Food Deserts and Inequality: Challenging Injustice and Seeking Food Sovereignty in Three Rust-Belt Cities

• In Event: 189 - Section on Community and Urban Sociology Refereed Roundtable Session and Business Meeting
  In Refereed Roundtable 60min: Table 10. Urban Planning and Governance

Abstract

In this paper we examine food deserts and inequality in three Rust Belt cities: Cleveland, Ohio; Detroit, Michigan; and Milwaukee, Wisconsin. We analyze the significant impact of deindustrialization’s legacy, the “great recession” and poverty on food security. We connect this to how problems in food access are problematic for the poor in urban environments, particularly with a prevalence of food deserts and the lack of access to nutritious food. Utilizing a food justice perspective and emphasizing the limited food sovereignty poor citizens have, we connect this to impacts on health, food politics, and movements seeking to empower individuals and neighborhoods in their quest for food security. Findings reveal multiple layers of injustice associated with the prevalence of food deserts in these cities, connecting not only with poverty and health dimensions but also ecology, education, work, and broader social stratification considerations. Taken together these indicate important spatial inequality dimensions of food deserts, injustice, and the challenge to what we call the “food security opportunity structures” in meeting the needs of inner city residents. Borrowing from the theoretical and research literature of several subfields in sociology including environmental sociology, food studies, social movements, social stratification, and urban studies we emphasize the importance of a food justice perspective for understanding and alleviating hunger in the inner city through community action and food sovereignty.

Authors

• Stephen J. Scanlan, Ohio University

• Sam W. Regas, Ohio University