| A few key basic things to start with - I make a bit more now in my new job than I did in my old one earlier this year, although the difference is really negligible as I'm clearly in the same category of whatever economic class I'd be assigned to. I have enough to live, and enough to eat well. I have more than I otherwise would because I choose to live without a car, and fortunately my city has an excellent public transportation system that makes that possible. I even have enough for a few 'luxuries' here and there. Money comes and money goes, as it has my whole life. I don't have much, but I'm certainly not close to being destitute either. That being said...
My old borderline food desert
As recently as March of this year, I lived in a run-down neighborhood in outer Northeast Portland. Well within the city limits, but one that was 'developed' haphazardly and much more recently than the rest of the city. And hence, has been subject to the sprawl mentality inherent in much of the American landscape post World War II. The neighborhood still mostly kept to the grid system of the rest of the city, but the key was that it skipped more than a few streets here and there, and 'developers' looking for a foothold here in our city took advantage of the larger lots in that area and built an environment not to human scale - one not conducive to walkability or easy public access to commerce via transit, as is the case throughout most of the rest of the City of Portland. The only food choices in my old neighborhood were fast food restaurants (the typical West Coast strip of Carl Jr's, McDonald's, a couple of cheap taco stands sourcing their food from who-knows-where, an Applebee's, and etc...) and one corporate supermarket chain offering the usual 'variety' of mostly cheap processed crap.
I didn't personally partake in any of that crap; I ate the same (real food) then as I do now. But the difference is that when I was living back there in that neighborhood - food shopping was a major experience (and huge headache...) that required great planning, and sometimes half a day's worth of my time. I'd leave my apartment building and cross a 6-lane thoroughfare with no apparent enforced speed limit on foot, walk through a huge and hideous trash-strewn shopping center parking lot to the MAX Light Rail station hidden behind the aforementioned corporate grocery store, wait for a train that was always late in that area, ride it a mile or so out to NE 82nd (which is for all intents and purposes, the border of the 'real' Portland...), wait for the 72 Killingsworth bus which was also always late and apparently ran on a schedule completely independent of the 'official' TriMet schedule which we were provided, and then ride that out to my ultimate destination of either New Seasons Market at NE 33rd, or the Alberta Grocery Co-op a bit further down from there. Reading over that last sentence, I realize that as tough as it is to read - it doesn't even come close to making clear how annoying those trips were to have to make just to simply eat well (I didn't even get into the ride back home on a standing-room only bus in the reverse direction with 2 bags of groceries and a loaded backpack...), and also not to mention that there are millions and millions of people all over America who face infinitely more annoying (or simply impossible...) circumstances to access healthy food for themselves and their families.
Is it any wonder that most people in neighborhoods like this subsist on basically the only accessible diets in these places? That of Burger King, Cheese Doodles and Pepsi, etc...?
My new food paradise
Now to contrast that with my current situation here in my new apartment in an inner SE Portland neighborhood...
As I've mentioned above, my current income is roughly the same, my expenses are roughly the same, and rent on my new apartment is exactly the same as my old one. The difference here?
I'm now in the older urban core - a walkable mixed-use community designed and built on a human scale, teeming with locally-owned independent businesses and served infinitely better by public transit. Foot friendly, bike friendly - the street I now live along is one of Portland's bicycle boulevards, for that matter...
If I feel like it later this morning, I can roll out of bed and walk 100 feet from my front door to a local independent coffee shop and have a cup of locally-roasted fair / direct-trade Stumptown Coffee. Later on in the evening after I get back from work, I can stop by that same place and have a slice of their homemade artisan pizza. Or I can head two doors down from there and have a pint of a local microbrew and some really good locally-sourced 'pub grub' at the neighborhood bar, instead. On Sunday morning as usual, I'll walk 20 feet from my front door to my bus stop and catch a frequent service busline for the 18 minute direct ride out to a Sunday farmers market. On Monday, my other day off, I can walk 12 blocks to my current co-op, or another few blocks beyond there to another locally-owned grocery store that focuses on local and organic products. Or a few blocks in the other direction, and have lunch at Papa G's Organic Vegan Deli, or dozens of other restaurants serving real food, for just a tiny little bit more than one would spend back in my old neighborhood for a 'filling' (but of course disastrous in health terms) meal at McDonald's, which were the only 'walkable' types of places back there.
So what to do?
So who's to blame here, and what's the key indicator to a 'healthy' neighborhood? It certainly isn't the old fall-back of 'home ownership' in this case, as the percentage of residents who rent here in my new neighborhood is roughly twice that of my old one. Income levels are almost exactly the same here as well (just slightly higher on average in my old neighborhood, even...), and of course the same municipal laws and regulations apply here as they did back there in my old neighborhood. So why is my current place so much better to live in than my old area here in the same city?
I'm still looking for answers here myself, as are many others - but from what I know so far the answer certainly isn't confined to simple and easily defined matters such as income levels or those living on food assistance. It's got to do with the literal physical design and layout of the places that we live. I'm not one for simple catch slogans, but it seems pretty obvious to me from my own experiences that neighborhoods designed for cars will attract drive-in fast 'food' establishments, and walkable communities will offer food choices on a more healthy and sustainable human scale. |
