A Vanishing Food Infrastructure: The Closure of Food Outlets in Flint in a Pandemic Era

Author:

Bell Ashley1,Taylor Dorceta E.1

Affiliation:

1. Yale University, New Haven, CT, USA

Abstract

Most food access studies focus on large cities, examine traditional grocery stores, and only consider operational food outlets. This siloed approach exposes a gap in food access literature. Therefore, as a part of our assessment of Flint’s food landscape, we examined closed food outlets in the city and surrounding townships. We investigated the relationship between the racial composition of census tracts and the number and type of defunct food outlets identified. We used Data Axle to collect and verify data on open and closed food outlets between September 2020 and December 2021. We made a final verification of the food outlet closures in June 2022. We used ArcGIS 10.8.1 and SPSS Version 28 to map and analyze the data. We used negative binomial regression models to determine differences in the likelihood of having an additional closed food outlet in census tracts with low and high percentages of Black residents. We also investigated the relationship between a census tract’s median income and the likelihood of having an additional closed food outlet. There were 173 closed food outlets; 81 were in Flint, and 92 were in surrounding townships. The most frequently closed food outlets were restaurants; they accounted for 45.1% of the closures. The mean number of closed food venues in census tracts where less than 40% of the residents were Black was 1.5. The mean was similar in census tracts where 40% or more of the residents were Black; it was 1.6. This difference was not significant. However, the median income of a census tract was a significant predictor of the likelihood of having an additional closed food outlet. Every one-thousand-dollar increase in median income resulted in a 2% less likelihood of having an additional closed food outlet. The results of this study show that there is more to the food landscape of a city than its operational food outlets. Focusing exclusively on active food outlets does not accurately depict a city's food infrastructure.

Funder

JPB Foundation, the C. S. Mott Foundation, the National Philanthropy Trust

Publisher

SAGE Publications

Subject

General Social Sciences,Sociology and Political Science,Education,Cultural Studies,Social Psychology

Reference97 articles.

1. Acosta R. (2018, July 23). New Hamady grocery store in Flint set to open this week. MLive.com. https://www.mlive.com/news/flint/2018/07/new_hamady_grocery_store_in_fl.html

2. Agricultural Marketing Service. (2022). Aggregating, processing and distributing. Author https://www.ams.usda.gov/services/local-regional/food-sector/aggregating-and-distribution

3. Ahmad Z. (2019, March 26). Planned grocery store would address ‘food desert’ in Flint. MLive.com. https://www.mlive.com/news/flint/2019/03/planned-grocery-store-would-address-food-desert-in-flint.html

4. Impact of Competitor Store Closures on a Major Retailer

5. Inventory behaviour and market power

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