Local Food Environments

Food Access in America

Kimberly B. Morland, Yael M. Lehmann, Allison E. Karpyn

• Publisher: CRC Press
• Year: 2022
• ISBN:
  9781000548617
• Edition: 2
• Topic: Medicine
• Subtopic: Nutrition, Dietics & Bariatrics

"In this book, Morland, Lehmann, and Karpyn discuss the critical need for healthy food financing programs as a vehicle to improve food access for all Americans. In my career as a public servant, there are very few legislative achievements that I'm prouder of than the Healthy Food Financing Initiative, which started in my home state of Pennsylvania. The program gained status as a proven and economically sustainable federal program that is helping to improve the quality of life in our neighborhoods: by allowing millions access to healthy, affordable food."

– Congressman Dwight Evans

United States House of Representatives, Pennsylvania, District 3

"If we work together, we can create a healthy food system that is equitable and accessible to all. This book highlights the importance of healthy food projects like grocery stores, farmers markets, co-ops, and other healthy food retail in revitalizing local communities across the country. Without basic nourishment, kids and families simply won't be successful – which is why this book is a must read."

– Sam Kass

President Obama's Senior Nutrition Policy Advisor

and Executive Director of Let's Move!

"Morland and colleagues' new second edition provides an excellent foundation for courses in food policy and community nutrition. Their detailed review of the economics of local and national food financing will open students' minds to the complexity inherent in measuring and interpreting outcomes."

– Robert S. Lawrence, MD, MACP

Founder and Former Director of the Center for a Livable Future

Johns Hopkins University, Bloomberg School of Public Health

Features

? Describes how disparities in food access formed in the United States

? Includes federal policies and programs aimed at addressing food access in underserved areas, including the Healthy Food Financing Initiative

? Features examples of state initiatives that address poor access to food retailers

? Provides methods for program evaluation utilizing principals of implementation and dissemination science

? Includes critical thinking questions and embedded videos aimed to generate discussions on how restricted local food environments in the United States are rooted in economic disparities that impact food access as well as housing, education, and job opportunities

Section II State Food Environment Initiatives

DOI: 10.1201/9781003029151-5

For many years, food advocates in cities and states across America have recognized the disparities in access to healthy food among low-income and Black, Indigenous, and People of Color. Beginning in 2002, advocates in cities such as Philadelphia organized and led a charter through city and state governments to promote funding for food retailers to locate in underserved areas. Most states have now initiated policies that provide funding to this effort. In this section, five of those states’ initiatives are described: Pennsylvania, Louisiana, New York, Colorado, and Michigan. The chapters are titled with cities that were key in pioneering the work. In each chapter, the unique circumstances by which task forces are developed, programs and funding are garnered, and funds are administered are described. In addition, the role of United States policies, beginning with emancipation and migration of African American slaves away from southern states to the systematic racism within the banking industry are also discussed, with regard to their part in the development and preservation of underserved areas in the United States. Food retailers supported by these state initiatives are depicted, and their success is the foundation for the federal Healthy Food Financing Initiative described in Chapter 3.

4 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

DOI: 10.1201/9781003029151-6

CONTENTS

Introduction

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Redlining in Philadelphia

Progress Plaza: Food Retail in an Era of Redlining

The Community Reinvestment Act

Evolution of Food Retail, Supermarkets, and Local Food Sales

Philadelphia’s Supermarket Campaign

Advocating for Supermarkets

Establishment of the Food Marketing Task Force

Implementing Philadelphia’s Fresh Food Financing Initiative

Availability of Funds

Administrative Structure

Identifying Impactful Projects to Be Funded by the FFFI

Program Eligibility

Neighborhood Impacts of the FFFI

Foundation Support and Impact on Federal and State Public Policies

Conclusion

Critical Thinking Questions and Exercises

References

INTRODUCTION

Chapter 4 is the first of five chapters in Section II. These five chapters aim to highlight state-led initiatives that have addressed disparities in local food environments across the United States. The five states selected have been used as examples of success to justify the federal Healthy Food Financing Initiative legislation.¹ The section begins with Chapter 4 regarding Pennsylvania’s Fresh Food Financing Initiative (FFFI) because Pennsylvania was the first state to provide state funds to address disparities in local food environments for underserved areas of the state. The purpose of this chapter is for readers to understand the historical circumstances that have created disparities in access to supermarkets in Philadelphia (and other areas of Pennsylvania) and how the Fresh Food Financing Initiative (FFFI) encouraged grocery stores to locate in low-income neighborhoods, thereby providing both economic growth and food to underserved communities.

