Neighborhood racial composition, income, and distance to grocery retailers in Seattle

Abstract

This article examines whether racial disparities exist in travel distances and travel times to grocery stores in Seattle, WA. In contrast to the findings of studies conducted in other metropolitan cities, Seattle, WA, has few food deserts. We find that disparities in travel distance and travel time to supermarkets vary with the percentage of specific racial and ethnic populations. Greater Asian populations in a census tract are associated with shorter travel distance to the grocery, low income, and low vehicle access. For the Hispanic population, a greater percentage in a census tract increases the predicted travel distances and travel times to grocery stores. Greater income in tracts with more Hispanic population is associated with a shorter distance, and those tracts with more Asian population are associated with a longer distance, possibly due to cultural differences in diet.

Description

© The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Northeastern Agricultural and Resource Economics Association. This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Keywords

Food Deserts, Poverty, Spatial Regression, Seattle, Q18, R39

Citation

Ware, B., Amin, M., Jessup, E., & McCluskey, J. (2021). Neighborhood racial composition, income, and distance to grocery retailers in Seattle. Agricultural and Resource Economics Review, 50(3), 512-532. doi:10.1017/age.2021.23

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