Seeds of (in)Security: Maps that Matter: From “Food Desert” to Food Apartheid

By Marc Andrew Tager

Introduction: The Longest Mile

The journey for a week’s worth of groceries begins for Maria long before she ever steps inside a store. It starts on a Tuesday morning on a sun-beaten sidewalk in South Los Angeles, a block from her apartment. To her left, a liquor store, its windows covered in faded beer posters. To her right, a fast-food joint with a line of cars already idling in the drive-thru. In the four blocks she walks to the bus stop, she will pass three more liquor stores, five fast-food restaurants, and a check-cashing place. What she will not pass is a single store that sells fresh, affordable produce.¹

After a 25-minute wait, the first of two buses arrives. She navigates the crowded aisle with her young son and a foldable cart, a practiced maneuver that is nonetheless draining. The trip will take nearly 90 minutes, a sprawling journey across the city’s concrete grid, to reach a full-service supermarket where she can use her CalFresh benefits to buy the vegetables, fruits, and lean proteins her family needs.³ This is her weekly pilgrimage, a multi-hour odyssey for the simple act of feeding her family.

For those of you who have followed my work on Justice Unshackled, you know I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about walls. I’ve come to understand that some of the most confining prisons have no bars.⁵ Maria’s journey is a map of one such prison. The lines that dictate her path—the bus routes that are infrequent, the grocery stores that are absent, the unhealthy options that are ever-present—are invisible walls. They were not built by nature; they were built by policy. Her limited choices are a form of incarceration, a sentence of poor health and stolen time handed down by a system that has drawn a map of exclusion around her neighborhood.

This is not a story about a lack of food. As I explored in my last post, California is a land of almost unimaginable agricultural plenty.⁶ This is a story about a lack of access. It’s about a system of control, engineered over decades, that determines who gets to eat fresh, healthy food and who does not. In this essay, we will not just look at these maps of inequality. We will interrogate their architects. We will examine the blueprints—the red ink of old housing policies, the fine print of modern zoning codes, the cold logic of corporate balance sheets—that built this geography of injustice. Because if these lines were drawn by policy, then they can be redrawn by policy.

Part I: A Problem of Language: Why We Must Say "Food Apartheid"

For years, the term used to describe neighborhoods like Maria’s was “food desert.” The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) defines it as a low-income area where a substantial number of residents have low access to a supermarket or large grocery store.⁷ The term is neat, clinical, and widely used. It is also dangerously misleading.

A desert is a natural ecosystem, a product of climate and geology. It is a landscape we can study but for which we can assign no blame.⁸ To call a community a “food desert” is to suggest its condition is a natural phenomenon, an unfortunate accident of geography. This framing is not just inaccurate; it is a political act. It subtly absolves policymakers, corporations, and planners of their responsibility for creating these conditions.¹⁰ It is, as farmer and food justice activist Karen Washington calls it, an “elitist, outsider term” that imposes a narrative of deficiency onto communities, seeing them as barren and empty rather than as places that have been systematically stripped of their resources.¹⁰

This is why we must use a different term, one that Washington herself coined in 2018: food apartheid.¹⁰

The word “apartheid” is intentionally charged. It directly references a system of state-sanctioned racial and economic segregation.⁸ It forces us to confront the human hands and historical decisions behind the map. Food apartheid looks at the whole food system. It doesn’t just see the absence of supermarkets; it sees the overabundance of fast-food chains and liquor stores—the so-called “food swamps”.¹¹ It connects the dots between a neighborhood’s lack of healthy food and the legacies of racism, discriminatory economic policies, and the power structures that decide where capital flows and where it doesn’t.¹³ It shifts the question from “Where are the grocery stores?” to “

Why are the grocery stores not here, and what is here instead?” The term demands that we look at the root causes, at the intentionality and design behind the inequity.⁸

This is more than a semantic debate. The language we use shapes the solutions we imagine. If the problem is a “desert,” the solution is simple: just add water. This leads to top-down, often-failed interventions like trying to lure a single big-box grocery store into a neighborhood without addressing the underlying economic realities that caused them to leave in the first place.¹⁴ But if the problem is “apartheid,” the solutions must be systemic. They must involve dismantling unjust policies, building community power and ownership, and pursuing racial and economic justice. Adopting the term “food apartheid” is the first, crucial step toward correctly diagnosing the illness. It is a policy act in itself, one that demands a more honest and radical vision for change.

Metric	"Food Desert"	"Food Apartheid"
Implied Cause	Natural phenomenon, geographic accident, market failure	Systemic, intentional, rooted in policy & structural racism
Focus	Lack of supermarkets, physical distance	The entire food system, including unhealthy options & power dynamics
Agency	Passive, absolves responsibility	Active, centers the actions of policymakers & corporations
Community Role	Seen as deficient, lacking, barren	Seen as resilient, but systematically disenfranchised
Implied Solution	Top-down (e.g., attract a chain supermarket)	Systemic & community-led (e.g., zoning reform, co-ops, food sovereignty)

Part II: How the Lines Were Drawn: A Cartography of Exclusion

The map of food apartheid in California was not drawn overnight. It was meticulously drafted over nearly a century, layer by compounding layer, through a series of deliberate policy choices and corporate strategies. To understand the landscape today, we must first become historical cartographers, tracing the lines of exclusion back to their source.

