Oakland Food Policy Council

The Reinvestment Fund, the Brookings Institute, and PolicyMap have created a geographic information system (GIS) mapping tool that is designed to guide the strategic work of policy makers at the local, state, and national level. The interactive mapping software allows one to examine low food access areas (LAA) and layer it against other demographic and economic data, such as educational attainment, age, median household income, and the presence of SNAP and WIC authorized retailers. The PolicyMap’s exhaustive database actually allows users to layer any of 10,000 variables, ranging from industry concentration in a given geographic area to federal housing nursing facilities to the location of public housing multi-family units. Health-related data such as infant birth and mortality rate, adult diabetes, and total share of uninsured residents can also be mapped with this tool.  This dynamic software also allows users to layer mortgage lending activity and other housing-related data.

The site enables users to examine a geographic area based on varying levels of specification, ranging from census tract (which is the most localized geographic distinction) to zip code to congressional district. Depending on one’s needs, data can also be broken down according to school or congressional district.

This tool is valuable for policy makers in its ability to paint a comprehensive portrait of a community in relation to level of access to grocery store retailers. It allows policy makers to better understand how issues of grocery store access work in tandem with other forms of disenfranchisement, and they can use this knowledge to strategically allocate resources and services to a disinvested community. In creating the maps, we begin to understand that addressing lack of access to grocery stores must be addressed alongside other issues that low-income communities face.

Using this tool, the Reinvestment Fund, PolicyMap, and the Brookings Institute aim to do the following:

• Understand the severity and location of food access problems within an area
• Design, evaluate or quantify the impact of lending programs to finance supermarket development,
• Understand the level of competition within a market place based upon the extent to which an area is dominated by one or two food purveyors as opposed to one in which there is competition among many

The maps produced are dynamic, comprehensive visual representation of the myriad obstacles low-income neighborhoods face in ‘getting to grocery’.