Human Centered Design of Biotechnology

Introduction

As I drive to work along Marquette Road on the south side of Chicago, I see the bright lights of corner store signs with their barred windows every few blocks. I see hand-painted ads covering windows advertising submarine sandwiches, chicken wings, gyros, nachos, and fried catfish. There is a Checkers and White Castle kitty-corner to each other at Halsted Street. J.J.'s Fish and Chicken and Harold's Chicken Shack are just down the street. Moreover, in a couple of miles along that same stretch, there is just one Food 4 Less grocery store. Less healthy and cheaper food options significantly outnumber the chain grocery store, and the neighborhood lacks fresh food options. While I enjoy my fix of a Checker's Cheese Champ and those famous seasoned fries, I cannot help but observe the disparity of healthy, affordable food choices in the area.

Chicago has long been home to food deserts, especially after the Great Recession of 2008. Food deserts are areas with a lack of access to healthy food options, perpetuating more significant health disparities for chronic diseases like diabetes, hypertension, heart disease. In a 2016 study, it was found that among populations living with the least access to fresh food, ten out of every thousand people died from cancer compared to less than seven for other neighborhoods. Eleven per every thousand residents died from cardiovascular disease compared to fewer than six for the rest of the communities.¹

Chicago, the third-largest city, is also one of the most racially and socioeconomically segregated cities in the U.S. A study was done in 2018 by University of Chicago researchers that analyzed the urban foodscape trends of Chicago. Their key findings showed: Although the number of supermarkets increased between 2007 and 2014 in Chicago, food desert trends persisted, and among racially segregated and disadvantaged residents, food access is poor and, in some areas, worsened after the Recession.² According to research, the food deserts of Chicago only affect neighborhoods below division street. When analyzing these neighborhoods, it is a population that is overwhelmingly African American: about 478,000 blacks, compared with some 78,000 whites and 57,000 Latinos. The study also measured that residents living in majority-African American blocks traveled the farthest to reach any grocery store with an average of 0.59 miles compared to 0.39 miles for residents of majority-white blocks, and they must travel twice as far to reach a grocery store than a restaurant.³

Historical redlining in Chicago plays a critical role in the current food desert trends. The Federal Housing Administration (F.H.A.) was created after the Great Depression to directly respond to the lack of homeownership and loans following the depression. The primary goal of the F.H.A. was to "improve the accuracy of its real-estate appraisal to enable its affiliate agency, the Home Owners' Loan Corporation (HOLC), to standardize their mortgage lending process, avoid undue risky lending, and bail out homeowners." The HOLC created maps based on race and assigned risk levels to different neighborhoods as part of their work. The perceived most desirable neighborhoods were predominantly European American and ranked the lowest risk for mortgage lending. HOLC marked these areas green on the map. Other European American neighborhoods inhabited by the "middle class" races made up of predominantly Jewish, Irish, and Italian Americans were designated as stable and upwardly mobile, representing lower risk. These map areas were marked blue. Working-class European American neighborhoods were marked as yellow and considered a slightly higher lending risk making the area less desirable. Lastly, African American and Mexican American neighborhoods were marked red, redlining, and deemed the highest risk. The practice of redlining segregated communities geographically and marginalized those communities by denying access to mortgage loans.⁴ 

Similar to residential redlining, supermarket redlining followed suit in the 20th century. Large chain supermarket retailers are less inclined to operate stores within low-income neighborhoods based on perceived urban challenges in supermarket redlining. These challenges include higher-cost urban resources, lower demand, lower profitability, and risk of theft and crime. Without prioritizing access to fresh and high-quality foods to address the growing public need and health concerns, cities like Chicago further the grocery gap, food insecurity, and as a result, create food deserts like my students' neighborhood.⁵

Most of my students fall into the trap of the food desert within which they live. The only food access they have within walking distance are two liquor stores offering little to no items of nutritional value. Who is to blame when they show up with backpack loads of hot chips and honey buns? Even worse, the COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated food insecurity in already low-access neighborhoods even more due to unemployment and affordability.

Many facets are underlying the food inequities of Chicago; however, one way to begin to battle the challenge is to invest in more community agricultural programs that can produce and deliver nutritious, reliable, and affordable foods to our disinvested neighborhoods. Establishing urban farming practices, like vertical farming, can promote reliable crop yields year-round, can ultimately benefit communities more than chain supermarkets, and bring access to healthy food options to neighborhoods in need.