"Food Desert"

The city of Dallas recently offered 3 million dollars to any developer willing to build a "high quality" grocery store in one of the Dallas "Food Deserts." One of the main criteria for living in a food desert is a high percentage of the population living more than a mile from a grocery store.  Last I heard there was little to no interest from grocery stores in opening despite the incentive from the city.

I pulled this map of  USDA's definition of a food desert within the city of Dallas from the above article.

The map can be deceptive, as not all the areas depicted as food deserts are places where you would expect to find grocery stores and the rest are places where you wouldn't expect most people to live under a mile from one.

For example, the majority of the northwestern area of the  "Food Desert" north of I-30, and along I-35 is an industrial area. It makes perfect sense that you won't find many Albertsons next to light industry, truck lots, and warehouses. The fact that the USDA map doesn't take note of this demonstrates the lack of nuance used in the creation of this map.

The lower part of 35, just northwest of downtown is the Design District which is full of cool coffee shops, luxury apartments and Artist's studios and Breweries. I'm sure that most of the people there drive to uptown to go to whole foods anyway. Technically a food desert, but not really in practice.

Ok, fine, you say, but what about far south Dallas where most of the pink is?

South West Dallas

South East Dallas 

Both the above pictures show two parts of the southern Dallas food desert,  From above they look pretty much like any other suburban or exburban area. You wouldn't expect to be able to walk less than a mile from most homes to a grocery store regardless of the income of the people who live there. The density is simply too low.


There is only one "traditionally urban" food desert in Dallas, the area immediately south and south east of downtown.

The latest effort to fight the food desert is a new urban farm providing fresh produce at Bonton Farms.

Bonton, one of the oldest neighborhoods in Dallas and just a few miles south of downtown, is uniquely able to benefit from this urban farming, you can see in the picture, because it is next to a (relatively) dense housing development. Those without a car who live in the neighborhood can easily walk or ride a bike to the farm without crossing major roads.

Middle of Queen City, South Dallas, to Bonton Farms 1.7 miles to walk. Via bus 15-30 min.

The bus trip from the middle of Queen City, South Dallas to Bonton Farms is about as straightforward and high frequency as they get in Dallas. A 1.7 mile walk with groceries would be too much for most people, although the distance is easily bikable thus alowing it to serve the adjacent neighborhoods.

That is great news for the people of Bonton and the immediate neighborhoods like Queen City. For someone who lives in SE or SW Dallas, it doesn't have much of a practical impact at all. There are closer grocery stores to them than Bonton Farms. Even for folks who live in Dolphin Heights or  Owenwood, (just north of Queen City shown on the map)  the Downtown Farmers Market is actual closer.

The density and urban form that makes Bonton farms a viable idea in the Bonton area are not available at Southern edge of  Dallas which  makes up the majority of the Dallas food desert.

How isolated are the the far south food deserts? Well, in most cases you can totally rule out walking due to suburban care based distances or biking due to lack of structure, but via car groceries are not that far away.

Middle of food desert to grocery store in under 10 min by car.

As you can see above, you can get from the middle of the food desert to an excellent grocery store in less than ten min by car.  I would be willing to bet that most of the food desert is a 15 min or under drive from a perfectly acceptable grocery store.  The percentage of folks in these food deserts who have access to a car, while likely lower than other parts of the city. is still the vast majority.

Even via city bus, the trip only takes 25 min which is a similar bus trip that someone in Queen City, South Dallas, would have to take to Bonton Farms.

Even with city bus the food desert to grocery store in 25 min. Bus frequency every 15 min.

Yes, taking the bus 25 min to the grocery store is an inconvenience, but so is everything when you don't own a car in a place were everything is designed for cars. Life at that point is an inconvenience. getting to McDonalds from the above apartments without a car would be a pain as well. The issue of obesity, especially among lower income people is far too widespread to blame on not having a Trader Joes half a mile from everyone's house.

There are probably much better ways to spend three million dollars than to lure a grocery store into the southern sector of the city. Community gardens at local schools, assistance with Amazon Prime memberships and healthy cooking classes are just a few ideas off the top of my head that would probably bring more healthy food closer to more people than a grocery store or two in this large geographic area. Heck, you would probably be better off giving the 3 million in cash to individuals in the community directly and let them spend it on something that would help them, be that buying a car, planting a garden, or moving closer to jobs.