This article by Will Guzzardi published in the Huffington Post, June 16, 2011, offers an excellent example of how cities are tackling the problem of food deserts in urban spaces.
Excerpt: “In a move that exemplified Rahm Emanuel’s approach to Chicago’s most intractable problems, the city’s new mayor sat down on Wednesday with the leaders of six major grocery-store chains to address the crisis of the city’s so-called “food deserts.”
For hundreds of thousands of Chicagoans, the nearest fresh fruits and vegetables are a mile or more away. This leaves residents stuck either taking long rides on public transportation and bringing back only what they can carry, or eating the processed and packaged foods available at the corner store.
Food deserts, areas that are distant from the nearest fresh foods, are a serious public health crisis, causing a marked uptick in diet-related illness like diabetes, obesity and cancer. Minorities and lower-income Chicagoans are far more likely to live in food deserts, which are almost entirely on the city’s South Side.”
Be sure to click on the photos and have a look inside the bus. It’s inspiring to see what one bus can hold and do for a neighborhood.