Gentrification and Food Retail Instability: A Census Tract Analysis of the Bronx, New York, 2008 and 2017

Abstract

As food retailers open, close, and change ownership, the resulting instability in local food environments can affect food access and health. Gentrification, and its associated socioeconomic changes, can be a factor in destabilizing food environments. This study examined food retail in lower income, gentrifying, and higher income census tracts in the Bronx, New York, in 2008 and 2017 to analyze the level of instability of retailers over this period. We created an instability index and tested unweighted and weighted variants to examine disruptions in food retail over time, within and across different food retail segments. We argue that, compared to an unweighted version of the index, a weighted index better captures meaningful food environment changes. The results of this weighted index show that although the odds of food retail change varied among segments and census tract types, gentrifying neighborhoods were not particularly vulnerable to food retail changes in the Bronx compared to lower income and higher income neighborhoods. Our weighted instability index can be applied to other contexts and commercial sectors to track the status of retailers over time and across neighborhoods.

食品零售店的开设、关闭和所有权变更, 导致了局地食品环境的不稳定性, 进而影响了食品供应和健康。中产阶级化及相关的社会经济变化, 是破坏食品环境稳定的一个因素。本文研究了2008年和2017年纽约布朗克斯的低收入、中产阶级和高收入人口普查区内的食品零售, 分析了这一时期零售店的不稳定性水平。为了研究不同食品零售细分市场之内和之间的食品零售波动, 我们创建了一个不稳定性指数, 测试了未加权变量和加权变量。与未加权指数相比, 加权指数能更好地捕获有意义的食品环境变化。加权指数结果表明, 尽管食品零售的变化几率随着不同细分市场和不同人口普查区类型而有所不同, 与低收入和高收入社区相比, 布朗克斯的中产阶级社区并不特别容易受到食品零售变化的影响。加权不稳定性指数可以应用于其它场景和商业行业, 可以跟踪社区食品零售在不同时期的状态。

A medida que los minoristas de alimentos abren, cierran y cambian de propietario, la inestabilidad resultante en los entornos alimentarios locales puede afectar el acceso a los alimentos y a la salud. La gentrificación, y los cambios socioeconómicos que sobrevienen, pueden ser un factor desestabilizador de los entornos alimentarios. Este estudio examinó el comercio al menudeo de los alimentos en los tractos censales de bajo ingreso, en proceso de gentrificación y de alto ingreso en el Bronx, Nueva York, en 2008 y 2017, para analizar el nivel de inestabilidad de los minoristas durante este período. Desarrollamos un índice de inestabilidad y pusimos a prueba variantes no ponderadas y ponderadas para examinar las alteraciones en el comercio de alimentos al menudeo a lo largo del tiempo, dentro y a través de los diferentes segmentos minoristas de los alimentos. Argüimos que, en comparación con una versión no ponderada del índice, una ponderada capta mejor los cambios significativos del entorno alimentario. Los resultados de este índice ponderado muestran que, aunque las probabilidades de cambio del comercio de alimentos al menudeo variaron entre los segmentos y los tipos de tractos censales, los barrios en proceso de gentrificación no fueron particularmente vulnerables a los cambios del comercio de alimentos al menudeo en el Bronx en comparación con los barrios de ingresos más bajos y los más altos. Nuestro índice ponderado de inestabilidad puede aplicarse en otros contextos y sectores comerciales para trazar el estatus de los minoristas a lo largo del tiempo y a través de los barrios.

Key Words:

• food access
• food environment
• food retail
• gentrification
• time

关键词:

• 食品供应
• 食品环境
• 食品零售
• 中产阶级化
• 时间。

Palabras clave:

• acceso a los alimentos
• comercio de alimentos al menudeo
• entorno alimentario
• gentrificación
• tiempo

Acknowledgments

We thank Sarah Wakefield, Michael Widener, and the anonymous reviewers for their conceptual input and insightful feedback on earlier drafts of this article.

Supplemental Material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00330124.2021.2000440.

Notes

1 To be consistent with Fisher’s exact test, a conditional maximum likelihood estimation was used to calculate the odds ratios in R. As such, the formula is approximately equal to the sample odds ratio (OR = ad/bc).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Olivia Caruso

OLIVIA CARUSO is a Graduate Student at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health at the University of Toronto, Toronto, ON M5T 3M7, Canada. E-mail: [email protected]. Her research interests include urban food environments and food accessibility, health equity, and the social determinants of health.

Michael Chrobok

MICHAEL CHROBOK is a PhD Candidate in the Department of Geography & Planning at the University of Toronto, Toronto, ON M5S 3G3, Canada. E-mail: [email protected]. His research interests include urban food accessibility, gentrification and food environment change, municipal food policy and governance, and the impacts of programs designed to incentivize supermarket development in underserved neighborhoods.

Nevin Cohen

NEVIN COHEN is Director of the CUNY Urban Food Policy Institute and an Associate Professor in the Health Policy and Management Department at the CUNY Graduate School of Public Health and Health Policy, New York, NY 10027. E-mail: [email protected]. His research explores policies and systems to support socially just, healthy, resilient urban food systems.