This project aims at dismantling the concept of a food desert and attempts to more holistically represent the food apartheid system to understand the accessibility of food and cooking across New York City. Although accessibility entails more than physical proximity to food retail, understanding where food is sold and where it is not is a good first step.

Figure 1. NYC Grocery Heatmap. Weighted by square footage
Data Source: New York State Department of Agriculture & Markets (2024)

The heatmap above highlights areas in New York City with higher concentrations of grocery stores, weighted by their square footage, with brighter spots indicating numerous larger and more spacious stores. From this visual depiction localities such as Staten Island, the Rockaways, South Bronx, the majority of Queens, East New York, and South Brooklyn emerge as areas in which grocery availability appears to be limited. From this map alone, however, it is impossible to tell if these areas of grocery retail deficit reflect grocery redlining and food apartheid or instead industrial areas, suburbs with lower population density, airports, large parks, or higher percentage of personal vehicle use.

Through systems of displacement, gentrification and violence cooking and feeding oneself or one’s family often becomes an inaccessible and impossible burden. One of the larger city approaches to combat food insecurity and availability is the FRESH NYC program, which offers discretionary tax and zoning incentives for grocery stores and other food retailers to open locations in designated neighborhoods. While this approach may address supermarket redlining – just because food is sold in your neighborhood does not necessarily make it accessible to you.

There are infinite other variables that affect one’s ability to procure and prepare food for oneself and one’s family reflect the deeper issue of food apartheid which refers to the structural conditions that normalize inequities in food access rooted in historical violence and injustices. This project attempts to understand how these variables relate to one another and how they can be combined to begin to spatially understand food insecurity and inaccessibility, and what systems may be perpetuating it. Simultaneously the series of maps that follow attempts to identify localities within New York where mutual aid and prefiguration could inform the design of new public infrastructure that make food procurement practices more accessible and communal.

The map below displays proximity to grocery retailers. Grocery store location data was retrieved from the New York State department of Agriculture and Markets and was filtered to exclude delis, bodegas and mini marts, liquor stores and smoke shops, pharmacies, as well as other retailers that were not full service grocery stores. The grocery store locations were then filtered again to remove stores under 6,000 square feet.

Figure 2. NYC Grocery Retail Proximity.
Data Source: New York State Department of Agriculture & Markets (2024) & 2022 American Community Survey: 5-Year Data

This map alone cannot describe food accessibility in New York City but begins to paint a picture of the impacts of supermarket redlining and inequitable uneven development.

The cumulative work of this project results in a Food & Cooking Accessibility and Security index. The index is broken down into three accessibility categories – spatial, financial, and cooking. The accessibility categories can be viewed simultaneously in the complete index (0-1) or individually as an attempt to understand what systems and structural conditions may be contributing to inaccessible food and cooking in a specific locality.

Figure 3. Index variables and data sources.
All variables are clipped to tracts with populations of over 50 individuals.

The spatial accessibility index evaluates key spatial factors that influence food procurement accessibility. Scaled from 0 to 1, values closer to 1 indicate lower spatial accessibility to food and grocery retail. The index incorporates three variables: grocery retail proximity, grocery retail square footage per capita, and vehicle access. Unlike Figure 2, which solely visualizes grocery retail proximity, this index provides a more nuanced understanding by accounting for population size, density, and vehicle access, which significantly impact food procurement. The index highlights the Rockaways as an area with particularly low spatial accessibility to grocery retail, underscoring the effects of supermarket redlining.

Figure 4. NYC Spatial Accessibility Index
Data Source: New York State Department of Agriculture & Markets (2024) & 2022 American Community Survey: 5-Year Data

The financial accessibility index evaluates key economic factors that influence access to food and cooking. Scaled from 0 to 1, values closer to 1 indicate greater financial vulnerability and lower economic accessibility. The index incorporates four variables: participation in food assistance programs, median household income, rent burden, and poverty rates. Finances are a critical component of food and cooking accessibility, especially when individuals face difficult decisions about whether to allocate limited resources toward food or rent, and when reduced income often forces compromises on food preferences and choices. Understanding financial accessibility to food is particularly vital given that systemic racism, including policies like redlining, has excluded many populations—especially people of color—from opportunities to build generational wealth, perpetuating economic inequities that impact food access. The index clearly highlights areas like the South Bronx as regions with high financial vulnerability, emphasizing normalized systemic barriers that limit access to adequate food resources.

