Food Desert

When a neighborhood is gentrified it will not only change the image of it, but also the services available there (Al-Kodmany 2011, 62-63). In other words, gentrification does not only have an impact on the physical aspect of the land, but also the resources that lie there. During the 90s, the Near West Side neighborhood located near Loop, an up-scale neighborhood, sought drastic changes within the area. The changes in racial demographics in the Near West Side indicated that the health risks that affected minorities dropped in the past decade (1992-2002) (Al-Kodmany 2011,

During the mid-20th century there was much racial discrimination, specifically in home ownership. During this period there was mass immigration of Southern blacks to the north. In Lawndale Chicago, there was adverse reactions to this. As the

According to Daily Life... (Kaldin, 2000) the population of suburban areas during the 1950s had started to double from 36 million to 74 million. This rise in suburban residents had continued from 1950 to 1970.When more families had started to move to suburban areas, they came together by adding things such as playgrounds, libraries, and schools to the neighborhood to benefit their kids. This “flight to the suburbs” was difficult for blacks because of the racism in society at the time. Many black people were ignored and shunned at this time in society, so it was hard for blacks to move into suburbs knowing that they could be ridiculed in these areas because of their skin color.

Today we live in a society where it is acceptable for a white and black family to be neighbors, even close friends. This situation has not always been the case. During the 1950’s, the time that the Younger family was living in Chicago, whites and blacks were living completely separate lives and a majority of the blacks were living in poverty. Although there are significant improvements we have made, there are still things that remain the same. Many African Americans in Chicago today are still living in poverty, just like they were over 50 years ago. Two important changes have occurred during these years. Our race relations between whites and blacks have improved tremendously. Today it is completely acceptable for two different colored families to be living next door to each other. The second significant change is not as positive. The homicide rates per 100,000 people have gone up by almost 10 times the amount it was in the 50’s. Many sociologist believe that the cycle of multigenerational poverty causes violence in the mostly black communities, therefore raising the homicide rates. Even though as a city we have improved our race relations there are still problems such as the rising homicide rates and percent of people living in poverty.

In terms of governmental involvement in the management of food deserts, we argue that very little has been done legislatively by the Metro Nashville and Davidson county government. Despite the fact that several areas in the Davidson County have been identified as food deserts by the USDA, little to no legislation has been created to combat the problem and its effects on the health of its citizens. Edgehill has been put on the USDA map of food deserts, because it qualifies “as a “low-access community,” [where] at least 500 people and/or at least 33 percent of the census tract's population must reside more than one mile from a supermarket or large grocery store (for rural census tracts, the distance is more than 10 miles)” (USDA). However, the

The development of the suburbs has been appointed to be the result of the “white flight” from the inner cities. In the 1950’s black Americans moved northward to cities to find industrial jobs that were within walking distance. Discrimination in cities worsened, crime rates increased and educational facilities’ credentials weakened or gained bad reputations. The upper-class families left the cities and mass migrated to the suburbs to escape the increasing crime rates and worsening conditions. This movement was later termed the “white flight”. Every American wanted to begin building the “ideal family”: two parents, two children and maybe a pet or two. This newly invented middle-class prospered as

The first neighborhood Hartigan describes in his study is Briggs. The demographic and population size of Briggs changed over time since 1930 from 24,000 residents that were 99 percent white to less than 3,000 residents that are over 50 percent white, 30 percent black, and 10 percent Hispanic (Hartigan 1999). Hartigan explains that the reduction of white residents was known as the “white flight” that occurred as the neighborhood changed overtime. Despite the drop in white residents, they still comprise the majority, which contrasts the demographics of Detroit as a whole (83 percent black, 11 percent white, 7 percent Hispanic/Latino, and

