Quality of Life: Original One-Square Mile Mesa = A Food Desert Now

Not that this fact was not evident [note the use of a double-negative]. Visiting in a small town of about 1,000 people in southeastern Arizona with a low population-density and a lower-income population, there were not one but two food markets - one "supermarket" with nearly everything operated by third-generation local owners and one small-business enterprise with mostly organic/healthy foods that recently tripled its size.
The usual metrics that big box food franchisees use to make decisions for site-selection get thrown out the window there, so why not here? That was a question raised by none other than John Williams, the head of the San Francisco Federal Reserve Bank, during an all-day visit in the New Urban DTMesa last summer [see previous post on this site].
The red square you see in the above image covers the area from Broadway to University and from Country Club Drive to Mesa Drive, the boundaries of the original town plan.

Zero-ing on this startling and inconvenient fact is very visible and evident from food access research that was last updated  on March 11th of last year in an Atlas Index map from the United States Department of Agriculture.
More information connect to this link >> http://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/food-access-research-atlas/go-to-the-atlas.aspx

In the image to the left from the  Many Eyes website Maricopa County is doing well. The original One-Square Mile Mesa is an exception.
Thanks again to Open Data - one benefit of Peer-to-Peer Sharing in The Internet of Things [IoT] - we can see a number of things in The Food Access Research Atlas: the most where action can be taken is item #3 Data on food access that can be downloaded for COMMUNITY PLANNING . . . [and "research"] > that's all good, right?
But what about actually doing something??

Are we going to wait for action from City Hall or get the community engaged and mobilized?
Or is some smart entrepreneur making plans?
Whether or not the City of Mesa Office for Housing & Community Development is taking action on this quality of life issue remains to be seen.
Readers of this blog might want to look into if the mayor who's running in a re-election campaign has addressed this issue at all for Challenges and Opportunities in #SOTC2016.
Everybody in City Hall gives lip-service to improving the quality of life, but what have we heard about results instead of promises to do something or challenges that don't get taken on, or opportunities that don't happen?

Keep On Climbing!!

Your neighborhood affects not only the quality of your housing but also your access to affordable, healthy food.
In neighborhoods where many people choose not to drive or who don’t own cars, a trip to the grocery store three miles away might require two hours or more of traveling on public transit. It’s often easier just to pick up dinner for the family at a nearby "fast-food joint".
Fortunately - at least once a week - fresh produce is available downtown at the Friday Farmers Market. That's a positive.
A lot of people like to think health is all about personal choices; it’s not. It’s about the opportunities you have. If there are no grocery stores, how are you supposed to eat healthy?

The Food Research Atlas

• Presents a spatial overview of food access indicators for low-income and other census tracts using different measures of supermarket accessibility;
• Provides food access data for populations within census tracts; and
• Offers census-tract-level data on food access that can be downloaded for community planning or research purposes

http://www.ers.usda.gov/data/fooddesert