Food access and food deserts: the diverse methods that residents of a neighborhood in Duluth, Minnesota use to provision themselves

Abstract

Using data from a survey of residents living in a United States Department of Agriculture defined food desert in Duluth, Minnesota, this article examines the diverse ways that people living in a neighborhood without a grocery store feed themselves. We found that there is no singular experience of living in a food desert. Many neighborhood residents were highly mobile and shopped at a wide variety of local grocery stores, and a small group of neighborhood residents without cars relied on public transit, neighborhood convenience stores, and borrowing vehicles in order to provision themselves. These coping strategies were expensive and time-consuming, especially for the most vulnerable members of the community such as single parents and those without cars. We use the variety of experiences of people living in a food desert to propose interventions that would help improve food access in the community.

Keywords:

• food access
• food desert
• urban development
• neighborhood

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Corrigendum

Acknowledgments

Special thanks to Kate Carlson and Gina Holliday for preparing the maps.

Notes

1. Survey took place during the second week of December 2010. We understand that prices fluctuate and that our analysis represents a snapshot of prices during the time of our research.