In this project addressing Baltimore's food desert issue, the crucial role involved gathering and showing data on fresh food access within the city. The groundwork for the "Growing Groceries" solution was laid by creating a map of these food deserts, which proposed mobile food trucks and a digital platform to enhance food accessibility in impoverished areas. This data-centric role was foundational in proposing a solution to bridge the food accessibility gap.
Objective: The objective was to create a map highlighting food deserts in Baltimore, aiding the development of the "Growing Groceries" initiative to enhance fresh food access through mobile food trucks and a digital platform.
Background: Food deserts in Baltimore represent a significant challenge as they hinder easy access to fresh, nutritious food for many residents, particularly in low-income neighborhoods. Addressing this issue is vital as it impacts the overall health and well-being of the community, making this project crucial for fostering a healthier urban environment.
Solution: The proposed solution, "Growing Groceries," envisions deploying food trucks loaded with fresh produce to Baltimore's identified food desert areas. Accompanied by a mobile app and website, this initiative aims to provide an accessible and convenient platform for residents to locate these trucks, check inventory, and pre-order fresh food, bridging the gap between these communities and easier access to nutritious food options.
Potential Impact: The "Growing Groceries" initiative has the potential to significantly ease food scarcity issues in underserved Baltimore neighborhoods, enhancing residents' access to fresh and nutritious food. By combining technology with on-the-ground service delivery, this project could foster healthier communities, combat food insecurity, and contribute to a broader urban rejuvenation in Baltimore, setting a replicable model for addressing similar challenges in other urban areas.
Development
Food deserts are a pressing issue in urban locations across the United States, representing a significant hurdle in achieving equitable food access for all citizens. Baltimore, a city emblematic of this challenge, has regions where the scarcity of grocery stores exacerbates the daily lives of its residents, particularly those living in low-income areas. During my master's program at MICA, my assigned group was tasked with developing a human-centered design solution to mitigate the challenges faced by individuals residing in the food deserts of Baltimore, Maryland.
My key role in this project was to research, gather, and visualize data surrounding food deserts, laying the groundwork for informed decisions and actionable insights for our project.
Finding the areas in Baltimore with little access to grocery stores will help us focus our efforts and create a solution to bring fresh food to people in these areas.
Given the city's predefined criteria for food deserts, identifying areas conforming to these criteria would provide a substantial starting point for our human-centered design process. This data-driven approach would direct our engagement with the affected communities, culminating in a solution tailored to their unique circumstances.
To start the project, I needed to find where all the grocery stores in Baltimore are. I first looked at Baltimore's public data and some studies to better understand food deserts. Even though these sources gave much information about food deserts, they didn't have a list of grocery stores.
I decided to get the grocery store data from the Yellow Pages. I wrote a simple computer program using Python to collect information about all the grocery stores listed in Baltimore on the Yellow Pages website.
After getting the grocery store data, I cleaned it up to ensure it was accurate and easy to use. I removed any wrong or extra information from the data. Then, I saved the cleaned-up data into a file on my computer so it was ready to be used for making the map.
Now, with a good list of grocery stores, I was ready to move on to the next part of the project - visualizing where these stores are in Baltimore. This step helped set the stage for understanding food deserts in the city better.
After gathering and cleaning up the grocery store data, the next step was to make a visual map to help see where food deserts might be in Baltimore. A food desert is an area where people lack easy access to fresh, healthy, and affordable food due to the lack of grocery stores nearby.
I used a tool called ArcGIS Online to start making the map. First, I uploaded the grocery store data to ArcGIS and showed each store on the map with a little grocery cart icon. This way, anyone looking at the map could easily see where the grocery stores are.
Then, I added another layer to the map to show the outline of Baltimore City. I found a ready-made ShapeFile outline from the Living Atlas of GIS database and added it to my map. I merged the two layers together to only show grocery stores within the city limits feature layer. Now, it was clear which part of the map was Baltimore.
One of the ways the city of Baltimore defines a food desert as an area where grocery stores are more than 1/4 mile away. So, I used a tool in ArcGIS to draw circles with a radius of 1/4 mile around each grocery store. This showed areas where grocery stores were close by.
Next, I needed to show low-income areas on the map because they're part of what makes a food desert. I found data from Justice40 Tracks, which had information about income levels. I used another tool in ArcGIS to show low-income areas on the map with different shades of red. The redder the area, the lower the income. Areas of Darker color would be low income areas with more than .25 mi distance from a grocery store.
Lastly, I combined the circles around grocery stores and the low-income area data to see which parts of Baltimore were both low-income and far from grocery stores – these are the potential food deserts. I used another tool in ArcGIS to erase the parts of the layer inside the circles around grocery stores. This left me with a map showing the potential food deserts in darker shades. You can view the webproject here.
The map showed clearly where in Baltimore people might be living in food deserts, which was the critical visual information we needed to move forward with the project.
After making the map, I shared it with my team. This map helped us understand where we should talk to people in Baltimore about their struggles with getting fresh food.
Using the map, we created simple descriptions of the types of people we wanted to talk to. We then made a list of questions to ask them. We went to the areas shown as food deserts on the map and talked to many people. Their stories helped us learn a lot about the real problems they face every day.
Research Question: Target Users - Who are our users? Who is affected by food deserts and food swamps?
Demographic Questions:
Research Question: Accessibility - What can we learn about our user’s access to technology and communication barriers? How does this influence our design solutions?
Research Question: Shopping Behavior - Where do our users shop for food and groceries?
Research Question: Finances - How do our users budget or make purchase decisions?
Research Question: Nutrition Education - How much do our users know about nutrition? What are their cooking habits?
Research Question: Design Research - What do our users think about our initial design ideas?
With what we learned, we came up with an idea called "Growing Groceries." The plan was to have food trucks filled with fresh produce drive to these food deserts. People could buy fresh food from these trucks. We also thought of making an app and a website. People could use them to see where the trucks are and what food they have. The app and website would also let people use Baltimore's SNAP and food stamp program to buy food.
We put everything - the map, what we learned from talking to people, and our "Growing Groceries" idea - into a simple proposal. We shared this proposal with stakeholders at the end of our course. They liked how we used a map to understand the problem and come up with a helpful solution. Our presentation showed them how our idea could make it easier for people in Baltimore to get fresh, affordable food.