Layer 1: Redlining's Long Shadow

Our story begins in the 1930s with the federal government’s Home Owners' Loan Corporation (HOLC). In cities across the country, including Los Angeles, Oakland, and Fresno, the HOLC created “residential security maps” to guide investment and mortgage lending. On these maps, entire neighborhoods were color-coded based on their perceived risk. Affluent, white neighborhoods were colored green (“Best”) or blue (“Still Desirable”). Working-class white neighborhoods were yellow (“Definitely Declining”). And neighborhoods with Black, Latino, Asian, or immigrant populations were outlined in red and labeled “Hazardous”.¹⁷

This practice, now known as redlining, was state-sanctioned racism codified in ink. It systematically choked off access to federally insured mortgages, private investment, and insurance in communities of color.¹⁹ It wasn’t just about housing; it was about capital. Redlining ensured that wealth, in the form of homeownership and business loans, would accumulate in white communities while being actively denied to others. It cemented patterns of racial segregation and initiated a decades-long cycle of disinvestment that starved redlined neighborhoods of the resources needed to thrive.²¹ These old maps are the foundational layer of our current geography of inequality.

Layer 2: Supermarket Redlining & The Scorched-Earth Tactic

In the decades following World War II, as federal highway construction and subsidized mortgages fueled the exodus of white families to the suburbs, a second layer was drawn. Major supermarket chains, following their target demographic and the flow of capital, began a mass departure from the inner-city neighborhoods that had just been redlined.²³ This practice became known as “supermarket redlining”—the disinclination of large grocers to locate in or their decision to pull existing stores out of low-income, minority communities.¹⁷

But they didn’t just leave. In a stunningly cynical and anticompetitive move, many chains actively prevented anyone from taking their place. When selling their now-vacant urban properties, they imposed “scorched-earth” restrictive covenants into the deeds of sale. These legal clauses explicitly forbade any future owner from operating a grocery store at that location.²³ In some cases, they would simply shutter a store they owned and leave it vacant—a practice known as “going dark”—to block a competitor from moving in.²³ This was not just disinvestment; it was a deliberate strategy to create and perpetuate a food vacuum. It was a one-two punch: racial covenants and redlining trapped communities of color in specific neighborhoods, and then anticompetitive covenants ensured those same neighborhoods would be starved of healthy food retail.²³

Layer 3: The Zoning Maze and the Burden of Parking

The legacy of redlining is perpetuated today through the seemingly neutral language of municipal zoning codes. These local laws dictate how land can be used, and they often create powerful, invisible barriers to healthy food access.

One of the most significant barriers is the parking minimum. In cities across California, zoning codes have historically required new businesses to provide a minimum number of off-street parking spaces, typically calculated based on the building’s square footage.²⁸ For a food retailer like a grocery store, which has a high customer turnover rate, these requirements can be enormous—sometimes one space for every 200 square feet of floor area.²⁹ On a dense urban lot, dedicating that much valuable land to storing cars is often financially and logistically impossible.³⁰ This regulatory burden heavily favors the development of massive, car-dependent supermarkets on the suburban fringe and actively discourages the creation of smaller, walkable neighborhood grocery stores that could serve communities with lower rates of car ownership. Recent state-level reforms like Assembly Bill 2097, which prohibits cities from enforcing parking minimums on new developments near major public transit stops, are a critical step in reversing this trend, but they are still in their infancy.³²

At the same time, zoning laws have often made it easier to open the very businesses that contribute to poor health outcomes. In many low-income communities, zoning has historically prioritized or created fewer permitting hurdles for fast-food chains, liquor stores, and convenience stores, while making it more difficult to open businesses that sell fresh food.³⁵ The result is a built environment where unhealthy options are the path of least resistance, both for developers and for residents.

Layer 4: The Corporate Squeeze

Two modern corporate trends have laid the final, suffocating layer upon this map of exclusion, intensifying the conditions of food apartheid.

The first is relentless consolidation in the grocery industry. Mergers, like the proposed fusion of Kroger and Albertsons, create massive corporate behemoths that reduce market competition. This inevitably leads to store closures to eliminate overlap, and these closures disproportionately harm low-income, Black, and Latino communities that may have only had one or two options to begin with. Fewer competitors also means less pressure to keep prices low, squeezing already-tight family budgets.³⁷

The second is the dollar store invasion. Into the retail vacuum created by decades of disinvestment, dollar store chains have expanded at an explosive rate, particularly in rural and low-income communities.³⁹ Their business model is ruthlessly efficient: small footprints, low capital costs, minimal staffing, and a supply chain built around cheap, shelf-stable, highly processed foods.⁴¹ While they may seem to offer a solution by providing some food in areas with no other options, their proliferation often represents a net degradation of the food environment. Their competitive pricing and saturation strategy can drive the last remaining independent local grocers—who may have offered at least some fresh produce or meat—out of business, leaving residents with even fewer healthy choices than before.⁴²

These layers do not exist in isolation; they form a compounding architecture of exclusion. Historical redlining segregated and impoverished communities. Supermarket redlining then deliberately removed healthy food infrastructure and legally blocked its return. Onerous zoning codes made it structurally difficult for new, smaller grocers to fill the void. This created the perfect market conditions for the predatory business model of dollar stores to thrive, cementing the landscape of food apartheid we see today. This was not an accident. It was a design.

