Food Deserts in Virginia

Food Deserts are defined as areas that lack access to fresh, healthy, and affordable food. This can be defined in a variety of ways based on proximity to grocery stores in rural or urban areas, access to a vehicle, and the quality of the food within proximity. In our observations here, we have found data that defines food deserts in a few ways and we will use data that defines urban food deserts as census tracts that include a high percentage of the population without a grocery store within one mile, and rural food deserts as census tracts that include a high percentage of the population without a grocery store within ten miles.

Below is a short excerpt from the documentary "Carb Loaded: A Culture Dying to Eat" explaining further what qualifies a place a food desert.

The first map shows a whether a census tract is determined to low access based on our designation of urban tracts not within a one mile radius of a grocery store and rural tracts not within a ten mile radius of a grocery store.

In this map, orange indicates the presence of a food desert, and green indicates am area of sufficient access to food. As you can see, this map seems to indicate that large parts of Southern VA, including parts of Richmond, along with several areas in Northern Virginia, near DC.

Food deserts also disproportionately impact lower income residents, as they are less likely to have consistent transportation to a grocery store, and less money and time to spend on food. Thus, below is a map depicting the median family income for each census tract, allowing us to see which areas would be in increased danger, should a food desert exist there. The darker the green, the higher the income.

This shows that the lower income areas in Virginia are largely located in Southern VA, along with the cities of Richmond and the Hampton Roads area. This provides serious issues for some residents of these areas, as they are also located in food deserts.

Richmond specifically has had large issues with food deserts disproportionally affecting the less well-off, as a close up is shown to the left.

We can see through these two maps that Richmond's food deserts are located in largely lower income areas, as in these lower income areas convenience stores and fast food restaurants are more common.

Another aspect to consider is how food deserts may disproportionally impact more racially diverse neighborhoods. Below is a map displaying the racial diversity of areas, the lighter the census tract, the more diverse the tract.

This center of diverse neighborhoods in west Richmond corresponds very similarly with the food deserts and low income neighborhoods in Richmond pictured above.

Another area of interest identified was the Hampton Roads area of Southeastern Virginia. The map to the left depicts food deserts in Hampton Roads, specifically South of Newport News and Norfolk.

Coincidentally, large areas of Norfolk and South of Newport News are also where lower median family income is located, causing these areas to be at higher risk for negative effects of these food deserts.

We also see that there is large racial diversity existing in Norfolk and South of Newport News, in large food deserts with low income.

We have seen several large food deserts existing in Virginia, especially in lower income diverse neighborhoods in Richmond, Newport News, and Norfolk. This lack of access to healthy, fresh, and affordable food is impacting our minority communities very heavily, and we need to encourage the government to step in and help these neighborhoods. I urge you to reach out to your representative or governor and ask them to fix this crisis. Encourage your government to help out grocery companies or other fresh food producers move into these food deserts!

Below are links to email our Virginia governor Ralph Northam and a link to find your local state representatives if you would like to contact them.