Lansing residents are starting to take note of, and are looking to change, the many city “food deserts” — large areas of a city that do not have direct access to healthy food choices.
According to excerpts from the article:
For Westside Lansing resident Marvin Harden, there are not any grocery stores in his neighborhood that offer a bounty of fresh produce, meats and dairy products.
“You have to drive out to Wal-Mart, or Meijer, or Kroger,” he said. “If you ain’t got no car, you got to (take the bus) and that’s about three or four hours.”
Harden's neighborhood is what experts would call a “food desert,” an area with little or no access to healthy food. These areas are often saturated with unhealthy fast foods outlets. Between Harden’s home near the corner of Capitol and Oakland avenues, and Mt. Hope Avenue — an area that contains most of Downtown Lansing and the Westside neighborhood — there isn’t one full service grocery store to be found.
Read the entire article here.
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