Part III: Life Inside the Lines: Three California Vignettes

Data and history show us how the map was drawn. But to understand its human cost, we must zoom in on the lives of people navigating this terrain every day. From the dense urban corridors of Los Angeles to the small farm towns of the Central Valley and the sovereign lands of California’s tribal nations, the geography of food apartheid manifests in distinct but equally challenging ways.

Vignette 1: South Los Angeles – An Urban Archipelago of Inaccess

The map of South Los Angeles tells a story of profound imbalance. It is a vast urban region, home to over a million people, yet it is served by only 60 full-service grocery stores.⁴⁵ This is not a food desert; it is a food swamp. The landscape is saturated with over 1,000 fast-food restaurants and a similar number of convenience and liquor stores.² A 2020 study of three South LA neighborhoods found that in the unhealthiest of the three, the ratio of unhealthy-to-healthy food sources was a staggering 19 to 0, and more than half of all retail stores sold no fresh fruits or vegetables whatsoever.¹ This is the direct, tangible legacy of redlining and discriminatory zoning.²² Even a well-intentioned 2008 city ordinance aimed at limiting new stand-alone fast-food outlets proved largely ineffective, as it did not apply to strip malls and failed to address the core issue of grocery store absence.⁴⁶

For residents, this abstract map translates into a daily struggle against time and distance. Car ownership rates in many South LA census tracts are significantly lower than the county average, with 11% of households having no vehicle at all.⁴⁸ This forces a heavy reliance on a public transit system ill-suited for the task of grocery shopping. As residents have testified, a trip to an affordable supermarket can become a multi-hour ordeal involving long waits, multiple bus transfers, and the physical challenge of managing children and heavy bags on crowded vehicles.³ This “time tax” forces an impossible choice: spend hours traveling for healthy food or settle for the expensive, low-quality options available at the corner store.⁵⁰ For the 30% of LA County households experiencing food insecurity—a rate that jumps to 38% for Black and Latino residents—this is a daily reality.⁵³

But in the face of this systemic failure, a counter-map of hope is being drawn by the community itself. The SoLA Food Co-op is a grassroots initiative to build a community-owned, full-service grocery store in South Los Angeles.⁵⁴ With over 720 community owners to date, the co-op is a direct challenge to the corporate disinvestment that created the crisis. It is an act of collective self-determination, an effort by residents to seize control of their own food landscape and build an institution that serves their needs, not the interests of a distant corporate board.⁵⁴

Vignette 2: The Central Valley – Hunger in the Harvest

Travel 200 miles north into the heart of California’s agricultural empire, and the paradox of food apartheid becomes even more stark. Consider a small town like Parlier, in Fresno County, surrounded by fields that produce a significant portion of the nation’s fruits and nuts. A map of Parlier’s food environment reveals a cruel irony. The town has no major supermarket chain like Vons or Save Mart.⁵⁶ Its retail landscape is instead defined by a Family Dollar, a Dollar General, a handful of fast-food restaurants, and one small independent grocery, State Foods Market.⁵⁹

This is the daily reality for the thousands of farmworkers who call Parlier home. In interviews, workers like Elsa and Marcelina describe the constant stress of trying to feed their families on poverty-level wages.⁶⁵ “What we earn in a day is not enough to do a big grocery shopping,” Elsa explains. They are forced to subsist on basics like beans, flour, and sugar, while the fresh vegetables they harvest are trucked away to distant cities.⁶⁵ Studies confirm their experience: in the Central Valley, well over a third of farmworker households are food insecure, a number that rises to a devastating 93% for indigenous migrant workers.⁶⁶ Their plight is compounded by geography and a lack of infrastructure. Public transit in these rural areas is sparse and infrequent, making the 20-mile trip to a full-service supermarket in Fresno a major logistical and financial hurdle, especially for those without a car.⁶⁷

Here, the counter-map must be mobile. Creative solutions like the Mobile Farmers Markets operating in Yolo and San Joaquin Counties offer a powerful model.⁶⁸ These are, in essence, grocery stores on wheels, trucks that bring fresh, affordable, and culturally relevant produce directly into farmworker communities and other underserved rural areas.⁷⁰ By accepting EBT and partnering with local health clinics to offer "produce prescriptions," these mobile markets overcome the barriers of distance and transportation, demonstrating an agile and responsive approach that meets people exactly where they are.⁶⁸

