College of Built Environments at the University of Washington.
No easy access to fresh groceries in many parts of Seattle
Thursday May 2008
While some industry standards are saying that neighborhoods like West Seattle are over-grocered, for many residents in this and other Western Washington neighborhoods access to food just isn't that simple. Delridge is only one of many areas where carless residents regularly experience no access to grocery stores within a 30-minute bus-ride. They have to ride for hours at a time, or climb hills that could be used as ski jumps in the winter months, or though a grocery store is merely a mile away, the streets are laid out like jigsaw puzzles with dead ends into creeks, a steel plant or jungled hillsides. Not only does poor access to food make it very difficult to combat global climate change, but these barriers also make it very difficult for large populations to eat healthy, leading to health risks like diabetes. CAUP's UDP Assistant Professor Branden Born and graduate students Andrew Bjorn and Brian Lee who worked on the food-access study said "it's really a quality-of-life livability thing - in any neighborhood, it's amazing the difference a simple corner grocery with fresh food can make in people's lives." The Seattle food resolution sponsored by City Councilman Richard Conlin calls for more studies: "whether land-use policies should be changed to prioritize food, how bicycle routes could offer better access, how food supplies would fare during an emergency." Other ideas include: "offering incentives or tax breaks for green grocers, enforcing loading zones for food deliveries, permitting farm stands, altering bus routes and providing space for industrial community kitchens." However, with cost of living increases, improving food access won't be very effective if people can't afford the healthier food sources at the grocery stores once they get there. The studies by UW researchers mapped areas all over the Western Washington where populations are at risk of going hungry based on demographics like income, employment, education, and other areas that lacked a major grocery store within a comfortable walking distance or 30-minute bus ride.Said Erin MacDougall, who oversees the food and fitness initiave for Public Health -- King County: "If the city were to prioritize food, there's an endless set of opportunities where we work within existing processes to prioritize people's health and well-being over and above the people who can pay the most."
To view the UW researcher's maps, read the complete article, and check out other resources/information on the Food Inititative please visit the Seattle P-I online.
A follow-up to this story was also published in the P-I, see "Living Food: Smarter shopping", Seattle Post-Intelligencer Editorial Board, by visiting this link.
Additionally, on May 15th, KBCS aired an interview with Branden Born around the issue of closing the food gap. "The subject is food -- how to make the healthy variety more accessible and affordable to all. Have you noticed the increasing cost of food, the closer you get to certain neighborhoods in the city? How often do you find a Whole Foods or a Farmer’s Market in a low-income neighborhood? After all, food, like air and water, is a basic necessity. Instead it stands as a glaring example of how the gap between America’s “haves” and “have-nots” remains deep and wide.
Reporter: Martha Baskin
To hear the interview, please visit KBCS radio online.