Food Deserts In Chicago Reportedly Down 40 Percent

With First Lady Michelle Obama slated to appear in Chicago Tuesday for a fundraising event focused on addressing the city's food desert problem, a leading researcher reported that the city has recorded recent improvements on the matter.

Mari Gallagher's new report [PDF], released Monday, indicates that, over the past five years, the number of Chicagoans living in food deserts has declined almost 40 percent, as WBEZ reports. Still, Gallagher said, the city has "a long way to go."

The food desert problem persists largely on the city's South and West Sides, predominantly African-American neighborhoods, where access to grocery stores, farmers markets or other vendors selling fresh, high-quality, affordable food is either limited or nonexistent.

Chicago's current food desert population is estimated to be 384,000 -- almost a third of which are children. According to Gallagher, "that's a lot of children -- roughly the size of Naperville."

"If all of those children loaded onto school buses, the buses would line up bumper-to-bumper from President Obama's house in Hyde Park, make a stop at City Hall and travel on to Mayor Rahm Emanuel's house in Ravenswood," a distance of 17 miles, Gallagher continued in the report.

Gallagher further argues that the federal food stamp program, the USDA Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), should institute standards to encourage its users to buy healthy and fresh foods, as the Chicago Sun-Times reports.

Mayor Emanuel has long pledged to make fresh foods more accessible to all Chicago communities. In September, City Council approved a zoning code amendment that Emanuel supported in order to help the spread of urban farms in the city. The mayor has also pushed for retail chains like Walmart to play a pivotal role in improving the food available to many Chicagoans.

Photo by swanksalot via Flickr.

Comments

[bill coin]

01:35 PM on 10/26/2011

Young people, if you want to remain free, this is what you must do. Work hard, keep a strong military defense, shrink the size of our federal government, pay down a large portion of our national debt, and most of all, don't forget it was God's grace and mercy that built America.

[jidoh7]

06:02 AM on 10/26/2011

Am I the only one who recognizes the glaring misspelling of the word 'dessert' here? A desert is a place with extremely limited rainfall, not something that one eats. Really, people!

[LaoShur]

03:15 AM on 10/26/2011

Oh great!! Now the liberals want to take away jobs from the good people that make malt liquor and replace their outlets with "food" stores!! Like the predigested stuff at McDonald's isn't food!!

[mikey09]

04:25 PM on 10/25/2011

Thats a good thing, but Chicago is northern city and lots of that food will be imported, and some imported from places not very picky abt pestcides and pollution. So ask where your food comes from this winter, and know how to clean it well just in case.

[robert horwitz]

03:17 PM on 10/25/2011

I once dated a girl who dumped me because she told me I was too fresh. It didn't help at all when I told her that I couldn't help it because I was a vegetable.

[antonymous]

01:58 PM on 10/25/2011

It's no fun pointing out that the periodic concern over "food deserts" has a funny habit of coinciding with new Wal-Mart stores, when the mayor comes out and says as much.

[PalaceOfWisdom]

11:09 AM on 10/25/2011

"The mayor has also pushed for retail chains like Walmart to play a pivotal role in improving the food available to many Chicagoans."

Because Wal-Mart and prosperity go hand in hand. I'd like to hear the mayor explain how building our local economy on minimum wage jobs is going to boost city revenues and turn things around. He is leading the race to the bottom.

[John MC]

11:33 AM on 10/25/2011

Considering there are no business and jobs in these neighborhoods, I don't see how Wal-Mart is going to make things worse.

It's not like some small town where a Wal-Mart moves in and next thing you know all the Mom and Pop business close over the next few years - all the business have left these neighborhoods a long time ago.

[antonymous]

02:00 PM on 10/25/2011

They still found a few to put out of business in North Austin:

http://news.medill.northwestern.edu/chicago/news.aspx?id=153676&print=1

[glassjaw]

10:29 AM on 10/25/2011

BSERIUS

She is coming to town for a $10,000.00 per person Photo OP

WHERE ARE THE OCCUPANTERS ?

[glassjaw]

10:28 AM on 10/25/2011

Hey libs

Looks like the thread to the right on the deportations of the illegals,,, Criminals if you will

WENT HORRBLY WRONG for Ari and the author AS SHE HAD TO CLOSE THE COMMENTS

[conniekinsey615]

09:03 PM on 10/25/2011

get a life__ and while you're at it ___ pick up a little intelligence