Heading west on North Avenue, a history of struggle unfolds. It is layered, but undeniable. In all cities, the difference between safety and struggle is relative, more complicated than the black and white, but the lines between neighborhoods in Milwaukee are bold, made bolder by its physical characteristics.
The East Side, home to students, working professionals, and well-to-do families lies between Lake and River and has never been touched by rapid, caustic development, but west, crossing the bridge over the Milwaukee River, the typical scene changes instantly. The river is a bold boundary, the bridges portals to a different life. Further along, the destruction done by the insertion of I-43 into residential neighborhoods lingers. On the map, the only indication of what once stood are the streets running east and west, dead ending in the hole that was once a string of lively neighborhoods. Heading west on North Avenue, the ripples of the closing of manufacturers nearly thirty years ago continue. In 1970, manufacturing accounted for nearly 36% of Milwaukee's job market, compared to today's 10%.¹ Those families and their communities still haven't recovered, many of them centralized in this area west of the River. This picture of North Avenue is shared by Locust and Capital, among other arteries crossing the city, but North Avenue leads to Washington Park and the southern portion of Sherman Park, the focus of this inquiry. Heading west, it can be noted that good food, too, becomes increasingly sparse. |
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RIGHT: USDA map of Milwaukee showing food deserts by their own definition in green. Washington Park and Sherman Park are labeled in blue.
Food Desert: "A low-income tract with at least 500 people, or 33 percent of the population, living more than 1 mile (urban areas) or more than 20 miles (rural areas) from the nearest supermarket, supercenter, or large grocery store." ² "The things that are offered as food sites aren't really food. It's a lot of processed fast food type things which are not very nutrient dense and lacking in nutrients even, and full of things that are unhealthy; carcinogenic things and fake dyes and pesticides. "They do have a freezer section with a little bit of produce. They might have lettuce and some tomatoes and some onions, but when I look at it, I wouldn't want to eat vegetables if I was a kid growing up in this neighborhood if that's what they looked like. " ³ REV. CHRISTIE MELBY-GIBBONS, TRICKLEBEE CAFÉ |
THE PROBLEM WITH MORE SUPERMARKETS
Much of the available food on North Avenue between Kilbourn Reservoir Park and 51st Street is sold by corner stores, whose primary sales go to tobacco. A large portion of the remaining establishments include fast food restaurants. There are groups in these neighborhoods petitioning for a new grocery store, but this solution is not holistic. Supermarkets are stakeholders in this, too. They rely on constant sales throughout the month and volume to turn enough profit to remain. According to the Food Marketing Institute⁵, supermarkets averaged less than 2% profit after taxes in 2015. In a recent study by economists across several universities, they reveal that the availability of food alone does not impact choices. "Opening new supermarkets has little impact on the eating habits of people in low-income neighborhoods: even when residents do buy groceries from the new supermarkets, they buy products of the same low nutritional value."⁶ Washington Park and Sherman Park are not food deserts according to the USDA, though it may be apparent when compared with more affluent neighborhoods that good food is hardly easy to come by. There is another issue lurking further in the shadows of the struggle for food in these neighborhoods; neighbors here have been deprived of quality, wholesome food for so long, that the knowledge typically passed between generations and between friends has been lost. This lost knowledge is that of proper nutrition, of planting and harvesting, of preparation and recipes for all the 'good' food that these areas need. Supermarkets can stock mountains of produce, but simply providing kale doesn't mean anyone will know how to cook with it, which means no one will buy it. The problem in Milwaukee's low income neighborhoods is not a singular one of food access, but food literacy. |
"There are multiple voices on the topic - it becomes a bit of a slippery slope when you go from trying to advocate for both a site and expanded food opportunities then to narrowing to where [a new grocery store] needs to be and who needs to operate it. "We certainly know that just having a grocery store is not going to solve the typical food desert issues, which start with geographic access to food and secondly an understanding and awareness of what to do with fresh produce, much less how to cook an egg." ⁴ DAVE BOUCHER, AMARANTH BAKERY |
NOTES
1 Marc V. Levine, "Perspectives on the Current State of the Milwaukee Economy," UWM Center for Economic Development, July 2013: 8.
https://www4.uwm.edu/ced/publications/perspectives.pdf
2 "Food Access Research Documentation," USDA, last modified December 05, 2017, https://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/food-access-research-atlas/documentation/.
3 Christie Melby-Gibbons, interview with author, March 20, 2018.
4 Dave Boucher, interview with author, March 21, 2018.
5 "Grocery Store Chains Net Profit," Food Marketing Institute, last modified October, 2017, https://www.fmi.org/our-research/supermarket-facts/grocery-store-chains-net-profit.
6 Hunt Allcott, Rebecca Diamond and Jean-Pierre Dub, "Geography of Poverty and Nutrition: Food Deserts and Food Choices Across the United States," New York University and NBER (September 2017): 4. https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/0fae/555466cb3a5a5301d160ce7e9bed0ae685fe.pdf
1 Marc V. Levine, "Perspectives on the Current State of the Milwaukee Economy," UWM Center for Economic Development, July 2013: 8.
https://www4.uwm.edu/ced/publications/perspectives.pdf
2 "Food Access Research Documentation," USDA, last modified December 05, 2017, https://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/food-access-research-atlas/documentation/.
3 Christie Melby-Gibbons, interview with author, March 20, 2018.
4 Dave Boucher, interview with author, March 21, 2018.
5 "Grocery Store Chains Net Profit," Food Marketing Institute, last modified October, 2017, https://www.fmi.org/our-research/supermarket-facts/grocery-store-chains-net-profit.
6 Hunt Allcott, Rebecca Diamond and Jean-Pierre Dub, "Geography of Poverty and Nutrition: Food Deserts and Food Choices Across the United States," New York University and NBER (September 2017): 4. https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/0fae/555466cb3a5a5301d160ce7e9bed0ae685fe.pdf