Urban Site Selection is an innovative dashboard that was designed to provide community organizations in Texas easy access to key sources of demographic and economic information that can be used to advocate for a mainstream supermarket in communities currently designated as food deserts by the Department of Agriculture. Although Texas is our starting point, we plan to expand the dashboard to other states in the near future. Contrary to popular belief, many food deserts have sufficient economic potential to support a mainstream supermarket. However, traditional site selection models have often overlooked this potential by using statistical indicators that are not relevant in evaluating economic potential in urban communities. (1)
Some Background: Communities designated as food deserts have limited access to healthy and nutritious food options, which further leads to a higher prevalence of heart disease, diabetes, obesity, and cognitive deficits. Moreover, food deserts are generally populated by lower income African Americans and Latinos. Although many factors contribute to the persistence of food deserts in the U.S., recent research has pointed to supermarket redlining practices as a important contributor. That is, decision makers involved in site location decisions avoid communities of color, especially those designated as food deserts, due to perceptions of high crime rates, insufficient income, lower population density, and other factors. Unfortunately, site selection decisions are often not supported by actual evidence of these perceptions, while myths and stereotypes are used to justify a decision to establish a supermarket in more desirable communities. In a recent study of a community in Dallas, Texas with several food deserts (2), our research team discovered the following:
- Crime rates were not substantially higher in communities with food deserts compared to non-food deserts.
- Estimated annual food-at-home expenditures depended minimally on average household income, and were more strongly associated with the number of household members, aggregate household income, and SNAP benefits.
- Based on our non-traditional urban site selection model, we identified several food deserts with sufficient economic potential to sustain the average sales of a U.S. supermarket.
Despite this evidence, supermarket executives in the Dallas area continue to avoid these communities, forcing residents to travel outside of their communities to purchase healthier and more affordable food, or continue shopping at local convenience or dollar stores that offer food options that are less healthy and more expensive. Since many communities throughout the U.S. are likely experiencing the same challenges, our research team developed a solution that would be cost free and universally beneficial.
The Solution: Our Urban Site Selection dashboard offers a potential solution for the many community organizations that lack the demographic and economic data to advocate persuasively for a mainstream supermarket in their community or perhaps include the statistical indicators in grant applications. Our dashboard, which is accessible at no cost, provides users the ability to identify promising food deserts by making the following choices:
- Designating the estimated annual food-at-home expenditures for a community in millions of dollars — needed in order to know which census tracts have sufficient expenditures to support the annual sales of a supermarket.
- Designating whether a census tract should be a food desert or not.
- Selecting one of 254 counties in the State of Texas.
Once these choices are made by the user, the dashboard displays a county map of all qualified census tracts as well as a demographic and economic profile of the residents of these census tracts. By changing the slider for the annual food-at-home expenditures, a user can identify more or less census tracts that meet their criteria. Thus, the information provided by the Urban Site Selection dashboard provides the user or community organization a more solid foundation for justifying the need and potential success of a mainstream supermarket in a designated community.
Access the Urban Site Selection Dashboard
Optional Services: While the information provided by the Urban Site Selection dashboard is unique and valuable, users may desire more detailed information about a specific food desert, census tract, zip code or other geographic area to facilitate a site selection decision. Following are selected services that we can provided for a quoted fee:
- Map showing the location of supermarkets
- Map showing Opportunity Zones designated by IRS to obtain a tax exemption. For information on Opportunity Zones, click here.
- Map showing traffic counts
- Map that includes 3-5-10 mile buffers or rings around a location along with population demographics for each buffer zone
- Ability to geo-code customer locations for display in a map
- More detailed demographic information from the most recent Census Bureau files
- Designing a customized dashboard for your organization with selected information. To view examples of dashboards addressing different topics, click here to view the Viz Gallery provided by Tableau. Our Viz team can design a dashboard for your organization that communicates effectively to the global community.
In 2021, there were 2,000 supermarkets and 628 Opportunity Zones in Texas. Click here to view a map that illustrates their distribution in Texas.
To obtain a quote for any of these optional services, please contact Dr. Edward T. Rincón at edward@rinconassoc.com or 214-750-3800. Feel free to contact us with any questions related to the dashboard and our plans to include additional states in the near future.
Testimonials: To view testimonials from three key community leaders in South Dallas who have reviewed and utilized information from the Urban Site Location dashboard, click here.
Sources Used: The Urban Selection Dashboard was created with the most recent demographic and economic information available. The American Community Survey 2019 5-Year Estimates provided estimates for counts of the population, households, race and ethnicity, aggregate household income (sum of income earned by all employed persons in a household), number of persons per household, SNAP households, and median household income. Annual SNAP payments were calculated using the number of households receiving SNAP payments and the average payments reported by the Texas Health & Human Services Commission in 2021. To derive estimates for annual food-at-home expenditures, we utilized the number of persons per household and the average expenditure for food-at-home reported by the Consumer Expenditure Survey sponsored by The Food Marketing Institute. It is important for the user to understand that the estimates for annual food-at-home expenditures are “estimates” and not actual expenditures. The designation of food deserts was obtained from the Department of Agriculture Food Environmental Atlas 2015.
Disclaimer: Rincón & Associates LLC does not make any warranties, either express or implied, as to the accuracy of any data or information provided using our products and services, and shall not be liable for any direct on indirect, consequential, special or incidental damages due to any action taken or not taken by a user or customer as a result of any data or information gathered using these products. The user or customer should exercise due diligence in using our products or services.