The term food desert was coined in 1995 by a task force studying what was then a relatively new phenomenon. Although poverty and ruralness have been with us forever, food deserts arrived only around the late 1980s. This indicates that cultural and economic shifts positively impacted food accessibility prior to that, but changes in the late 20th century transformed the landscape into something that now lacks accessibility, particularly for low-income and majority-minority communities.
In the 1960s, Deanwood neighborhood had more than half a dozen grocery stores, including a Safeway and independent Black-owned businesses. By the 1990s, however, that number dwindled to just two, leading to a complete absence of grocery stores today. This story of change resonates across urban and rural America, highlighting a deterministic narrative of how commercial landscapes have increasingly failed to serve low-income areas, leading to the ongoing issues of food deserts.
Collection
[
|
...
]