Vignette 3: Unseen California – Sovereignty and Jurisdictional Voids

Beyond the familiar urban and rural landscapes lie communities whose struggles with food access are often rendered invisible. On California’s tribal lands, the conversation shifts from “access” to sovereignty. The Yurok Reservation in Northern California, for example, was officially designated a food desert by the USDA, with many tribal members living over an hour’s drive from the nearest supermarket.⁷² For the Karuk Tribe, the health of the Klamath River is inseparable from the health of the people. The construction of dams decimated the salmon runs that have been the cornerstone of their diet and culture for millennia, leading to what tribal members describe as a form of cultural genocide and epidemic rates of diet-related disease.⁷³

The response from these sovereign nations is not to lobby for a Safeway, but to reclaim control over their own food systems. The Yurok Tribe is building a Food Sovereignty Program to purchase traditional foods directly from Yurok producers for distribution to tribal members.⁷² The Karuk Tribal Council has adopted a formal food policy that mandates all tribally-sponsored programs prioritize fresh, local, and culturally significant foods like salmon and acorns.⁷⁴ These food sovereignty projects represent a profound reframing of the solution, centered not on market-based access but on self-determination, ecological restoration, and cultural survival.⁷⁵

A different kind of invisibility plagues California’s unincorporated communities. Places like Patton, an unincorporated area in San Bernardino County, exist in a jurisdictional void.⁷⁷ Without a formal city government, they lack the political leverage to advocate for services, attract investment, or implement the kind of comprehensive planning that can foster a healthy food environment. They become afterthoughts, often overlooked for essential infrastructure like grocery stores while becoming magnets for less desirable land uses, leaving residents trapped in a cycle of neglect.⁷⁷

Across these diverse landscapes, a common thread emerges. The geography of food apartheid is inextricably linked to mobility and time. For the transit-dependent mother in South LA, the farmworker in Parlier, or the elder on tribal land, the lack of accessible, affordable, healthy food imposes a heavy tax—a tax paid in hours spent on buses, in wages lost to travel, and ultimately, in years of life lost to preventable, diet-related diseases. Any policy that aims to redraw this map must address not only where stores are located, but the time, cost, and dignity involved in reaching them.

Part IV: Redrawing the Map: A Policy Toolkit for Food Justice

The map of food apartheid was drawn by human hands, through decades of intentional and negligent policy choices. This means it can be redrawn. We do not lack solutions; we lack the political will to implement them. Moving from diagnosis to action requires a multi-pronged strategy that dismantles the old architecture of exclusion and invests in a new infrastructure of nourishment and community control. This is a toolkit for redrawing the map.

Zoning for Nourishment

The local zoning code is one of the most powerful, yet overlooked, tools for shaping a community’s food environment. We must transform these codes from barriers into pathways for healthy food.

• Eliminate Parking Minimums: The mandate that businesses provide a set number of parking spaces is a primary obstacle to opening small, neighborhood-serving grocery stores in dense urban areas.³⁰ Building on the progress of California’s AB 2097, which removes these minimums near transit, municipalities must go further and eliminate them for all food retailers, especially those with smaller footprints.³² This single change would dramatically lower the cost and increase the feasibility of opening a grocery store on a standard city lot.

• Allow Healthy Food "By-Right": The permitting process for a new business can be a costly and time-consuming maze. Cities should amend their zoning codes to allow small-format fresh food retail—including neighborhood grocers, produce stands, and mobile markets—"by-right" in a wider range of commercial and even residential zones. This means they would not require a lengthy and uncertain conditional use permit process, clearing a major bureaucratic hurdle.⁷⁸

• Use Anti-Concentration Ordinances: Just as it is important to encourage healthy options, it is vital to limit the over-saturation of unhealthy ones. Municipalities can use their zoning authority to cap the density of liquor stores and stand-alone fast-food outlets in communities that are already disproportionately burdened by them, a strategy that has been attempted in parts of Los Angeles County.⁸⁰

Investing in Access and Community Wealth

Zoning reform opens the door, but capital is needed to walk through it. Public and private investment must be strategically deployed to build a new, equitable food infrastructure.

• Expand Healthy Food Financing Initiatives (HFFI): Programs like the California FreshWorks Fund are a proven model. They use a blend of public and private funds to provide critical loans and grants for the development, renovation, and expansion of grocery stores and other healthy food enterprises in underserved communities.⁸² Between 2011 and 2016, FreshWorks deployed $60 million to projects across California, creating or retaining over 1,200 jobs and increasing healthy food access for 730,000 people.⁸³ These programs must be expanded and made a permanent part of the state’s economic development strategy.

• Fund Healthy Corner Store Conversions: Small corner stores are already embedded in the fabric of low-income communities. Instead of viewing them as part of the problem, we should invest in making them part of the solution. Programs like Los Angeles’s Healthy Markets LA provide store owners with technical assistance, business counseling, and funding for new equipment like energy-efficient refrigerators, empowering them to profitably stock and sell fresh produce.⁸⁴

• Prioritize Community Ownership: The most resilient solutions are those controlled by the community. Public investment should prioritize models like food co-ops and public markets that build local wealth and are accountable to residents, not shareholders. This ensures that profits circulate within the neighborhood rather than being extracted by outside corporations.

