This is the first installment of our ongoing series, The Grocery Gap, looking at how the lack of healthy food access impacts communities. This installment is authored by Sarah Treuhaft of PolicyLink, one of the authors of the recently released “The Grocery Gap: Who Has Access to Healthy Food and Why it Matters.”

Do Communities of color have less access to healthy food?

Over the past 20 years, dozens of researchers have asked this question. Some have assessed availability of nearby supermarkets (which provide the most consistent selection of healthy foods at affordable prices) or the mix of different food outlets (supermarkets, grocery stores, convenience stores) across neighborhoods based on their racial/ethnic composition. Increasingly, they survey the availability, quality, and prices of healthy foods within neighborhood food stores.

We thoroughly reviewed all of these studies for the Grocery Gap report released today, and found that the answer is yes: communities of color, and particularly African American communities, have disproportionately less access to healthy food compared to white communities. Here are some of the most striking findings:

• African American neighborhoods have four times fewer supermarkets than white neighborhoods.
• In Baltimore, 43 percent of stores in African American neighborhoods have low availability of healthy foods according to a survey, compared to 4 percent of stores in white neighborhoods.
• Schools attended by nonwhite students or located in communities of color are more likely to have at least one convenience store nearby.

Research has also linked better availability of supermarkets with improved eating behaviors. African Americans who have supermarkets in their neighborhoods are more likely to eat healthy diets: for each additional supermarket in a census tract, residents eat 32 percent more fruits and vegetables.

And evidence is accumulating that these communities can support new markets or expand existing ones. An assessment of the first supermarket to locate in Harlem in 1999 found that it devotes the same amount of shelf space to fresh produce, fish, and meat as a typical suburban store, at the same prices.

The Pennsylvania Fresh Food Financing Initiative has helped start or expand grocery stores, farmers’ markets, and converted corner stores (that now sell healthy food) in communities of color throughout the state.

These findings will come to no surprise to residents or community groups who have long been organizing to bring gardens, farmers’ markets, cooperatives, and supermarkets to these neighborhoods (see our Healthy Food for All report for case studies on Oakland and Detroit).

The proposed federal Healthy Food Financing Initiative could help these groups, and other entrepreneurs, develop new, effective food retail models communities of color – increasing access to healthy food while creating new jobs and entrepreneurial opportunities.

In honor of the release of our exciting new report (“The Grocery Gap: Who Has Access to Healthy Food and Why it Matters”), we’re trying something new ’round here.

The report’s two principal authors — Sarah Treuhaft of PolicyLink and Allison Karpyn of The Food Trust — will be doing a series of blog posts (heretofore dubbed The Grocery Gap) on how the lack of healthy, affordable food impacts low-income communities and communities of color.

During the next several days, we will be posting short pieces venturing to answer these questions:

• Do communities of color have less access to healthy food?
• Do people eat any better if they have access to a supermarket in their neighborhood?
• Does your food environment affect your health?
• How do food access issues affect rural communities?

And, who knows, maybe even more. Follow along with us for the week. And please visit our Twitter feeds for even more great info: www.twitter.com/PolicyLink and www.twitter.com/TheFoodTrust.

daily equity news

“The ‘Authentic’ City Wrecking Ball,” - The Wall Street Journal

As American cities struggle to rejuvenate themselves in these difficult financial times, they may come up against a set of obstacles that have little to do with money. These are the arguments that poverty and decay are just fine because—in Harlem and many other neighborhoods—what counts is “authenticity.”

This view, espoused by Sharon Zukin in her new book, “Naked City: The Death and Life of Authentic Urban Places,” celebrates a neighborhood’s grit and grunge while denouncing the mass culture of the corporate city and suburbia. Her ideas have been warmly received by antigentrification academics, hipsters and fashionistas all over the country, who may not realize that they would be among the first to go were neighborhoods to be restored to their truly authentic origins. More seriously, fragile areas that have only recently emerged from the degradation of drug epidemics are likely to now find their redevelopment mired in bitter ideological arguments.

“‘Let’s Move’: Michelle Obama takes on childhood obesity,” - The Christian Science Monitor

Washington — Michelle Obama may be the first lady of the United States, but at Brinkley Middle School in Jackson, Miss., last week, most people simply referred to her as “Michelle.”

