Chattanooga city planners study need for grocers

Chattanooga city planners say they anticipate conducting their own citywide study before the end of the year on the effect that a lack of grocery stores has on the health of a community.

“It affects overall quality of life,” said Yuen Lee, director of information and research with the Chattanooga Hamilton County Regional Planning Agency.

Ms. Lee was among dozens of people who filled the Development Resource Center conference room Thursday for the Chattanooga Food Desert Summit.

The planning agency and the Community Research Council hosted the event.

“Local government is starting to say maybe there is something we can do and should do about this,” said David Eichenthal, director of the Community Research Council.

A food desert is a neighborhood that lacks grocery stores and supermarkets, thereby limiting the availability of nutritious food for area residents, according to the research council.

People who have a generational history of living in food deserts disproportionately are affected by diabetes, obesity and cancer, said Mari Gallagher, president of Mari Gallagher Research and Consulting and a featured speaker at the summit.

John Talmage, president and CEO of Social Compact, a nonprofit organization that promotes successful business investment in lower-income communities, also spoke.

Ms. Gallagher’s research on the impact of food deserts on public health in Detroit and Chicago showed that in Chicago blacks on average travel farther than any other racial group, including whites, Hispanics and Asians, to reach the closest grocery stores. Those stores often are twice as far away as the closest fast-food restaurant, the research found.

Buehler’s Market is the only full-service grocery downtown, according to the Chattanooga Hamilton County Regional Planning Agency.

That store has annual sales of less than $2 million, but residents who live in the 5,200 housing units in downtown Chattanooga have a buying power of $11 million to $16 million, according to the planning agency.

Mr. Eichenthal said a citywide study would depend in part on local foundations giving money to support it.

Daniel Westcott with Earth Harmony Landscaping said his company is willing to put gardens in the backyards of low-income communities and show residents how to maintain them.

“Gardens help give food security,” Mr. Westcott said.

The Alton Park Piney Woods Environmental College helped Calvin Donaldson Elementary School purchase a greenhouse so its students could learn how to grow plants and vegetables, and Vanessa Mercer, executive director of Crabtree Farms, said more than 500 children have visited the farm in the past year to learn about planting and how things grow.

WHAT IS AN URBAN FOOD DESERT?

Food deserts are areas that lack traditional grocery stores and supermarkets, thereby limiting the availability of nutritious and affordable food for residents, according to the Community Research Council. Health officials have listed East Chattanooga, Highland Park, Alton Park, Orchard Knob, Avondale and East Lake among the food deserts in Chattanooga.