Connecting Communities with Transit

A grocery store is only accessible if people can get to it. Food policy must be integrated with transportation policy.

• Design Transit for Daily Needs: Public transit agencies must move beyond a singular focus on the 9-to-5 commuter. This means increasing bus frequency and extending service hours on routes that connect residential neighborhoods to full-service grocery stores, especially during evenings and on weekends when many working people do their shopping.⁸⁷

• Fund Flexible, On-Demand Mobility: In rural areas like the Central Valley or sprawling suburban communities with poor fixed-route service, on-demand microtransit can be a lifeline. Publicly funded pilot programs can provide shared, affordable rides that connect residents—particularly seniors and families—to grocery stores, farmers' markets, and food pantries.

• Integrate Food Access into All Transit Planning: Every new transit line, every bus route change, and every station plan must be evaluated through a “food access lens.” Planners should be required to ask: How does this project improve the ability of our most vulnerable residents to get healthy food? This simple shift in perspective can ensure that transportation investments are also investments in public health.⁸⁸

Policy Area	Specific Actions	Goal
Zoning Reform	Eliminate parking minimums for food retail; Allow small grocers "by-right"; Limit density of unhealthy outlets.	Lower barriers to entry for healthy food retailers and rebalance the food environment.
Financial Investment	Expand HFFI and FreshWorks Fund; Fund healthy corner store conversions; Provide seed funding for co-ops.	Provide capital to build a new, equitable food infrastructure and support community ownership.
Transportation	Increase bus frequency to grocers; Fund rural microtransit; Integrate food access into all transit planning.	Reduce the time and cost barriers for transit-dependent residents to access healthy food.
Antitrust & Regulation	Aggressively challenge anticompetitive mergers; Ban "scorched-earth" restrictive covenants on property sales.	Prevent corporate consolidation from further shrinking food options and remove illegal barriers to competition.

Conclusion: Geography Is Not Fate

Let us return, one last time, to Maria on that Tuesday morning in South Los Angeles. But let’s imagine a different future, one built on the policies we have just explored.

Her journey for groceries is no longer an odyssey. It is a 15-minute ride on a bus that comes every 10 minutes, taking her directly to the SoLA Food Co-op—a bright, welcoming store that she, along with hundreds of her neighbors, co-owns. Inside, her CalFresh card is accepted without stigma, and the aisles are filled with fresh produce from California farms. On her way home, she makes a quick stop at the corner market on her block. Last year, with support from a city program, the owner installed a new glass-front refrigerator. It’s now filled with fresh fruit, milk, and healthy snacks for her son. Her journey is no longer a map of exclusion, but one of access, dignity, and community control.

This is not a fantasy. This is the tangible result of deliberate policy choices. The stories of Maria, of the farmworkers in the Central Valley, and of the tribal members fighting for their food sovereignty prove that the map of food injustice is not an immutable fact of life. It was drawn, line by line, through decades of redlining, disinvestment, and discriminatory planning.

This is ultimately a story of agency. The forces that created food apartheid are powerful, but they are not invincible. Because the map was drawn by human hands, it can be redrawn by human hands. Geography is not fate. Policy drew these lines, and with courage, commitment, and community power, policy can redraw them for justice.

Works cited

1. The Food Environment in 3 Neighborhoods in South Los Angeles ..., accessed September 25, 2025, https://www.cdc.gov/pcd/issues/2020/20_0028.htm

2. Food Access, Availability, and Affordability in 3 Los Angeles Communities, Project CAFE, 2004-2006 - PMC, accessed September 25, 2025, https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2831781/

3. Transportation and Food Access Idea 1: Transit and Good Food ..., accessed September 25, 2025, https://la.streetsblog.org/2011/10/25/transportation-and-food-access-idea-1-transit-and-good-food

4. FOOD INSECURITY 101 - Los Angeles - L.A. Works, accessed September 25, 2025, https://www.laworks.com/food-insecurity-101

5. [20250925]_[Introduction].docx

6. [20250925]_[Seeds_of_(in)Security]_[California's_Food_Abundance_Paradox]

7. Food Deserts* - Food Empowerment Project, accessed September 25, 2025, https://foodispower.org/access-health/food-deserts/

8. 'Food desert' vs. 'food apartheid': Which term best describes disparities in food access?, accessed September 25, 2025, https://seas.umich.edu/news/food-desert-vs-food-apartheid-which-term-best-describes-disparities-food-access

9. Food Desert (Food Apartheid) | Beyond the Buzzwords, accessed September 25, 2025, https://www.beyond-buzzwords.com/food-desert-food-apartheid

10. Let's Stop Using the Term 'Food Desert' | The Bittman Project, accessed September 25, 2025, https://bittmanproject.com/lets-stop-using-the-word-food-desert/

11. What Is the Difference Between Food Apartheid and Food Deserts? - Stray Dog Institute, accessed September 25, 2025, https://straydoginstitute.org/food-apartheid/

12. Karen Washington - Wikipedia, accessed September 25, 2025, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karen_Washington

13. Food Apartheid Explained - Global Center for Climate Justice, accessed September 25, 2025, https://www.climatejusticecenter.org/newsletter/food-apartheid-explained

14. Food Apartheid | Project Regeneration, accessed September 25, 2025, https://regeneration.org/nexus/food-apartheid

15. pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov, accessed September 25, 2025, https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11253559/#:~:text=In%20contrast%20to%20the%20concept,Americans%20and%20other%20marginalized%20groups.

