Re-examining Food Access in New York City
Uneven access to fresh foods is a perennial issue for many American. Wealthy urban areas frequently feature an abundance of markets and specialty stores offering a range of nutritious options, while automobile-oriented suburban environments offer those who are able to drive ready access to supermarkets. By contrast, less-well-off urban areas (and rural areas where low population density discourages services development) have traditionally been neglected by chain supermarkets and specialty stores, leaving residents to find sustenance from more convenient but less nutritious sources.
New York City is no exception: anecdotally, fresh food retailers are far sparser in areas such as outer Brooklyn, eastern Queens, and the Bronx than in much of Manhattan or in wealthier areas of the outer boroughs. This is doubly true of the corridors near transit stations that are frequented by commuters; in these areas, quick-service delis and bodegas offer convenience that few full-service groceries can match.
However, the empirical study of "food deserts" (which are defined by a range of metrics, including a lack of access to fresh food combined with some element of socioeconomic disadvantage) in urban areas is made difficult by the nature of the urban food retail landscape. New Yorkers purchase fresh foods not only from supermarkets -- the only sources of fresh food included in many "food desert" metrics, including those in the USDA's Food Access Research Atlas -- but also from small produce markets and local grocery chains that offer a lifeline in areas where real estate is too expensive or demand is too low to support a large-footprint store. What is more, distance-based metrics of food access fail to capture the time costs associated with seeking fresh foods over prepared foods in areas where a glut of the latter are readily available: what does it matter that a produce market is 1/2 mile away if a stretch of bodegas and take-out establishments greet hungry and time-crunched commuters as they step off the train?
Walking Time to Fresh-Food Retailers
In order to paint a more complete and realistic picture of New
Yorkers' food options, I visualize supermarkets, grocery stores, and
greengrocers that are included in OpenStreetMap's database of places.
Because this source is community-generated, it is able to account for
smaller fresh-food providers than those listed in, for example, New
York State's database of supermarkets, while also filtering out
establishments such as bodegas that are nominally food retailers but
which do not offer a full complement of grocery options. I then
create 5-, 7-, and 10-minute walking isochrones around each of these
stores, representing areas that have relatively convenient access to
fresh foods, rather than merely the ostensible access suggested by
physical proximity.
Fresh-Food Access and Socioeconomic Advantage
I also visualize market locations against three markers of
socioeconomic (dis)advantage at the Census Tract level: median
income, racial composition (specifically, the percentage of tract
residents identifying as nonwhite in 2014-2018 American Community
Survey estimates), and median age. Though this illustration is merely
suggestive of the dynamics underpinning disparities in food access,
the concentration of markets in wealthy, largely white areas within
the city is clearly visible.
Data Sources
Location of NYC Grocery Stores, obtained via Open Street Map Overpass API- API Base URL: http://overpass-api.de/api/interpreter?
- Documentation: https://openrouteservice.org
- API Base URL: https://api.openrouteservice.org/v2/isochrones/foot-walking
- Documentation: https://openrouteservice.org/dev/#/api-docs/isochrones/get
- API Base URL: https://api.census.gov/data/2018/acs/acs5
- Documentation: https://www.census.gov/developers/
- Obtained From: https://www.census.gov/geographies/mapping-files/time-series/geo/tiger-line-file.html