Walk Score’s new food desert map is a potentially powerful tool in the ongoing policy debate about access to healthy foods. But it’s still a work in progress.
Bill Bradley points to a few of the current map’s weaknesses. First is the necessarily arbitrary definition of access. Walk Score chose to look at stores within a five-minute walk, when ten might have been just as appropriate. Then there’s the deeper relationship between car ownership and consumption patterns. Are residents in a car-centric city like Tucson likely to walk to a grocery store under any circumstances?
Bradley also questions Walk Score’s failure to sort legitimate grocery stores from bodegas less likely to stock healthy foods. “My biggest fear is that Walk Score has glossed over some important data here, and conflated convenience with actual access to healthy foods.”
FULL STORY: What Walk Score's Food Desert Map Misses About Food Access
How Easy is Walking to the Grocery Store in Your City?
Angie Schmitt shares news of an effort by WalkScore to rank cities based on the ability of residents to access grocery stores on foot. WalkScore invites planners all over country to use their data to improve walkable access to food in cities.
Healthy Corner Stores Fight 'Retail Redlining'
Small entrepreneurs are working to combat 'food deserts' by bringing fresh, healthy foods to communities lacking access to major grocery stores. But price continues to be a major factor in people's food choices.
'Grocery Walk' Gathers D.C. Residents to Bring Attention to Lack of Food Options
Neighborhoods with mostly minority populations in Washington, D.C. suffer from a lack of quality grocery stores. A large group of neighborhood activists are trying to do something about it.
Democratic Legislators Obstruct Funding for California High Speed Rail
Voters approved a $9.9 billion bond for the California High Speed Rail project in 2008. State legislators would like that money to be spent in other ways in 2021.
Why Tech-Utopian City Plans Fail
Like others before him, e-commerce billionaire Marc Lore wants to build the ideal city from scratch. Urban experts don't have much faith in his chances.
Mobile Home Parks Becoming Unaffordable as Investors Buy Up Properties
Longtime residents of mobile home parks are seeing their land rents go up as corporate investors seek to increase profits, aided in part by federally-backed loans.
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HUD's Office of Policy Development and Research
American Planning Association
Hillsborough County Public Schools
City of Raleigh
City of Laramie, Wyoming and Albany County Wyoming
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