16. Karen Washington: It's Not a Food Desert, It's Food Apartheid - Guernica Magazine, accessed September 25, 2025, https://www.guernicamag.com/karen-washington-its-not-a-food-desert-its-food-apartheid/

17. Redlining's Legacy: Food Deserts, Insecurity, and Health – Morning Sign Out at UCI, accessed September 25, 2025, https://sites.uci.edu/morningsignout/2020/09/28/redlinings-legacy-food-deserts-insecurity-and-health/

18. Food Redlining: How Two Bay Area Communities Are Fighting Back Against a Legacy of Racist Policy - Sentient Media, accessed September 25, 2025, https://sentientmedia.org/food-redlining-how-two-bay-area-neighborhoods-are-fighting-back-against-a-legacy-of-racist-policy/

19. Part 1: The Line Begins Here: A History of Redlining in Southern California's Inland Empire, accessed September 25, 2025, https://blackvoicenews.com/2023/05/12/the-line-begins-here-a-history-of-redlining-in-southern-californias-inland-empire/

20. Redlining and Food Justice in America - Move For Hunger, accessed September 25, 2025, https://moveforhunger.org/blog/redlining-and-food-justice-america

21. Structural racism and geographic access to food retailers in the United States, accessed September 25, 2025, https://uconnruddcenter.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2909/2023/08/1-s2.0-S1353829223001260-main.pdf

22. Liquor Stores - Neighborhood Data for Social Change, accessed September 25, 2025, https://la.myneighborhooddata.org/2022/12/liquor-stores/

23. Food Deserts, Racism, and Antitrust Law — California Law Review, accessed September 25, 2025, https://www.californialawreview.org/print/food-deserts-racism-and-antitrust-law

24. Spatial Supermarket Redlining and Neighborhood Vulnerability: A Case Study of Hartford, Connecticut - PubMed Central, accessed September 25, 2025, https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4810442/

25. Supermarket Access in Low-Income Communities - Prevention Institute, accessed September 25, 2025, https://www.preventioninstitute.org/sites/default/files/publications/CHI_Supermarkets.pdf

26. Closing the Loop: Addressing Food Insecurity by Redistributing Supermarket Surplus, accessed September 25, 2025, https://criticaldebateshsgj.scholasticahq.com/article/130915-closing-the-loop-addressing-food-insecurity-by-redistributing-supermarket-surplus

27. How to Stop Stop & Shop's Anti-Competitive Land Acquisition Tactic, accessed September 25, 2025, https://yalelawandpolicy.org/inter_alia/how-stop-stop-shops-anti-competitive-land-acquisition-tactic

28. AB 1308 (Quirk-Silva) - Senate Housing Committee, accessed September 25, 2025, https://shou.senate.ca.gov/sites/shou.senate.ca.gov/files/26.%20AB%201308%20%28Quirk-Silva%29.pdf

29. Los Angeles Retail Parking Guide: Essential Facilities Operations Blueprint - myshyft.com, accessed September 25, 2025, https://www.myshyft.com/blog/parking-requirements-for-retail-stores-los-angeles-california/

30. Parking Regulations Limiting Business Opportunity - Texas Scorecard, accessed September 25, 2025, https://texasscorecard.com/local/parking-regulations-limiting-business-opportunity/

31. Parking lot designs at Costco/grocery stores etc - why isn't this design more prevalent? : r/urbandesign - Reddit, accessed September 25, 2025, https://www.reddit.com/r/urbandesign/comments/1aiwikz/parking_lot_designs_at_costcogrocery_stores_etc/

32. California Assembly Bill 2097: Eliminating Parking Minimums for ..., accessed September 25, 2025, https://calawyers.org/real-property-law/california-assembly-bill-2097-eliminating-parking-minimums-for-new-developments-near-major-transit-stops/

33. Eliminating Municipal Parking Requirements Does Not Equate To Zero-Parking Homes - Streetsblog Los Angeles, accessed September 25, 2025, https://la.streetsblog.org/2025/06/12/eliminating-municipal-parking-requirements-does-not-equate-to-zero-parking-homes

34. California law abolishes parking minimums for new developments close to public transit, accessed September 25, 2025, https://www.capradio.org/articles/2022/10/12/california-law-abolishes-parking-minimums-for-new-developments-close-to-public-transit/

