Food Security in Urban America: A model based on Minneapolis-St. Paul, Minnesota

摘要

Food security, through access and availability, has become a pressing issue in many fields of academia. Until the mid-1990s, research within the United States has been hampered by ill-defined concepts and a subsequent inability for social scientists to contribute to policy on the issues. My research attempts to contribute to the limited body of developed-world food security research by applying a Geographic Information Systems model to Minneapolis and St. Paul, predicting high risk of food insecurity in urban areas. Taking into account factors such as income, ethnicity, and family status, this model finds that it is not the central city areas that are most at risk, but rather the neighborhoods just inside the city boundaries.