Figure 5. NYC Financial Accessibility Index
Data Source: New York State Department of Agriculture & Markets (2024) & 2022 American Community Survey: 5-Year Data

The cooking accessibility index examines structural and spatial factors that influence the ability to prepare meals at home. Scaled from 0 to 1, higher values indicate greater barriers to cooking accessibility. The index incorporates three variables: overcrowded housing, the percentage of the population living in group quarters, and the percentage of homes with incomplete kitchen facilities. The data for this index is somewhat scattered, likely due to uneven census reporting, particularly for populations living in group quarters. People in shelters, for example, often do not stay in one place long enough to be accurately counted in the census, leading to underreporting. Observable patterns of cooking access challenges are evident in areas with high levels of group quarters, such as university districts in Manhattan, as well as overcrowding and incomplete kitchen facilities in neighborhoods like Corona. The South Bronx and East New York also show notable concentrations of group quarters. With additional resources, I would expand the index to include variables such as the percentage of single-parent households and average commute time to work, which further impact the time and resources available for meal preparation.

Figure 6. NYC Cooking Accessibility Index
Data Source: New York State Department of Agriculture & Markets (2024) & 2022 American Community Survey: 5-Year Data

The cumulative index combines the financial, spatial, and cooking indices to form a more comprehensive index of access to food and cooking within NYC. Systemic barriers to food and cooking accessibility have profound impacts on the health outcomes and quality of life in our communities.

Figure 7 NYC Food & Cooking Accessibility Index
Data Source: New York State Department of Agriculture & Markets (2024) & 2022 American Community Survey: 5-Year Data

Figure 8. NYC Food & Cooking Accessibility Index by Neighborhood of Interest
Data Source: New York State Department of Agriculture & Markets (2024) & 2022 American Community Survey: 5-Year Data

Figure 9. Neighborhoods of Interest by demographic indicators
Data Source: New York State Department of Agriculture & Markets (2024) & 2022 American Community Survey: 5-Year Data

For example, areas like the South Bronx, East New York, and the Rockaways, which score high on financial, spatial, and cooking accessibility challenges, also reflect stark disparities in socioeconomic indicators. The South Bronx’s median household income is $26,400, and life expectancy is just 70 years, significantly below the NYC average of 81 years. East New York faces similarly severe challenges, with 90% of the population identifying as people of color and only 19% holding a bachelor’s degree or higher. The Rockaways, while slightly better off financially, are spatially segregated from the rest of the city, served by only one train line and with a low percentage of households having vehicle access, further limiting mobility and access to food. Additionally, the Rockaways have a high child poverty rate of 38%, compounding the challenges for families. In contrast, areas like the Upper East Side – Yorkville, which score low on all accessibility indices, show dramatically higher median household incomes at $137,000 and a life expectancy of 90 years. These disparities underscore how the food apartheid system intersects with income inequality, educational attainment, systemic racism, and geographic isolation, disproportionately affecting marginalized communities and their overall well-being.

Despite the systemic barriers and normalized violence that make procuring and cooking food an inaccessible burden for many, people still find ways to eat and feed their families. Emergency Food Assistance Program (EFAP) locations offer one way to spatially visualize how communities receive food-related support.

Figure 10. Emergency Food Assistance Programs and Food & Cooking Accessibility Index.
Data Source: New York State Department of Agriculture & Markets (2024) & 2022 American Community Survey: 5-Year Data & NY City Council

These programs are numerous, generally well-distributed across the city, and absolutely necessary in addressing food insecurity. However, while essential, EFAP programs often lack the autonomy, ownership, and choice required to reimagine food procurement and cooking as more than just survival—transforming them instead into communal and relational practices. There is significant potential to develop a model that connects these efforts within a relational infrastructure, where access to food and cooking becomes a public project rooted in care, mutual aid, and autonomy.

Additionally, there is a pressing need for qualitative data collection to capture the self-reliance strategies and food procurement geographies that emerge in neighborhoods disproportionately affected by food apartheid, such as the South Bronx, East New York, and Far Rockaway. Mapping these practices would not only deepen our understanding of how residents navigate systemic inequities but also inform the development of alternative infrastructures that center community agency and resilience.

Link(s) to full project:

• Link 1 - felt.com/map/METHODS-III-FINAL-l7ga3iyYTMGN3hYYOZKbJA?loc=40.7174,-73.9727,10.95z&share=1