35. Los Angeles Zoning Laws: A Future for a More Sustainable and ..., accessed September 25, 2025, https://yipinstitute.org/article/los-angeles-zoning-laws-a-future-for-a-more-sustainable-and-equitable-la

36. Inglewood's Food Desert Crisis: Challenges and Community Responses, accessed September 25, 2025, https://bruinpoliticalreview.org/articles?post-slug=inglewood-s-food-desert-crisis-challenges-and-community-responses

37. Merging grocery giants threaten Americans' food security | Center for Science in the Public Interest, accessed September 25, 2025, https://www.cspi.org/cspi-news/merging-grocery-giants-threaten-americans-food-security

38. Reforming America's Food Retail Markets - Yale School of Management, accessed September 25, 2025, https://som.yale.edu/sites/default/files/2023-05/grocery-compendium_may2023.pdf

39. Dollar Stores Are Growing as Food Retailers in the U.S. | School of Medicine, accessed September 25, 2025, https://medicine.tufts.edu/news-events/news/dollar-stores-are-growing-food-retailers-us

40. Dollar Stores and Food Access for Rural Households in the United States, 2008‒2020 - PubMed, accessed September 25, 2025, https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36657091/

41. The Impact of Dollar Stores in Low-Income Communities - 4sgm Blog, accessed September 25, 2025, https://blog.4sgm.com/the-impact-of-dollar-stores-in-low-income-communities/

42. How Dollar Stores Contribute to Food Deserts - UCLA Anderson Review, accessed September 25, 2025, https://anderson-review.ucla.edu/how-dollar-stores-contribute-to-food-deserts/

43. The Paradox of Economic Insecurity Caused by Dollar Stores, accessed September 25, 2025, https://sites.lsa.umich.edu/mje/2020/11/18/the-paradox-of-economic-insecurity-caused-by-dollar-stores/

44. The Dollar Store Invasion: - Institute for Local Self-Reliance, accessed September 25, 2025, https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/ILSR-Report-The-Dollar-Store-Invasion-2023.pdf

45. Food Apartheid: What is it and how do we end it? with Olympia Auset - Imperfect Blog, accessed September 25, 2025, https://blog.imperfectfoods.com/food-apartheid-what-is-it-and-how-do-we-end-it-with-olympia-auset/

46. Study: Zoning Law Limiting Fast-Food Outlets Did Not Cut Obesity Rate In South LA, accessed September 25, 2025, https://www.cbsnews.com/losangeles/news/study-zoning-law-limiting-fast-food-outlets-did-not-cut-obesity-rate-in-south-la/

47. Diet and Obesity in Los Angeles County 2007–2012: Is there a measurable effect of the 2008 “Fast-Food Ban”? - PMC, accessed September 25, 2025, https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4410074/

48. Socioeconomic Differences in Household Automobile Ownership Rates: Implications for Evacuation Policy - Alan Berube - eScholarship, accessed September 25, 2025, https://escholarship.org/content/qt7bp4n2f6/qt7bp4n2f6_noSplash_13c9ccc8e77217c6697be54dd4262c11.pdf

49. Vehicle Ownership - Neighborhood Data for Social Change, accessed September 25, 2025, https://la.myneighborhooddata.org/2021/06/vehicle-ownership/

50. Food Insecurity - UCLA Center for Health Policy Research, accessed September 25, 2025, https://healthpolicy.ucla.edu/our-work/food-insecurity

51. Student Stories - UC Basic Needs, accessed September 25, 2025, https://basicneeds.ucop.edu/about/student-stories.html

52. 'It's Not a Food Desert, It's Food Apartheid,' Wolff Says, accessed September 25, 2025, https://luskin.ucla.edu/its-not-a-food-desert-its-food-apartheid-wolff-says

53. Food Insecurity in Los Angeles County, July 2023 - USC Dornsife Public Exchange, accessed September 25, 2025, https://publicexchange.usc.edu/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/FoodInsecurityinLACounty_ResearchBrief_July2023_Final.pdf

54. About Us — SoLA Food Co-op, accessed September 25, 2025, https://www.solafoodcoop.com/about

55. South Los Angeles Food Coop | SoLA, accessed September 25, 2025, https://www.solafoodcoop.com/

56. Save Mart | Lower Prices Your Family Can Count On, accessed September 25, 2025, https://savemart.com/

57. Grocery Stores near Parlier, CA - TruckMap, accessed September 25, 2025, https://truckmap.com/places/parlier-ca-usa/grocery-store

58. Grocery Stores in Fresno, California - Foods Co., accessed September 25, 2025, https://www.foodsco.net/stores/grocery/ca/fresno

59. Locations | State Foods Supermarket, accessed September 25, 2025, https://www.statefoods.net/locations/

60. www.dollargeneral.com, accessed September 25, 2025, https://www.dollargeneral.com/store-directory/ca/parlier#:~:text=Dollar%20General%20locations%20in%20CA&text=There's%20only%20one%20store%20in,at%2013680%20E%20Manning%20Ave.

