What is a food desert and what causes one?
In: 1
A food desert is an area without grocery stores or other vendors of grocery goods. They tend to come about in poor neighborhoods where companies don’t want to open stores for reasons of low profitability, safety, etc.
A [food desert](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_desert) describes a location, typically in urban (city) environments, where people have limited access to affordable, nutritious food. Think of an area where the nearest grocery store is 10 miles away and the only food available comes from either a gas station or the local McDonalds.
Food deserts tend to be inhabited by lower income people who have limited mobility (ie they can’t afford to drive far away). Since the area is low-income there is little incentive for grocery stores and similar food companies to set up in the area, and because the residents are poor they can’t easily leave.
food desert is a low-income neighborhood that does not have a grocery store, so people cannot buy healthy food, and instead eat food from convenience stores, fast food places, or gas stations.
it happens because operating a full-service grocery store in that area is unprofitable. Both due to low income of buyers, and due to high crime rates.
In urban areas if you’re more than a mile from a grocery store, in rural it’s ten-20 miles.
In rural areas is simply because you just might live far away from people.
In urban areas it’s a mix of things. Crime is big, no one wants to open a grocery if theft and crime is going to be a constant problem. Poor Community planning and building resources is another one
[removed]
The primary cause of food deserts is the bizarre ban on vegetable markets and the insistence of policy makers that you have to own a car to buy vegetables.
For example, I live in German suburbia and do not suffer from the food desert phenomenon. I can walk to a supermarket, or ride my bike to the biweekly farmer’s market in town, and on weekends I can buy veggies from a guy who sets up a stand on a nearby parking lot.
It’s areas that are usually low income and high crime.
Because of high crime and low income normal grocery stores cannot function there. It be like opening an apple store dead center of a ghetto. You will get no sales but get robbed.
With no profit for grocery stores you get fast food and higher profit margin places.
So McDonald’s will make profit and be able to function and you will have corner stores that sell basics like milk but they mark their products up more than a normal grocery store.
Basically this causes the low income area with lots of crime to pay extra for unhealthy food. And it’s hard to fix without major changes to an area.
Latest Answers