The Revolution Starts in the Garden

Atlantic City, New Jersey

By Johanna Vo
food injustice, gardens, vacant lots

Our mission is to work toward an equitable food system through self-sufficient resources and collaborative systems.

Scoping the Issue

New Jersey is the Garden State, but Atlantic City is often called a food desert. The food industry in the United States today is one of the major forces behind the disparities in the production and distribution of foods. Notice that Ventnor City has the closest supermarket to Atlantic City, called ACME, meanwhile Atlantic City has many small produce stores that lack options in fresh nutritious food. According to USDA, a distinct social stratification exists. Tract 1 with the lowest produce stores and nonexistent supermarket displayed in a family median income of 19,668 with the highest population of Blacks or African Americans in comparison to the tract of ACME on Tract 3, exhibits a median family income of 58,333 with the highest population of Whites (USDA ERS - Go to the Atlas, n.d.). Tract 2 is the middle in which has a family median income of 33,750 (location of my family’s house). As a result, the existing marketing scheme hinders many low-income communities from access to healthy food and markets.

Methodology

Data Collection- Search vacant property lots in Atlantic City Data Mapping- Imported data to created a map from UMap. Data Consolidation- Map layers imported to Carto for styling. Data Production: Glitch was utilized to develop a web mapping page that includes HTML, JS, and CSS coding.

Web mapping Page Result

The first map exhibits a few established gardens and an abundance of vacant land that goes unused in Atlantic City which has the potential to become an established garden. Most of these lands are considered “undesirable” land consisting of these traits: lacks desirable amenities, poor aesthetics, or lower property value. High-end health food stores such as Whole Foods are more likely to invest in higher-income neighborhoods. As a result, this land can be put to use to create greater benefits to society, and this can be done by improving access to healthy food which increases community food security.

It is clearly recognized that the disparity within these communities possesses an unhealthy diet. People and especially the youth in these areas are exposed to a greater risk of food insecurity that can lead to chronic physical and mental health problems. A society with food insecurity will face a greater likelihood of lessened workplace productivity and poorer school performance. So the second map is to utilize by providing a contact information list to connect and partner with local produce stores and public schools in the area. Garden organizers can build a network and create infrastructure for food production to control the means of food distribution. This will be a form of food justice where the investment in the community stimulates the local economy. It would be enriching for a lot of people’s lives if a larger percentage of the population was engaged in food production.

To continue implementing sustainable development solutions that address unjust structural inequalities, it is important for the community to be involved and share resources in order to sustain existing gardens and develop new, beautiful, and nurturing community gardens. Lastly, I hope this Resource space will be utilized to connect vacant lot landowners to garden organizers in order to collaboratively promote land access. A vacant lot owner can contribute by supporting garden organizers by leasing a plot. They will be able to share their information and gardener organizers are then able to reach out and directly contact them individually.