Culture
Why Cities Should Pay People To Eat Their Veggies
Federal and state governments are matching some food-stamps purchases at farmers markets dollar for dollar. When cities take advantage, it pays.
All the talk about "food deserts" dried up years ago. It turns out that truly barren concrete wastelands are harder to find than people figured. More recently, the conversation's turned toward "food swamps": places where food sources are abundant, but most of it's junk.
Focusing on food swamps and food deserts places the emphasis on a single policy point, which is physical access to healthy and affordable food. Physical proximity to food is a supply factor. Supply, however, doesn't drive consumer decision-making nearly as much as it might seem. Three other barriers to food access—economic, educational, and cultural barriers, all of them factors on the demand side—also shape consumer behavior.