The chapter reviews several notable examples of the impact of the financing work, including the opening of new stores such as Progress Plaza, which is an early national example of Black American owned-and-operated retail spaces that include a grocery store. The process by which The Food Trust began the supermarket campaign in Philadelphia by working with community groups, advocating for supermarkets, and establishing a task force is reviewed. In addition, the chapter describes the program process of selecting underserved areas for FFFI funding and how the Pennsylvania FFFI became the model of other State Health Food Financing Initiatives as well as the federal program. The chapter concludes with a reflection on the ways in which redlining impacted the city, and how community members effectively worked to self-invest in their own neighborhoods.

PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA

Philadelphia, with 1.5 million residents, is Pennsylvania’s largest city. It is an incredibly signifi-cant city in American history as it was the nation’s first capital. Independence Hall is where the Declaration of Independence was signed and where the first and second presidents (George Washington and John Adams) served their terms. Philadelphia is also a centerpiece of the northern civil rights movement; a place where beginning in 1910, Black southerners began to relocate to the City of Brotherly Love as part of the Great Migration. As a result, the city’s Black population increased more than twofold with residents seeking to work in factories in need of labor. While racial segregation was not as prominent as in the South, it was visible in the city in hotels, restaurants, theaters, neighborhoods, and workplaces. The NAACP formed its Philadelphia Chapter in 1912, and by 1935 the organization led the passage of legislation that banned racial discrimination in public accommodations across Pennsylvania. Despite progress, discrimination remained visible, for example, in the employment sector where Black residents struggled to gain access to professional occupations and in access to housing where Black Philadelphians were largely restricted to living only in the city’s worst neighborhoods. While the 1950s is known as a time of housing boom, with federally subsidized mortgages enabling home ownership for many working-class families, these opportunities were largely closed to Black families. By 1955 only three subdivisions in suburban Philadelphia were not marketed according to race, leaving Black residents to remain in the inner-city, high-density neighborhoods and its stock of aging homes. During this time, areas of the city such as North and West Philadelphia became home to most Black residents.

REDLINING IN PHILADELPHIA

The New Deal was responsible for the first Farm Bill in the 1940s (Chapter 1), but it also represents a key piece of legislation that developed and funded programs aimed to help Americans prevent foreclosures, purchase new homes, and provide low-cost shelter after the Great Depression. While private banks were still a bit tentative to make larger, or riskier, investments, the government sought to stimulate the economy with its own plan to support development. As part of this effort, the Home Owners’ Loan Corporation (HOLC) was created, and the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) began loan programs for new homes, which also provided employment opportunities in construction. New public housing was also prioritized with the New Deal.² As early as 1920, racial homogeneity of neighborhoods was fostered with the institution of restrictive covenants by real estate boards and homeowner associations, targeting Black Americans in particular. Under these covenants, property owners would sign agreements to not allow Black Americans to own, occupy, or lease their properties. These types of contracts were used in the United States until 1948 when the U.S. Supreme Court finally declared they were unenforceable.³ However, up until this time, these restrictive covenants were commonplace and supported by the official policies of the National Association of Real Estate Brokers in their code of ethics in 1924 which stated; ‘a Realtor should never be instrumental in introducing into a neigh‑ borhood … members of any race or nationality … whose presence will clearly be detrimental to property values in that neighborhood’.⁴ These policies were also supported by bankers who would not grant loans to Black applicants; hence, for these financial and institutional reasons, Black Americans have been systematically relegated to specific regions of the United States.⁵

The HOLC’s mission was to work with commercial lenders to provide the loans. To provide creditworthiness of areas to bankers, the HOLC created ‘Residential Security Maps’, that graded and colored on maps residential neighborhoods on four tiers of risk (A = Best – green; B = Still Desirable – blue; C = Definitely Declining – orange; and D = Hazardous – red). The determinants of risk or ‘creditworthiness’ operated under the assumption that older neighborhoods could not be restored. In addition to the age of the neighborhoods, the HOLC hired local real estate agents (who had developed the restricted covenants) to appraise areas and often employed discriminatory judgments against Black American neighborhoods because areas populated by Black Americans were considered high-risk and therefore colored red on the maps. These practices led to a disinvestment in inner-city neighborhoods and Black neighborhoods as well as an over-investment in suburban residential areas.

The policies of the FHA followed those of the HOLC and perpetuated the segregation of American neighborhoods with an underwriting manual that stated: ‘If a neighborhood is to retain stability, it is necessary that properties shall continue to be occupied by the same social and racial classes’.⁶ Additionally, FHA loans favored single-family homes and therefore put residents of attached dwelling and row housing (common in inner cities) at a disadvantage for benefiting from this federal program. The trend to support the growth of the suburbs continued through the 1970s to such an extent that private and government lending to inner-city residents led to the depreciation of homes in predominantly Black and low-wealth areas. Although these federal initiatives focus on housing, the disinvestment of these areas by the federal government was also supported by a disinvestment by commercial entities.

More than a half century after the implementation of the ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• About the Authors
• Section I The Food System
• Section II State Food Environment Initiatives
• Section III Food Store Implementation and Evaluation
• Afterword
• Abbreviations
• Index