, and in several cases, food purchasing and consumption occurred en route to other destinations. Future research on urban food access could benefit by studying how food access is intertwined with broader livability issues such as housing and transportation.

城市粮食荒漠的研究, 多半运用可及性的空间方法, 记录从居住地至各种粮食商店的距离。儘管此一方法相当盛行, 其对预测饮食与健康结果的经验支持却不一致。一个可能的原因是粮食荒漠将粮食获取功能性地架构为粮食供给的议题。本文主张一个检视商店特徵、邻里脉络和个人能动性之间的互动如何形塑粮食供给实践的补充方法。我召集了三十八位居住于明尼苏达州明尼阿波利斯中的两区低收入邻里的参与者, 记录他们在为期五日的研究期程中, 每日的能动性及其所使用的粮食来源。接续的访谈蒐集了更多有关参与者使用的粮食商店的信息。计画结果显示, 参与者在购买粮食时具有高度的能动性, 在离家距离平均三点四公里的两百一十七个不同购物旅次中, 拜访了一百五十三座不同的地点。通报的商店质量, 与邻里的经济与种族组成紧密连结, 且在若干案例中, 购买和消费粮食是在去其他目的地的路程中发生。城市粮食取得的未来研究, 能够通过研究粮食取得如何与诸如居住和交通等更广泛的生活议题相结合而从中获益。

La mayor parte de la investigación sobre desiertos alimentarios urbanos ha empleado medidas espaciales de accesibilidad, registrando las distancias a varias tiendas de alimentos desde el lugar de la residencia. A pesar de la popularidad de este enfoque, el apoyo empírico para su capacidad de predicción de los resultados dietéticos o de salubridad ha sido inconsistente. Una razón para esto podría ser el modo como el desierto alimentario enmarca el acceso fundamentalmente como asunto propio del suministro de alimentos. Este artículo sugiere un enfoque complementario que examina como interactúan las características, el contexto del vecindario y la movilidad individual para dar forma a las prácticas de aprovisionamiento de alimentos. Recluté treinta y ocho participantes residentes de dos barrios de bajos ingresos de Minneapolis, Minnesota, rastreando su movilidad diaria y las fuentes de aprovisionamiento de alimentos utilizadas por ellos durante un período de estudio de cinco días. Más información se pudo obtener sobre las tiendas de alimentos usadas por los participantes por medio de entrevistas de seguimiento. Los resultados del proyecto muestran que los participantes desplegaron gran movilidad en sus compras de alimentos, visitando 153 localidades diferentes en 217 viajes de compras a una distancia promedio de 3.4 km del hogar. La calidad de la tienda reportada estuvo estrechamente ligada con la composición económica y racial del vecindario, y en varios casos la compra y consumo de alimentos ocurrieron en ruta hacia otros destinos. La investigación futura sobre acceso urbano a los alimentos podría beneficiarse de estudiar cómo está ligado el acceso a los alimentos con otras cosas importantes relacionadas con la habitabilidad del lugar, como la vivienda y el transporte.

Key Words:

• food access
• food deserts
• Minneapolis
• mixed methods
• mobility

关键词：:

• 粮食取得
• 粮食荒漠
• 明尼阿波利斯
• 混合方法
• 能动性。

Palabras clave:

• acceso a los alimentos
• desiertos alimentarios
• Minneapolis
• métodos mixtos
• movilidad

Acknowledgments

I appreciate the valuable feedback I received from Helga Leitner, Steven Manson, Brenda Kayzar, Tracey Deutsch, and Hilda Kurtz, as well as my three anonymous reviewers and Richard Wright, the section editor. All remaining errors are solely my own.

Funding

This project was completed with funding from the National Science Foundation (DDRI grant BCS-1203612) and an Interdisciplinary Doctoral Fellowship from the University of Minnesota and the Minnesota Population Center.

Notes

1. Three different GPS applications were used over the course of the study: Instamapper (now discontinued), OpenPaths (developed by the New York Times), and FollowMee. The last of these proved the most reliable program.

2. More information on Mixed Metro's classification system can be found at http://mixedmetro.us.

3. All names used here are pseudonyms.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Jerry Shannon

JERRY SHANNON is an Assistant Professor with a joint appointment in the Department of Geography and the Department of Financial Planning, Housing, and Consumer Economics at the University of Georgia, Athens, GA 30602. E-mail: [email protected]. His research focuses on food access and food justice, housing and neighborhood development, and methods for community engaged research.