The Oakhurst food desert (updated)

Oakhurst does not fit any colloquial or technical definition of “food desert” — “L.T.”, August 4, 2012

L.T.  is a 30-something software professional who describes himself as an “amateur economist” in his Twitter profile. He wrote several comments on this blog reacting to a June 2012 post on Oakhurst’s food desert. He strongly objected to my description of his neighborhood as a “food desert.”[1]

After several comments on the blog and private emails, L.T. admitted, “I had never heard of a food desert before you posted about it. I’m just a guy who can read and do math.”[2] This post responds to L.T.’s assertion that Oakhurst’s hip bars and eateries and an overpriced boutique market preclude his neighborhood from being described as a “food desert.”

Continue reading

When the pub shed is a food desert (updated)

Decatur, Georgia, recently got lots of attention when placemaking PR man Scott Doyon blogged about his neighborhood’s pub sheds in “Pub Shed: Mapping your five minute stumbling distance.” Doyon’s post went viral among new urbanists.

The Decatur, Georgia, pub shed.” Adapted from Placeshaker’s larger map at http://placeshakers.wordpress.com/2012/05/03/pub-shed-measure-of-the-five-minute-stumble/

Missing from Doyon’s post, however, is that some of his Decatur “pub sheds,” notably the ones in Doyon’s own Oakhurst neighborhood, happen to be co-terminous with food deserts.

Continue reading