{"id":879,"date":"2013-08-28T22:37:00","date_gmt":"2013-08-28T22:37:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2013\/08\/its-not-a-food-desert-its-a-lack-of-transittransportation.html"},"modified":"2013-08-28T22:37:00","modified_gmt":"2013-08-28T22:37:00","slug":"its-not-a-food-desert-its-a-lack-of-transittransportation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2013\/08\/its-not-a-food-desert-its-a-lack-of-transittransportation.html","title":{"rendered":"It’s not a food desert, it’s a lack of transit\/transportation!"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

The Trib has an article about food desert\u2019s and the mayor\u2019s plan to combat them.\u00a0 Here\u2019s<\/a> the link, but it\u2019s behind a paywall (which I\u2019m totally fine with but it\u2019s inconvenient in this case).<\/p>\n

But the gist of the story is that Mayor Emmanuel pledged two years ago to increase the number of grocery stores within \u201cfood deserts\u201d and his efforts have fallen short \u2014 and, in addition, in order to make the situation look better, he\u2019s used an alternate definition of food desert, availability of a grocery store within a mile, rather than half a mile.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s the accompanying picture:<\/p>\n

\"<\/p>\n

Maria Thompson waits with her children for a bus back to her home near 57th and Wood streets last week. She lives near a food desert. (Scott Strazzante, Chicago Tribune<\/span> \/ August <\/span>19<\/span>, 2013<\/span>)<\/span> <\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
This is what bugs me:\u00a0 <\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
first of all, she lives \u201cnear\u201d a food desert \u2014 in other words, there\u2019s shopping within a mile of her home, but she\u2019s taking the bus because it\u2019s more convenient or because she chooses to shop elsewhere.\u00a0 But does she really need to carry everything home in a stuffed box?\u00a0 Get this woman a utility cart<\/a>!\u00a0 Without that, or maybe a radio flyer wagon if she\u2019s walking, she\u2019d be a pathetic sight no matter how close the grocery store was.\u00a0 Alternatively, what about a bike with a trailer?\u00a0 Of course, she\u2019d need bikes for the kids, too, or maybe just the older one, with the younger one in the trailer next to the groceries, but she\u2019s have a mode of transportation that would serve her well in multiple ways.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Fundamentally, the so-called \u201cfood desert\u201d issue is one of transportation, not proximity of grocery stores.\u00a0 That\u2019s why the food desert activists have so carefully defined the term:\u00a0 a food desert has both a mile (or half-mile) distance to a supermarket and<\/em> a minimum percentage of people in poverty, plus<\/em>, in rural areas, the distance is increased from one to ten miles, just to avoid the embarrassment of food desert maps showing disproportionately rural areas affected.\u00a0 <\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
But it\u2019s preposterous to imagine building supermarkets within easy walking distance of every city resident \u2014 isn\u2019t it better to increase the mobility of residents, and their ability to easily transport groceries on a bus or\u00a0a bike?\u00a0 <\/div>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Trib has an article about food desert\u2019s and the mayor\u2019s plan to combat them.\u00a0 Here\u2019s the link, but it\u2019s behind a paywall (which I\u2019m totally fine with but it\u2019s inconvenient in this case). But the gist of the story is that Mayor Emmanuel pledged two years ago to increase the number of grocery stores […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2209,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-879","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nIt's not a food desert, it's a lack of transit\/transportation!<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The Trib has an article about food desert's and the mayor's plan to combat them.  Here's the link, but it's behind a paywall (which I'm totally fine\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2013\/08\/its-not-a-food-desert-its-a-lack-of-transittransportation.html\" 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