Growth isn’t everything, and vacant lots can be leveraged to deal with
food disparity and obesity, Baltimore is demonstrating.
Vanessa Barrington wrote for Grist 21 November 2011,
Baltimore’s can-do approach to food justice
…43 percent of the
residents in the city’s predominantly black neighborhoods had little
access to healthy foods, compared to 4 percent in predominantly white
neighborhoods. Meanwhile, more than two-thirds of the city’s adults and
almost 40 percent of high school students are overweight or obese.
That’s the problem.
There are solutions:
Speaking on a panel at the recent Community Food Security Coalition
Conference in Oakland, Calif., Abby Cocke, of Baltimore’s Office of
Sustainability, and Laura Fox, of the city health department’s Virtual
Supermarket Program, outlined two approaches to address the city’s food
deserts. Both were presenting programs that have launched since Grist
last reported on Baltimore’s efforts to address food justice. And both
programs come under the auspices of The Baltimore Food Policy Initiative,
a rare intergovernmental collaboration between the city’s Department of
Planning, Office of Sustainability, and Health Department. They also
show how an active, involved city government and a willingness to try
new ideas can change the urban food landscape for the better.According to Cocke, Baltimore’s Planning Department has a new mindset. She
calls it a “place-based” model. “In the past,” she says, “growth was seen
as the only way to improve the city, but we’re starting to look at ways
to make our neighborhoods stronger, healthier, and more vibrant places
at the low density that they’re at now.”
The article outlines the specific solutions,
such as:
