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ABSTRACT
This study examines the effects of relocating the Flint Farmers’ Market, a large and successful market in the medium-sized legacy city of Flint, Michigan. Over the course of a year, market patrons and vendors were surveyed to explore questions about the scale of the market, patron demographics, reasons for visiting the market, seasonal variations in outcomes, and healthy food access. The results indicate that the relocated, downtown market is successful in large part because it satisfies multiple needs – it provides access to fresh, local produce; it provides lunch options for downtown workers and students; and it serves as a community gathering space. The study further demonstrates that farmers’ markets in legacy cities can serve a large region, attract diverse customers, and remain sustainable year-round, even in northern climates. These findings should be of interest to planners, policy-makers, and market managers who are considering opening or relocating a farmers’ market as a means of supporting community health, well-being, and economic development.
Acknowledgement
The author would like to thank her many student research assistants who administered the surveys for this study.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1. Food environments include the physical presence of food, a person's proximity to food store locations, the distribution of food stores, and, more generally, a connected system that allows access to food (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Citation2014).
2. Responses to questions about finances will appear in a future study and thus were not analysed as part of the current study.
3. Vendor numbers are estimated because the number of outdoor vendors varies by day, week, and season.
4. To control for the number of comparisons, the traditional p-value of .05 was divided by 10 because 10 reasons were examined.
5. Other racial and ethnic groups were not considered in this analysis because no other racial or ethnic group comprises more than 4% of the county population.
6. These four categories were selected to be consistent with the Sadler studies and the age bands used by the U.S. Census Bureau in its American Community Survey (ACS). Sadler et al. (Citation2013) and Sadler (Citation2016) divided patron ages as follows: 18–23, 24–44, 45–64, and 65+ years. This study retained the two latter bands of 45–64 and 65+ years, but divided the younger group from 18 to 29 and 30 to 44 years instead. This division allowed for greater consistency with the ACS, which reports adult age data starting in bands from 18 to 24 and 25 to 29 years. If this study had used Sadler's first band of 18–23 years, the data would have been misaligned with the census. Additionally, because one-third of UMF students are over the age of 25 years (University of Michigan-Flint, Citation2014), it was appropriate to use the wider band of 18–29 years to capture potential college students.
7. Some zip codes are dedicated to large employers and do not have any residents.
8. The data on population counts, demographics, and commute mode came from the 2015 ACS five-year estimates (U.S. Census Bureau, Citation2015).
9. All percentages that appear in the tables and in the text have been rounded to the nearest tenth.
10. This density outcome is distinct from the geographic results demonstrating the market's regional scale. The new market still attracts people from farther away (as compared to the old market) and most patrons still live outside of the city of Flint and drive significant distances (more than 5 kilometres) to reach the market.
11. The importance of transportation is further explored in Sadler (Citation2016).