Growing Food & Cultivating Justice

The Good Food District is a place-making effort facilitated by  Project New Village . We seek to reclaim and build upon the assets of the greater Southeastern San Diego: land, knowledge, skills, community, resilience, self-reliance, and a long history of local food livelihoods in order to address food insecurity, health disparities, and economic marginalization. Our efforts focus on urban agriculture as a path to wellbeing and economic opportunity. Specifically, the Good Food District seeks to strengthen relationships between local growers, producers, retailers, and consumers and change how people sell and source their food, both in Southeastern San Diego and in the larger region.

Growers, whether they are caring for plants at home or working in larger farms or community gardens, are at the core of this vision to bring “good food” to all residents -- that is sustainable, healthy, affordable, and culturally appropriate food. One of Project New Village's priorities is to encourage the creation of a hyper-local food system in which residents can work together to grow food and have opportunities to sell or share their crops within the community. Our Neighborhood Growers' Network is building a community of practice that encourages residents to share what they can, be it a small plot of land in a backyard, some seeds, plants, tools, compost or other supplies, agricultural knowledge, physical labor, moral support, or the love of good food.

This story map places the Growers' Network within the Greater Southeastern San Diego area and highlights how this initiative connects with past, present, and future geographies of food, including a series of related projects that together make the Good Food District a unique and powerful catalyst for cultivating food justice. It will take you through a "tour" of the Greater Southeastern San Diego neighborhoods, pointing out exciting ongoing projects, significant places in the neighborhood's rich history, and areas where more work needs to be done. In other words, it tells a visual story of growing food and cultivating justice in Southeastern San Diego.

As its name indicates, the Greater Southeastern San Diego is a large inclusive area located south east of downtown. It comprises neighborhoods such as Encanto, Logan Heights, Mount Hope and Valencia Park that are part of the City of San Diego, and extends into Lemon Grove and National City. The Good Food District is anchored in Mount Hope and radiates throughout the broader area, facilitating a number of projects and weaving connections within the community.

Southeastern San Diego's neighborhoods (as defined in the map above) are primarily inhabited by people of color, with almost nine out of ten residents identifying as Black, Asian, Latino, or other non-white race/ethnicity (compared to slightly more than half for the entire county). As documented in a  recent report , the area is also one of the poorest and most economically marginalized in the region. According to 2019 Census data, official poverty in the Greater Southeastern San Diego area is well above the county average (17% vs. 11% of families) as is the unemployment rate (9% vs. 6% of the civilian labor force). Median income is also much lower ($56,830 vs. $85,533) and food insecurity is more prevalent, with rates of participation in CalFresh more than twice as high as the county average (16% vs. 7%).

Such racial and economic inequality translates into severe health disparities and, perhaps not surprisingly, the residents of Southeastern San Diego are more likely to suffer from heart disease, diabetes, and other chronic conditions linked to food and nutrition. Most of the neighborhoods within the area rank very poorly on the  Healthy Place Index , which seeks to capture environmental factors influencing health such as housing, education, access to health care, transportation, access to green space, pollution, access to supermarkets, etc. As shown in the map below, this index correlates with COVID-19 infection rates, which have disproportionately burdened the greater Southeastern San Diego area where more than 1 out 10 residents has been infected.

It is in this context that the Good Food District has embarked on a number of related food-centered projects to address these overlapping disparities and promote racial and social equity. Scroll down through the map below to take a guided tour of the neighborhood, meet residents, and learn more about these ongoing initiatives.

Southeastern San Diego started as a farming community. It has long been home to people who came from other countries or regions of the United States with valuable skills and experiences as growers, fishers, bakers, artisans, and cooks. Some found jobs in the local food economy, working in citrus groves, dairy farms, canning plants, grocery stores, and nearby downtown restaurants. Others moved into different occupations, eager to move up economically and leave behind the trauma that past food work might have caused. A few continued to grow food at home, but over time many lost that knowledge, making them dependent on a food system that doesn’t effectively serve them - a fact exposed and amplified by the COVID-19 pandemic

Click on the arrows on the left or right of each image to navigate through the slideshow and learn about the significance of food in the history of Southeastern San Diego.

Redlining was devastating for Southeastern San Diego. The state-sanctioned lack of investment gradually led to the economic decline of the neighborhood that exacerbated white flight and the exodus of businesses and wealthier residents. Mainstream food retailers abandoned the area one by one, leaving behind empty buildings and vacant parking lots as the retail sector consolidated and expanded in the suburbs. Good local jobs, including those in the food economy, became scarce. Unemployment, poverty, and food insecurity increased.

The Greater Southeastern San Diego's food system has yet to recover from decades of policy-induced capital withdrawal and neglect -- a phenomenon observed in many urban low-income communities of color across the United States, from Detroit to Oakland, Baltimore, and New Orleans, and best described as food apartheid.

It is in the midst of such systemic racial disparities and amazing resilience that Project New Village operates, promoting urban agriculture as a way to reclaim food sovereignty and build a local food system that is people and earth friendly.

The Good Food District is a dream that is becoming reality. Through our connections with residents, growers, funders, businesses, nonprofits, public agencies, academics, and  activists engaged in food justice work  with organizations facing similar circumstances in other cities, we are developing a plan for the future in which food is a catalyst for re-energizing the neighborhood, re-connecting residents, and promoting wellness.

The primary goal of the Good Food District is to become a HUB (i.e., Healthy Urban Bounty) that stimulates and shares food abundance within the Greater Southeastern San Diego. This means ensuring that people can obtain healthy, affordable, and culturally appropriate food that is grown locally, sustainably, and ethically in ways that prioritize the wellbeing and dignity of both consumers and producers. Our plans include spaces for arts and culture, entrepreneurship, housing, education, health, and of course good food!

The Good Food District is a work in progress. With input from the community, we have identified several priorities and unique components highlighted in the slideshow below.

If you would like to be involved in the Good Food District or learn more about it, please  contact us . It will take a village!