Certainly that’s how Mrs. Obama wants it. She has a message to impart, and if people feel comfortable with her, maybe it will get through: America’s kids need to get active and lose weight to end childhood obesity.

 ”When the textile mill goes, so does a way of life,” -  USA TODAY

MOUNT AIRY, N.C. — Jane Knudsen was a 19-year-old mother of two when she went to work in a textile mill here in 1973. Jobs were plentiful: “When you started work, you thought you’d be there until you retired,” she says.

She didn’t make it. The mill shut down a few years ago. So she took a job with an auto supplier. Then she lost that one. Now 57, she’s a part-time cook at the Surry County jail.

Daily equity news

“For Juveniles in Family Court, Judges Seek Safer Alternatives to Prison,” - The New York Times

Standing to address Judge Daniel Turbow in Family Court in Brooklyn, a city prosecutor confidently listed the reasons why the 16-year-old boy in the courtroom should be sent upstate to a juvenile prison.

He was a member of the Bloods, the prosecutor said, and he later joined another gang. He was arrested once for grand larceny and twice for assault. He went to school drunk and spat on the dean of students.

“Fat American children: many causes, a lifetime of effects,” - Los Angeles Times

The percentage of American children who are overweight or obese has been growing for decades, and now nearly one in three has a body mass index that’s greater than normal. Although evidence suggests that obesity rates are leveling off overall, for some groups of kids — especially poor or minority kids — the problem continues to grow, according to a study published Tuesday in the journal Health Affairs.

Using data from the 2007 National Survey of Children’s Health, the study showed marked regional differences. The five states with the highest rates of overweight and obese kids are all in the Southeast — top-ranked Mississippi (44.4%), Arkansas, Georgia, Kentucky and Tennessee. Minnesota and Utah were tied with the lowest rates (23.1%).

“Detroit wants to save itself by shrinking,” -  The Associated Press
Blighted city considers plan to turn large swaths of land back into fields

DETROIT - Detroit, the very symbol of American industrial might for most of the 20th century, is drawing up a radical renewal plan that calls for turning large swaths of this now-blighted, rusted-out city back into the fields and farmland that existed before the automobile.

Operating on a scale never before attempted in this country, the city would demolish houses in some of the most desolate sections of Detroit and move residents into stronger neighborhoods. Roughly a quarter of the 139-square-mile city could go from urban to semi-rural.

Creating Livable Communities: A Primer on the Federal New Starts/Small Starts Transit Program
Wednesday, March 10, 2010 3:00 PM - 4:00 PM EST 

The $2 billion Federal Transit Administration New Starts and Small Starts programs provide critical funding to support new transit investment in communities including street cars, buses, and light rail.

This webinar provides an introduction to this important federal transit program, including:

How to develop a project for federal approval

How to advance social equity and environmental sustainability goals

What the recently announced FTA policy changes mean for promoting livable communities at the local and regional levels

The webinar will feature FTA Deputy Administrator Therese McMillan and local transportation advocate Jim Erkel, Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy

This post was written by PolicyLink Senior Associate Sarah Treuhaft.

Childhood obesity is a key dilemma of our generation. Since the early 1970s, obesity rates have doubled for 2 to 5 year olds, tripled for adolescents ages 12 to 19, and quadrupled for 6 to 11 year olds. Not surprisingly, rates are highest for low-income and nonwhite kids who are more likely to live in neighborhoods that seem to conspire against healthy choices.

What can be done? A theme issue of the journal Health Affairs released this morning asks this question, exploring trends, presenting lessons learned from state and local actions, and addressing the roles of neighborhoods, food policy, and schools in reversing the epidemic.

The new journal includes an article we wrote with colleagues at The Food Trust that describes the nuts and bolts of how one policy win can lead to many. In Pennsylvania, advocates successfully established a fund in 2004 that has since helped 83 grocery stores, farmers’ markets, and neighborhood stores open in underserved neighborhoods or expand their existing stores (all while creating or saving 5,000 jobs!).

Over the past several years, Illinois and New York state, as well as the city of New Orleans, launched similar programs based on the Pennsylvania model. The Obama Administration has proposed a $400 million investment in a national Healthy Food Financing Initiative. (We are working to make this happen, click here to find out more and sign on to our letter of support).

