Are supermarkets and convenience deli/grocery stores good ways to gain access to healthy food?
The green dots represent populations in poverty who live within one mile of a supermarket. The red dots represent populations in poverty who live beyond a one mile walk to a supermarket, but may live within a 10 minute drive…assuming they have access to a car.
Improving access to healthy food using ArcGIS Explorer, a community can find and support farmers’ market, or cooperative and then share that map via Facebook, Twitter or email.
The supermarkets included in the analysis (S) have annual sales of $1 million or more. Populations in poverty are represented by taking the block group poverty rate (e.g. 10%) from the Census and symbolizing each block block group with proportional “dots” based on that percentage. As the map indicates every block has 10% of its households in poverty. Food poverty should not be part of their equation for survival.
Clicking through the map one will find the names of churches in the immediate area, that probably manage food pantries. Added research in this area could be very helpful.