Food Access in Urban and Suburban Counties of New York State

Introduction and Data Sources

This project delves into the critical issue of food desserts in two distinct regions of New York: Brooklyn, an urban environment, and Rockland County, a mix of suburban and rural areas. Informally, a food desert is an area in which it is difficult to buy affordable or good quality fresh food. The USDA defines a food desert as “a low-income tract with at least 500 people, or 33 percent of the population, living more than 1 mile (urban areas) or more than 10 miles (rural areas) from the nearest supermarket, supercenter, or large grocery store”.

Our analysis aims to identify what demographic variables are associated to areas where residents face limited access to healthy and affordable food options. Through a comprehensive examination based on data from the USDA”s Food Access Research Atlas, we will shed light on the complex factors contributing to food desserts. We will investigate the interplay between median family income, and access to supermarkets within a 1-mile radius (for urban Census tracts) and 10-mile radius (rural Census Tracts).

This study uses open data sources and US Census Data This gives a broader understanding for how food deserts impact the economic well-being of communities. It also affects how store quality influences access. In 2009, the USDA began tracking food availability in the US, and it turns out food deserts are everywhere in the US, no matter the community. In the United States of America, national funds were allocated to address food-desert areas for the first time in 2011.

Areas and Variables of Interest

Rockland County is largely suburban. Throughout Rockland, we can see the amount of people that have vehicles, which needed for food access in area of the state. In the very center we have one of the more in need towns that have the highest vehicles access and surprisingly has high food access. This goes to our original hypothesis that high food access lower the income becasue the population doesn’t have a lot of methods to travel around the county so it just makes it easier to travel by car. According to the National Library of Medicine, it states “US adults who used a personal vehicle for grocery shopping were less likely to report very low food security.”

Kings County is known for being urban. Since it is very easy to just travel through trains and buses there is no need to have any supermarkets close by because a lot of people use public transportation. With the rise of online grocery delivery services, residents might prefer the convenience of having groceries delivered to their doorstep rather than visiting supermarkets. This can be especially convenient for individuals with busy schedules or limited mobility.

Rockland County’s population has a lot of families with low resources. A lot of these families immigrate here to have a new beginning. These families need government assistance because they need help feeding their kids. For them, it is so convenient that they have a supermarket close by because they can use the assistance they get from their kids to buy groceries and be able to have food on their table.

In Kings County, since there are not a lot of supermarkets, they instead have bodegas. Kids are so used to taking public transportation that they don’t have the need to get picked up by their parents. Schools make it easy to get food for kids because they offer it as lunch. According to Emergency Food in NYC, “in Brooklyn alone, the number of child visits to pantries surpassed 4 million over the last year. And with rising inflation and the cost of living, New York City families need to make nearly 50% more than they did in 2019 to afford basic needs like food, housing, and childcare.”

Since we are interested in the median family income of census tracts, we can see the histogram below. Most incomes are less than $50,000, but there is a right skew, since a smaller number of tracts have extremely high incomes.

Here are the Census tracts with median income less than $25,000 and low food access.

Analysis

We believe that low food access in a certain location is associated to low median income, and that high income and wealthy communities will be associated to higher food access. However, there may be exceptions where lower income corresponds to higher food access because of more demand and need and high income low food access because not as much as an need.

In the charts below, we see the median family income for Census tracts in Rockland and Kings counties.

The chart below shows the relationship between median family income and food access in Rockland County. Interestingly, the Census tracts with low food access appear to have higher median incomes.

Below we see the same chart for New York state overall, with a similar increase in median income going from high to low food access.

Discussion

We saw that in Rockland County, high food access seemed to be related to lower median income, which was confusing because you would think that people in need would have less resources. We were able to see some locations around both counties that this was the case for but there wasn’t a lot especially in Rockland County. Kings County did not have this because it is part of NYC and it is considered a big part of tourism, so there really isn’t area with low food access especially where tourist go out and explore.

On the other hand, we did see some notable exceptions. In areas that people had low income had very high food access and the people who were high income had very low food access. After more investigation we found out that in Rockland, the area that has very high income and low access was actually residential areas and senior citizens’ homes, while the low income areas had a lot of the immigrant population and had way more supermarkets and convenience stores. We attribute this to the expectation that we wouldn’t see Kim Kardashian at a supermarket, as she has no need to shop; she could just order food or have a chef prepare. Others may use subscription services like Hello Fresh to get ingredients delivered to your door to make full meals, making food access in the area less relevant.

Conclusion

We found very interesting results for Rockland County and Kings County. Both areas are very different but one thing is for sure is the importance of food desert around NYS. This is important because with this data we can shape a better future for people in need. We see that NYC is very known for its tourism but that doesn’t mean that they should put less supermarkets and increase the price for products. For Rockland, it is great that there is more supermarkets in low income areas but that doesn’t mean the quality of the products should be less than the ones in the higher income areas. The quality for products should be the same for high income areas and low income areas especially when it comes to food. Everyone deserves to be able to support there families with good quality food. Every should have the ability to have access to a supermarket in their area.

Works Cited

USDA Food Access Research Atlas Documentation. https://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/food-access-research-atlas/documentation/

Treadway, Craig, and Allen Levine. “Why Food Deserts Persist in Low-Income NYC Neighborhoods.” PIX11, 18 May 2021, pix11.com/news/created-equal/why-food-deserts-persist-in-low-income-nyc-neighborhoods/#:~:text=Areas%20long%2Dconsidered %20food%20deserts,LaToya%20Meaders%20told%20PIX11%20News Accessed 29 Apr. 2024.

Antrum, C. J., Waring, M. E., & Cooksey Stowers, K. (2023). Personal vehicle use and food security among us adults who are primary shoppers for households with children. Discover Food.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10258743/

“Cultivating a Summer of Food Security for Brooklyn.” Brooklyn Org, 25 Oct. 2023,
brooklyn.org/article/cultivating-a-summer-of-food-security-for-brooklyn/ .Accessed 29 Apr. 2024.