From Industrial Gardens to Food Deserts

In Chapter 5 of industrial Garden to Food Desert by Nathan McClintock, he argues that food deserts are not accidental and are caused by systemic racism, demarcated devaluation, and redlining. McClintock states “Most have concluded that in the United States, food deserts disproportionately impact people of color.” this is true because it highlights the injustices people of color face in their communities. Demarcated devaluation is the action of isolating people in less desirable areas usually with people of color living there. This makes their houses and land less valuable and often poorly built. Grocery stores were too expensive for the people living in the food deserts, so they moved to the hills of Oakland and fast food restaurants and convenient stores with old poor quality produce and processed food was available. McClintock cites “There are four times as many fast food restaurants and convenience stores as grocery stores and produce vendors in the East Bay (Spiker, Sorrel green, and Williams 2007).” While white people and people living in the hills of Oakland blamed the obesity and health problem in the flatlands on the people living there not what they have access to and that the system had screwed them on purpose. A quote from this article where people are being interviewed about how they feel about the food in the valley, an individual says “ I wish we could have more fresh foods rather than junk food, candy, and soda that we’re all used to eating because that is the only thing around” (Ibid.). further proving that the crisis does not come from the flatlands it comes from the people devaluing their land and homes and isolating them as a form of racism and gatekeeping nutritious food and good living situations.