Posted on 06/25/2011 8:57:50 AM PDT by don-o
I’ve looked at the food desert map for my area. It is outright wrong for downtown Dallas and downtown Fort Worth. There are private and city owned farmer’s markets and ethic grocers in those areas. And dollar stores, which do sell food, along with some big box stores (Walmart, Target, Sam’s club).
This whole map is biased, as if only a big box grocery store counts as a food supplier, but the tortilla factory, the private farmer’s market, the health food store, the dollar store that sells cheap frozen and canned stuff, and Arab butcher’s and going to Walmart or Super-Target don’t count as valid food suppliers.
I’ve passed through that area a time or two, not really familiar with it, but it’s pretty rural country. Generally it’s poor. The ‘fast food’ and ‘convenience’’ stores are probably for those passing thru, and those who live there do silly stuff like eating at home with their families. No wagyu for them, not even arugula.
They sure are busy trying to control food lately. Eventually I got a feeling they will TRY to tell us what and when to eat.
I’ve looked at Knoxville TN and there are big box grocery stores within the food desert — Kroger’s and Food City at the very least.
Now if you click on individual census tracts at:
http://www.ers.usda.gov/data/fooddesert/fooddesert.html,
you get that not everyone in every tract has “low access.”
The numbers appeared to range from 100% down to 17.3 for tract 40.
But I’m also surprised at some of the tracts that are not classified as food deserts. Martin Luther King Avenue — not a food desert and neither is the west side of Cherry Street. Yup, it goes from 100% low access from tract 1 to zero, or maybe 15% at the most, in tract 7.
Tract 1, Census 2000: 80% white (food desert)
Tract 7, Census 2000: 78% black (not a food desert)
Now yes, the very wealthy neighborhoods in Knoxville and environs are not food deserts either.
MLK Ave. runs parallel with Asheville Hwy./Magnolia Ave. which has a Kroger, Food City and a few fast-food restaurants. Cherry St. merges into Magnolia Ave. If not for Magnolia, both MLK Ave. and Cherry St. would be food deserts.
According to the methodology, 1 mile is the limit.
http://www.ers.usda.gov/data/fooddesert/documentation.html#Data
4414 Asheville Highway? That’s in Census Tract 32, about 3 miles out from Census Tract 1. There’s a Food City at 7510 Asheville Highway about 8 miles out but maybe there’s one closer in that isn’t showing up on web searches.
The Food City on Western Avenue in Census Tract 12 (1.6 miles from Census Tract 1) should have rendered tracts 10, 11, 12, and 13 as not deserts.
Sorry, but the data collection methods here are clear failures. The authors of this publication http://www.ers.usda.gov/Publications/AP/AP036/
probably patted themselves on the back, but they produced a bogus report.
Are people in government too stupid to pick up a road map and see I-81? Bristol/Kingsport/Johnson City area is a HUB. A person would have to be an idiot not to be able to locate a good choice of major chain super markets. 95% of the population in those counties listed can likely reach at least one by driving less than 20 minutes. This is worse than FDR’s New Deal Propaganda and lies about the Tennessee Valley. I wonder what new agency this lie will create?
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