61. Family Dollar Store in Parlier, CA, accessed September 25, 2025, https://locations.familydollar.com/ca/parlier/885-e-manning-avenue-suite-2

62. Stores in California, Parlier | Dollar General, accessed September 25, 2025, https://www.dollargeneral.com/store-directory/ca/parlier

63. Fast Food Near Me in Parlier, CA - 801 E Manning Ave | Taco Bell®, accessed September 25, 2025, https://locations.tacobell.com/ca/parlier/801-e-manning-ave/fast-food.html

64. Sandwiches, Salads, Wraps & More | SUBWAY at 885 E Manning Ave Parlier CA, accessed September 25, 2025, https://restaurants.subway.com/united-states/ca/parlier/885-e-manning-ave

65. Food Insecure Farmworkers Rely on Food Banks to Feed Their Families, accessed September 25, 2025, https://centerforhealthjournalism.org/our-work/reporting/food-insecure-farmworkers-rely-food-banks-feed-their-families

66. Food security in the Central Valley, California - Wikipedia, accessed September 25, 2025, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_security_in_the_Central_Valley,_California

67. 'There's a big need.' How a lack of public transit impacts people in rural Fresno County, accessed September 25, 2025, https://centerforhealthjournalism.org/our-work/reporting/theres-big-need-how-lack-public-transit-impacts-people-rural-fresno-county

68. Mobile Farmers Market - Center for Land Based Learning, accessed September 25, 2025, https://www.landbasedlearning.org/followthetomato/

69. Mobile Farmers Market - Stockton - Emergency Food Bank, accessed September 25, 2025, https://www.stocktonfoodbank.org/Nutrition-Education/Mobile-Farmers-Market

70. Mobile Fresh - Second Harvest of the Greater Valley, accessed September 25, 2025, https://localfoodbank.org/mobile-fresh/

71. California Mobile Farmers' Market Coalition - Fresh Approach, accessed September 25, 2025, https://www.freshapproach.org/california-mobile-farmers-market-coalition/

72. Yurok Tribe | Agricultural Marketing Service, accessed September 25, 2025, https://www.ams.usda.gov/selling-food-to-usda/lfpacap/exec-summaries/yurok-tribe

73. The Effects of Altered Diet on the Health of the Karuk People, accessed September 25, 2025, https://www.waterboards.ca.gov/waterrights/water_issues/programs/bay_delta/california_waterfix/exhibits/docs/PCFFA&IGFR/part2/pcffa_195.pdf

74. KARUK TRIBE FOOD POLICY, accessed September 25, 2025, https://nctcc.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Karuk_Food_Policy.pdf

75. Community Food Sovereignty - The Conservation Fund, accessed September 25, 2025, https://www.conservationfund.org/our-impact/projects/community-food-sovereignty/

76. Food Sovereignty and Local Control of Food Systems | First Nations Development Institute, accessed September 25, 2025, https://www.firstnations.org/projects/food-sovereignty-and-local-control-of-food-systems/

77. In the Inland Empire, low incomes and food deserts create an ongoing health crisis, accessed September 25, 2025, https://centerforhealthjournalism.org/our-work/insights/inland-empire-low-incomes-and-food-deserts-create-ongoing-health-crisis

78. Oakland Clears the Path for New Urban Agriculture | SPUR, accessed September 25, 2025, https://www.spur.org/news/2014-12-07/oakland-clears-path-new-urban-agriculture

79. 4 Zoning Changes That Boost Local Food Security - American Planning Association, accessed September 25, 2025, https://www.planning.org/planning/2021/summer/4-zoning-changes-that-boost-local-food-security/

80. Los Angeles County Department of Regional Planning, accessed September 25, 2025, http://file.lacounty.gov/SDSInter/bos/supdocs/113419.pdf

81. CONTACT OPERATING REGULATIONS DEEMED- APPROVED PERFORMANCE STANDARDS - LA County Planning, accessed September 25, 2025, https://planning.lacounty.gov/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/saafe_summary-brochure_English.pdf

82. California | PolicyLink, accessed September 25, 2025, https://www.policylink.org/policy-efforts-and-impacts/state-and-local/california

83. Financing for Healthy Foods - Capital Impact Partners, accessed September 25, 2025, https://www.capitalimpact.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/Capital_Impact_Healthy_Food_Financing_Initiative_Overview.pdf

84. Healthy Retail - Food Access LA, accessed September 25, 2025, https://foodaccessla.org/healthy-retail

85. Healthy Market LA | LAFPC, accessed September 25, 2025, https://www.goodfoodla.org/hmla

86. The Healthy Refrigeration Grant Program - Office of Farm to Fork - CA.gov, accessed September 25, 2025, https://cafarmtofork.cdfa.ca.gov/farm_to_fork/grants/healthy_refrigeration.html

87. The State of Transit Equity: Metro Los Angeles, accessed September 25, 2025, https://transitcenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/LAFactSheet.pdf

88. Public Transit Access to Full-Service Grocery Stores Will Help Address Country's Obesity Crisis - Trust for America's Health, accessed September 25, 2025, https://www.tfah.org/story/public-transit-access-full-service-grocery/