The article discusses how advocates moved the campaigns forward at the state and national level, presenting it as a five-step framework from understanding the problem through data and mapping analysis to policy implementation and evaluation. Hopefully, it can help policymakers, child advocates, health coalitions, and others advance their own childhood obesity campaigns.

(Video courtesy of the very cool Market Makeovers program in LA. Check them out)

Below is the PolicyLink statement on the Senate Jobs Bill. For more information or to talk with our experts, please contact Dan Lavoie at dan@policylink.org.

“In passing the $15 billion jobs bill, the Senate’s bipartisan majority should be commended for heeding the voices of struggling Americans.

“But the road to a truly fair and sustainable economy is a long one. More must be done to get help to those hit first and worst by this recession, especially low-income communities and people of color.

“As we move forward in building an innovative, expansive, bipartisan recovery plan, we must make significant investments in job-training programs and a range of infrastructure projects – public transportation, schools, energy efficiency – that create jobs now and set our communities up for future success.

“This bill is a good first step. But America’s long-term resurgence requires that all of our communities are connected to opportunity and can contribute their full talents to our revival. We urge Congress to continue to advance a jobs agenda that lifts up all our communities.”

Former Arkansas Governor (and now FOX News host) Mike Huckabee has long made fighting obesity a core part of his policy platform. On his eponymous show last week, Huckabee hosted First Lady Michelle Obama for a frank and enlightening conversation on how we can help stop the childhood obesity crisis.

The whole conversation is worth watching, but especially the section on financing supermarkets in low-income communtiies. Click on the photo below to check it out (…and here’s a link to Part One of the interview, too)

Last week, First Lady Michelle Obama headed to Philadelphia to highlight a supermarket supported by the Pennsylvania Fresh Food Financing Initiative.

Along with our partners The Food Trust and The Reinvestment Fund, PolicyLink was instrumental in helping bring that Pennsylvania program national — with President Obama proposing $400 million Healthy Food financing Initiative to seed supermarkets, farmers markets and improved corner stores in disadvantaged communities nationwide.

PolicyLink CEO Angela Glover Blackwell was interviewed by pubic radio’s Marketplace to talk about why the program works — and how it can work in you community. Click below to listen.

Daily equity news

 ”Designed to Help Uplift the Poor,” - New York Times

LIKE almost every other American architect who came to prominence in the recent gilded age, Michael Maltzan built his reputation with commissions for prestigious museums and luxurious private houses. In 2002 he garnered national attention for his graceful design for the temporary Museum of Modern Art in Queens. His most recent projects include a flying-saucer-like house for the artists Lari Pittman and Roy Dowell in the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains and a far grander, 28,000-square-foot Beverly Hills mansion — part art gallery, part home — for the investor and former Hollywood über-agent Michael Ovitz.

Yet Mr. Maltzan may be the only American architect of his stature with significant experience in a far less glamorous field: providing shelter and other accommodations for his city’s poor. Over the past 16 years he has worked on several housing projects for the homeless and an arts complex for underprivileged children that are remarkable for their architectural sophistication and their spirit of public service.

“Senate Advances Jobs Bill,” - The Wall Street Journal

WASHINGTON—The Senate voted to advance a $15 billion job-creation package Monday, showing a rare hint of bipartisanship as five Republicans voted to end debate on the Democratic bill, including newly elected Sen. Scott Brown of Massachusetts.

Associated Press Massachusetts Sen. Scott Brown, shown at his temporary office on Capitol Hill Monday, backed the jobs bill in one of his first Senate votes.

 ”EPA lays out timetable for regulating greenhouse gas emissions,” - Washington Post

Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa P. Jackson laid out the timetable for regulating greenhouse gas emissions Monday, writing in a letter to lawmakers that she plans to start targeting large facilities such as power plants next year but won’t target small emitters before 2016.

The letter makes it clear the Obama administration will move ahead with curbing global warming pollution under the Clean Air Act unless Congress moves to stop it. Jackson emphasized that the administration was required to act under a 2007 Supreme Court decision that said greenhouse gases from motor vehicles qualified as a pollutant under the 40-year-old air-quality law. Jackson was responding to a letter several coal-state senators sent her late Friday.