Tag: inner-city

  State Sen. Todd Gardenhire (R-TN-10) wants to boost inner-city and rural access to fresh food to fight “food deserts,” The Chattanoogan reports. Gardenhire made the announcement Monday to the Hamilton Place Rotary Club. The Hamilton County senator said he wants to provide incentives for grocery stores to open in the inner-city. The senator made reference to a Tennessee Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations report from January that found 21 percent of Tennesseans live in an area considered to be a food desert. Fifteen percent live in an urban food desert, while 6 percent live in rural food deserts. The TACIR report is available here. Residents in “food deserts,” or areas with lowered access to healthy food, “tend to have a less nutritious diet and poorer health outcomes than those living in other communities,” the report says. Also, according to the report: While not always limited to food deserts, a variety of policy alternatives have been implemented in states and communities around the US to both improve access to and encourage the consumption of healthy food, including improving transportation to and from healthy food retailers, bringing the food to the customer through mobile markets or food delivery, providing vouchers for…