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Food Deserts and Real‐Estate‐Led Social Policy
Author(s) -
WolfPowers Laura
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
international journal of urban and regional research
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.456
H-Index - 114
eISSN - 1468-2427
pISSN - 0309-1317
DOI - 10.1111/1468-2427.12515
Subject(s) - food security , food policy , context (archaeology) , subsidy , poverty , cognitive reframing , food systems , business , economic growth , economics , geography , agriculture , psychology , social psychology , archaeology , market economy
Since the early 2000s in the United States, food deserts—neighborhoods in which households have limited geographic access to full‐service supermarkets or grocery stores— have become conceptually central in public policy research on food security. Analyzing this phenomenon from a ‘policy mobility’ perspective, this article traces the food desert's emergence in policy discourse, locating it within an entrepreneurial social policy paradigm that privileges real estate development over direct economic relief. In the context of property‐led anti‐poverty efforts, the identification and mapping of food deserts catalyzes a logic that leads to subsidy to grocery store development in low‐income areas (or ‘fresh food financing’), while at the same time officials are cutting programs such as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (food stamps), which directly supplements household food budgets. The article contributes to widening critical discussion of the food desert paradigm and the policy interventions with which it is associated. It calls on urban researchers and practitioners to reframe discussions of food access and nutrition around the shortage of basic income and a need for higher wage floors.