Culture
How a Mobile Market Will Boost Access to Healthy Food in Flint
And a researcher’s data-driven map will point the portable grocer to the city’s neediest areas.
In many low-income areas in cities across the United States, lack of access to healthy food is a well-documented concern. Flint, Michigan, is no exception.
It’s an example of an urban food desert—defined by the USDA as predominantly low-income and situated more than one mile away from the nearest grocery store. Flint saw the closure of five of its last six large chain grocery stores over the past five years; its poverty rate is 40 percent.