Food Equity in Detroit's Brightmoor Neighborhood

Meghin Mather, a data analyst intern at D3 in the fall of 2015, investigated two measures of food equity, food accessibility and food affordability, in the low-income Brightmoor neighborhood of Detroit. Food affordability, the ability of households to afford to buy fresh and nutritious food, was defined at the block group level using percentage of households receiving Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits. For the definition of food accessibility the author adopted the USDA Economic Research Services’ definition of low access in urban areas: any area where one third or more of households do not have access to a vehicle and are located more than half a mile from a nutritious food source. Two census block group level maps illustrate the state of food affordability and accessibility in Brightmoor.