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Will Walk For Food, Portland Edition
More like this please. In Saturday's Oregonian, Paige Parker has a fabulous story on the profound equity implications of pedestrian-unfriendly communities.
More on the article in a second but first, a rant. Walkability is not just an amenity. Is it not a lifestyle accessory for the well-heeled. It is, for many people, an issue of basic social and economic justice. Zoning that segregates housing from retail -- and that reduces walkability and transit access -- has serious consequences for equity. So it's wonderful to see a newspaper article treat it that way.
Without the resources to own and operate a car, low-income families can face huge obstacles to meeting basic needs.
Low-income and minority families, prone to obesity and dietary-related diseases, are also more likely to live in communities where nutritious food is hard to come by, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation reports. These are otherwise known as "food deserts." Nationally, the typical low-income neighborhood has 30 percent fewer supermarkets than higher-income neighborhoods.
To illustrate the difficulty, Parker profiles a northeast Portland family who must spend several hours on transit, just to access an affordable grocery store. It's easy to think of this as little more than a big headache, but that's wrong-headed. It's a real economic hardship for those who can least afford it.
...the closest markets are convenience stores. They're sugar shacks of a kind, given their selection of cigarettes, beer and processed foods. At one, the produce section amounts to a few bruised tomatoes, limes and jalapenos. The other charges $4.89 for a gallon of milk, about $2 more than a regular supermarket.
