Written by Tonya Mukherjee and Edited by Mehr Bawa
Redlining is a discriminatory practice developed in the 1930s U.S., where banks denied mortgages to people of color, usually in urban areas, thus preventing them from buying homes in certain neighborhoods. In order to differentiate between areas deemed more desirable and less desirable, banks used red ink to mark their paper maps to draw borders, hence the term “redlining”. Redlining is currently illegal due to the unfair treatment of people, but its impact still remains as many inner city regions are still populated by these individuals and the implicit discrimination [1].
Supermarket redlining, on the other hand, is not illegal and began in the 1960s. As an act by individual supermarkets and not city planning, supermarket redlining refers to the disinclination of large supermarkets to locate their stores in inner cities or low-income neighborhoods. These shops may cite reasons such as low profit margins, higher crime rates, and may unconsciously be due to the stigmatization of minority communities [2] [3]. Compared to local grocery stores, large supermarkets may provide fresh foods at lower prices due to their bulk purchases and partnerships with large distributors.Therefore, because of supermarket redlining, it is believed that not only do low-income minorities in the inner cities have less access to fresh food, but they may also pay higher prices for it [2].
Based on a study in Connecticut between 2000-2012, food insecurity, and unreliable access to affordable and nutritious food, rose by about 33%. In particular, from 2011-2012, the food insecurity rate increased by 13.4% when a major supermarket in the city of New Haven, CT closed, thus creating a food desert—an area where healthy food options are limited. When supermarkets enter neighborhoods, they often drive smaller grocery stores out of business. Thus, when a supermarket closes, the grocery gap—the difference in peoples’ ability to purchase healthy foods—widens. This grocery gap may be fueled by limited access to transportation to supermarkets that have fresh foods, and lower income levels that make it hard to purchase nutritious foods.
These assumptions about the impact of food deserts are widely debated though, as one 2012 study found that 37% of preschool children in Hartford, CT were overweight or obese, triple the national average. Considering the food desert but not the effort to obtain nutritious foods, it is believed that poor access to supermarkets results in an increased risk of food insecurity and thus the purchasing of non-nutritious foods, leading to diet-related diseases [2]. On the other hand, other studies show that there are many urban and rural counties with high numbers of food deserts and low levels of diet-related disease, and do not account for the income level. Many residents of these counties report that they do not shop at their closest stores, which help undermine the assumption that food deserts are the sole reason for diet-related diseases such as obesity[3] [4].In essence, some studies indicate that supermarket location is not a determining factor of diet-related health outcomes and food insecurity, but rather may be due to income levels, however, others show that supermarket location does highly contribute to food security status and diet-related diseases. Due to the distinction in redlining regions, race and income levels are spatially correlated in many areas, leading to these food-related issues disproportionately affecting lower income, minority individuals [4]. Overall, lack of access to food, the history of redlining, and low income are the main contributors to poor diet-related health outcomes,thus political scientists argue that, rather than treat obesity as solely a food issue, which can be fixed by introducing more supermarkets, it is better to treat it as a low income or poverty issue which requires anti-poverty legislation to help rectify the formulation of redlined regions.
References:
- Brooks, J. K., (2020). Redlining’s legacy: Maps are gone, but the problem hasn’t disappeared. CBS News.
- Zhang, M., Ghosh, D., (2016). Spatial Supermarket Redlining and Neighborhood Vulnerability: A Case Study of Hartford, Connecticut. Transactions in GIS. 20(1): 79-100.
- Shannon, J., (2015). Beyond the Supermarket Solution: Linking Food Deserts, Neighborhood Context, and Everyday Mobility. Annals of the American Association of Geographers.106: 186-202
- Brinkley, C., Raj, S., Horst, M., (2017). Culturing Food Deserts: Recognizing the Power of Community-Based Solutions. Built Environment. 43: 328-342