When cities begin their journey of being gentrified, many locals become displaced. Displacement is when locals are uprooted from their homes, due to outside factors, and forced to move elsewhere. According to the Urban Displacement Project conducted by U.C. Berkeley, “Gentrification results from both flows of capital and people. The extent to which gentrification is linked to racial transition differs across neighborhood contexts... Displacement takes many different forms—direct and indirect, physical or economic, and exclusionary—and may result from either investment or disinvestment” (U.C. Berkeley). Many people are coming into San Francisco’s Bay Area because of how diverse each element is. However, according to Census numbers, between 1990 and 2010, 35.7% of San Francisco’s black population dwindled (Bliss). 35.7% of the black community within San Francisco suffered from displacement. An additional 53% of low-income households in the Bay Area are at risk for displacement and gentrification (U.C. Berkeley). This has definitely left a dent within the diversity reputation held up by the Bay Area. When such a strong large part of people leave, The City will experience a shift in culture and community. Whether, it is the real estate, the food, the different cultures, the Bay Area has always been known for being different. Perhaps, this is why so many outsiders are coming in and buying up every piece of land they can. Whether their intentions were to purchase land and

In the Chicago Tribune article “Segregation declines in Chicago, city still ranks high, census data show”, Lolly Bowean, the author, stated in her report that “the average white resident in the Chicago area now lives in a neighborhood that is 71.5 percent white” (Bowean)***. Racial

Food desert are urban, suburb, and rural boroughs without ready access to fresh healthy and economical food. The communities that are considered food deserts, has no grocery stores or supermarkets within a walking distance from their household. The families that live in those areas do not have access to transportation; therefore, they consume food that is accessible, which is usually processed. Most stores that people, living in a food desert, go to is convenience stores, which are usually near their households, and are accessible to some healthy foods. Another, place where many people receive their food from is fast food, and the food from those places is greasy and fattening. The lack of access to healthy food could lead to a lot of disasters,

Segregation proved to be powerful in the city as to this day the South Side still shows remnants of the “Black Belt.” Figure [2] below shows racial demographics of a recent census of Chicago and the resemblance to the map of covenants in figure [1] can clearly be seen. Chicago’s role as a home for it’s residents proved positive for some but problematic for most. A system that always favored the wealthy and white was true for the city and while some areas were strong enough to fight this trend, as a whole Chicago was

However, Wacquant brings the term “inner city” to light, breaking down its meaning: “black and poor.” Living in Chicago gives one an exemplary example of the term “inner city” meaning “poor, black ghettos.” The references to “inner city” schools being synonymous with “poor quality” and “mostly African American” are damaging to urban terminology and creating a predetermined perspective of those who call the “inner city” home. The “hypersegregation” of the city of Chicago is a topic within itself, but the institution of segregation is, without question, existent here. In addition, “inner city” is becoming a label which implies unavoidable incarceration.

The revitalization and activation of Atlanta, Georgia's central city, was due in large part to the 1996 Olympics. The Olympics contended with the ongoing issues of homelessness, dilapidated housing, and high unemployment rates, which inundated the city. Most of the research of gentrification in Atlanta deal with whites moving into poorer, primarily black neighborhoods. A small body of literature exists addressing the gentrification of urban neighborhoods by middle to upper class blacks. My dissertation research will focus exclusively on black urban professionals, and the central question asks: Why are increasing numbers of middle and upper class blacks moving into the inner ring neighborhoods of Atlanta, Georgia from 2000 to 2010? My dissertation

Fifty years past after the Chicago Freedom Movement, and much has changed in Chicago. In 1966, a far southwest side neighborhood was 99.9 percent whites is now split between African-Americans, Hispanics, and with a few whites. African-Americans have come to hold positions of power throughout the world including the highest office in land. However, a lot has stayed the same too. Chicago is still one of America’s most segregated cities. The problems from the Chicago Freedom Movement have even gotten worse: gun violence, no jobs, and economic problems, and struggling schools. However, it is obvious that much has changed over the last fifty years. Now, everyone can drink from the same water fountain, no one has to sit at

My undergraduate thesis poses two fundamental questions: how does geography happen to Black people and how do Black people “happen” to geography? To answer these questions, I examine the spatialization of the Black body through a geo-ethnography of the Black house community who participated in house music and house culture in Chicago between 1972-1988. First, I flesh out the sociospatial processes—such as redlining, suburbanization, the rise of the post-1970 Black middle-class—that altered the geographies of post-war Chicago for Black Chicagoans. Black Chicagoans live in a second city as a result of the persistent maintenance of social apparatuses that are mapped into and onto the landscape of Chicago that contain Blackness. Second, I unearth