Mack, Elizabeth A. and Tong, Daoqin and Credit, Kevin (2017) Gardening in the desert: a spatial optimization approach to locating gardens in rapidly expanding urban environments. International Journal of Health Geographics, 16 (37). ISSN 1476-072X

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Abstract

Background: Food access is a global issue, and for this reason, a wealth of studies are dedicated to understanding the location of food deserts and the benefits of urban gardens. However, few studies have linked these two strands of research together to analyze whether urban gardening activity may be a step forward in addressing issues of access for food desert residents. Methods: The Phoenix, Arizona metropolitan area is used as a case to demonstrate the utility of spatial optimization models for siting urban gardens near food deserts and on vacant land. The locations of urban gardens are derived from a list obtained from the Maricopa County Cooperative Extension office at the University of Arizona which were geo located and aggregated to Census tracts. Census tracts were then assigned to one of three categories: tracts that contain a garden, tracts that are immediately adjacent to a tract with a garden, and all other non-garden/non-adjacent census tracts. Analysis of variance is first used to ascertain whether there are statistical differences in the demographic, socio-economic, and land use profiles of these three categories of tracts. A maximal covering spatial optimization model is then used to identify potential locations for future gardening activities. A constraint of these models is that gardens be located on vacant land, which is a growing problem in rapidly urbanizing environments worldwide. Results: The spatial analysis of garden locations reveals that they are centrally located in tracts with good food access. Thus, the current distribution of gardens does not provide an alternative food source to occupants of food deserts. The maximal covering spatial optimization model reveals that gardens could be sited in alternative locations to better serve food desert residents. In fact, 53 gardens may be located to cover 96.4% of all food deserts. This is an improvement over the current distribution of gardens where 68 active garden sites provide coverage to a scant 8.4% of food desert residents. Conclusion: People in rapidly urbanizing environments around the globe suffer from poor food access. Rapid rates of urbanization also present an unused vacant land problem in cities around the globe. This paper highlights how spatial optimization models can be used to improve healthy food access for food desert residents, which is a critical first step in ameliorating the health problems associated with lack of healthy food access including heart disease and obesity.

Item Type:	Article
Additional Information:	© The Author(s) 2017. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/ publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated. Cite as: Mack, E.A., Tong, D. & Credit, K. Gardening in the desert: a spatial optimization approach to locating gardens in rapidly expanding urban environments. Int J Health Geogr 16, 37 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12942-017-0110-z
Keywords:	Community gardens; Vacant land; Spatial optimization; Food access; Food deserts; Urbanization; Urban agriculture;
Academic Unit:	Faculty of Science and Engineering > Research Institutes > National Centre for Geocomputation, NCG Faculty of Social Sciences > Geography Faculty of Social Sciences > Research Institutes > Maynooth University Social Sciences Institute, MUSSI
Item ID:	14611
Identification Number:	https://doi.org/10.1186/s12942-017-0110-z
Depositing User:	Kevin Credit
Date Deposited:	20 Jul 2021 14:35
Journal or Publication Title:	International Journal of Health Geographics
Publisher:	BioMed Central
Refereed:	Yes
URI:	Publisher
Use Licence:	This item is available under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial Share Alike Licence (CC BY-NC-SA). Details of this licence are available here

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