Zoning, Hunger & Food Swamps: How Urban Planning Affects Health
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If you grew up in the nineties or early 2000s, you may remember the popular video games that let players design their own houses, theme parks, zoos or cities. For a few years, we were all acutely aware of the importance of proper planning to create the best space for people to socialize, eat and live.
In real life, it’s city planners that decide how to best use an area’s land and resources. While planning and zoning decisions have traditionally been made based on economic, political or social goals, an increased public focus on wellness & disease prevention has prompted some planners to consider health goals as well. Local governments and public health departments now often come together to combine their knowledge and power to achieve common, health-related goals for their communities.
Coordinated revision of land use planning and zoning regulations is one of the ways city halls and health departments have joined forces to improve community health. In particular, many cities are battling urban sprawl and experimenting with different solutions for issues like poor walkability, too few grocery stores (food deserts), too much fast food (food swamps) and poor access to reliable transportation.
Here we’ll discuss why living environment matters and how conscientious zoning improves community health.
How Environment Affects Health
Health and living environment are inextricably linked. Lately we’ve been hearing a lot about how COVID-19 disproportionately affects low-income neighborhoods and communities of color, but unfortunately, it’s nothing new for these populations to experience worse health outcomes [FN1].
In fact, many public health experts spend their entire careers studying how people’s surroundings affect their health and looking for interventions that lessen inequality. Over the years, they have identified the most impactful social factors and grouped them into five categories: neighborhood (both natural & built environment), level of education, economic stability, social & cultural norms and access to adequate healthcare services [FN2]. Together, these social determinants of health (SDOH) work to either promote or hinder wellbeing.
It takes generations to see progress with some of the SDOH, but “built environment” – the manmade elements of a neighborhood like parks, housing and grocery stores – can be modified relatively quickly. This is the factor that city planners and public health departments have been collaborating to improve through more mindful zoning and land use planning policies.
Health-Conscious Zoning in Practice
Local governments are tasked with developing the general plans, which include both land use planning and zoning elements. These plans dictate which types of businesses can operate where, as well as how land can be used and what paperwork owners need to complete before breaking ground.
They can cultivate healthier communities by incorporating health goals into their general plan, and then using these goals to justify later changes to zoning and land use directives [FN1]. In fact, leaders across the country are already experimenting with modified zoning ordinances to attract more healthy food options, dissuade fast food restaurants & liquor stores, and encourage more green space.
Encourage Supermarket Development
According to a study of more than 150 American cities and towns, zoning in lower-income communities is significantly less likely to permit supermarkets or grocery stores [FN3]. This difference in regulation makes it unduly burdensome and time-consuming for supermarkets to enter low-income neighborhoods [FN1]. As a result, store owners choose to build in the suburbs or higher-income communities instead, which leads to a problematic expansion of urban food deserts.
Thankfully, local government can help. For example, in New York City the Food Retail Expansion to Support Health (FRESH) program offers grocers financial and zoning incentives to build and maintain markets in underserved areas. The FRESH program provides tax breaks, waives parking requirements and allows grocers to build in light industry (M1) districts [FN4].
Allow Farmers Markets & Urban Farming
When it comes to addressing unequal access to nutrient-dense food, many dietitians recommend setting -up farmers markets or urban gardens in struggling food deserts. However, land use and zoning regulations make this easier said than done.
When compared to lower-income communities, higher-income communities are more than twice as likely to allow farmers markets and almost three times as likely to tolerate urban agriculture [FN3]. Given the cost-effective and beneficial nature of these simple, community-building interventions, zoning regulations that block outdoor markets and urban agriculture only hurt underserved neighborhoods.
In response, many major cities have updated their land use plans to enable pop-up produce vendors and permit more urban agriculture. For example: San Francisco now permits farmers’ markets in city parks, Denver authorized urban farming in all zoning districts, and Seattle now allows both cultivation and sale of fresh produce inside city limits with few restrictions [FN1].
Ban Fast Food Restaurants
Another common strategy for local governments interested in using zoning to improve public health has been to limit or prohibit fast food and/or drive-thru restaurants in certain neighborhoods. Given our country’s ever-worsening obesity epidemic and the high fat, salt and calorie content of fast food, this seems like a logical move. However, past bans have produced mixed results and plenty of criticism [FN5].
Concord, Massachusetts popularized the trend by banning all fast food and drive-thru restaurants in 1981, but Los Angeles rose to fame with its more recent ban. In 2008, LA banned the construction or refurbishment of fast food/drive-thru restaurants in South LA for one year. Then, in 2011 they put a halt to all new fast food restaurants in low-income neighborhoods throughout Los Angeles [FN1]. City officials justified this move saying it would improve the health of its residents and reduce obesity-related disease. However, a follow-up study published in 2015 revealed that rates of obesity continued to climb even after the moratorium went into effect and, even more surprisingly, South LA residents’ fast food consumption remained steady [FN6]. As a result, some experts are skeptical of fast food bans’ ability to meaningfully improve community health.
On the other hand: in communities where drive-thru bans are proposed to improve walkability, reduce automobile traffic/greenhouse emissions or promote local character (not just reduce fast food consumption), revised zoning restrictions may still benefit community health and wellbeing.
So, while updated zoning may help mitigate some neighborhoods’ persistent barriers to health, each community must decide for itself whether land use planning or another strategy is the best way to optimize the overall health and wellbeing of its members.
References
1. https://ir.lawnet.fordham.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2678&context=ulj
2. https://www.healthypeople.gov/2020/topics-objectives/topic/social-determinants-of-health
3. http://www.bridgingthegapresearch.org/_asset/n5qtpc/btg_food_zoning_final-0612.pdf
4. http://www.nyc.gov/html/misc/pdf/fresh_fact_sheet_eng.pdf
6. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0277953615001409?via%3Dihub