Project Statement
West Oakland is a community with limited access
to healthy food. My work for People’s Grocery,
a local nonprofit, will help the neighborhood and the
nearby agricultural community work together to repair
the local food system. Local production, self-sufficiency,
and restoration of knowledge and local bonds are emphasized
throughout. This project exemplifies how analysis and
planning can combine pragmatism with idealism, creating
a realizable vision for a thriving neighborhood and
a robust local food system.
Project Narrative
Like many inner-city neighborhoods in the post-industrial
United States, West Oakland is a neighborhood in need
of an economic anchor. Once a thriving industrial center
with plentiful blue-collar jobs, West Oakland now finds
itself with high unemployment, deteriorating housing
stock, disheartening crime statistics, high rates of
heart disease and diabetes, and a lack of fresh, healthy
food. While access to high-quality food may seem like
a small problem in comparison to pervasive crime and
major health disorders, it is in fact a quiet crisis
on par with these other problems. Repairing the local
food system is one step in the process to reinvigorate
West Oakland’s food culture and local economy.
This project, a master’s thesis,
was prepared for People’s Grocery. People’s
Grocery is a non-profit organization in West Oakland
working “to develop a self-reliant and sustainable
food system in West Oakland that fosters healthy and
equitable community development”. I set out with
four main objectives: first, to evaluate neighborhood
food justice and agricultural potential; second,
to summarize best practices for achieving food justice;
third, to inventory and analyze ongoing efforts
in West Oakland; and fourth, to make recommendations
for repairing the local food system.
Over the course of the project, I employed
several methods for gathering and synthesizing information.
These methods included: a literature review to identify
key ideas and leading theories; interviews with experts
to identify obstacles and learn about ongoing food justice
efforts; GIS mapping to identify resources or lack thereof;
an inventory of produce price and availability to provide
a clear picture of the severity of food injustice in
West Oakland; case studies to create a toolkit of successful
food justice strategies; fieldwork to identify appropriate
sites for various proposed elements; and design exploration
to generate and refine possible solutions to site, neighborhood,
and regional design and planning problems.
West Oakland Context and Existing Conditions
West Oakland, in the San Francisco Bay Area,
is bounded by the 880, 580 and 980 freeways. I collected
data from the Berkeley Geographic Information Science
Center, the US Census Bureau, the Oakland Community
and Economic Development Agency, and the Oakland Food
System Assessment Report to assess existing conditions
in the neighborhood. As you can see in Image 1, I found
the neighborhood’s population of 19,000 to be
concentrated in a crescent, excluding industrial and
heavy commercial areas. Services are located in this
populous crescent. There is a network of corner stores
throughout the neighborhood, but inventories are quite
limited. Access to fresh food is further restricted
by the fact that the closest grocery stores are outside
neighborhood boundaries. There is a small but growing
collection of community gardens in the neighborhood,
along with a large number of vacant lots. Toxic materials,
a legacy of the neighborhood’s industrial past,
are common and must be taken into account when building
in this area. The neighborhood may see rapid change
in the near future: many new developments are slated,
including two with over 1,500 residential units each.
Food Justice Gap Analysis
Compared to Rockridge, a nearby middle class
neighborhood, it is extremely difficult to find fruits
and vegetables in West Oakland. I conducted a price
and availability study by visiting stores in the two
neighborhoods. Comparing the nearest grocery store to
the neighborhood, in the Pill Hill district, with a
grocery store in Rockridge, I found similar prices and
reasonable selection at each store. However, it should
be noted that the Pill Hill store is an overstock outlet,
with a wildly fluctuating inventory. A shopper attempting
to meet their food needs within West Oakland would have
to rely on corner stores. As shown in Image 2, it is
not high prices, but rather the lack of availability
that creates food access problems in West Oakland. It
is impossible to buy healthy groceries within the neighborhood.
Understanding Food Justice
As People’s Grocery puts it, food justice
means healthy food for everyone. There are
several crucial components to food justice, including
the presence of nearby growers, processors and distributors;
economic development (job opportunities); political
support for the idea that access to healthy food is
a human right; education about nutrition and healthy
living to create demand for good food; and sales outlets
offering a full line of healthy food. As shown in Image
3, West Oakland is currently missing many of these components.
Best Practices for Achieving Food Justice
My research indicates that the four most important
aspects of food justice are ease of access
to food, education about food and nutrition, the size
and resilience of the foodshed, and the physical
design of cities. I followed this research
with a series of case studies, and found that the leading
strategies for achieving food justice fall into six
main categories: 1) creating a network of grocery
stores by reintroducing supermarkets and retrofitting
existing corner stores to sell produce; 2) reclaiming
the local economy through direct marketing, recreating
local distribution networks, and political action; 3)
expanding urban agriculture efforts; 4) improving
education about nutrition, cooking, and growing food;
5) improving access to the federal Food Stamp program;
and 6) and reducing unemployment.
Ongoing Efforts in West Oakland
Some organizations, including People’s
Grocery, are already working for food justice in the
neighborhood. People’s Grocery projects currently
include a mobile market that drives through the neighborhood
selling fresh produce, a network of urban gardens and
a stake in the Sunol AgPark, numerous educational programs,
and planning for a full-service cooperative grocery
store. Other organizations include City Slicker Farms,
with their network of market farms and sliding-scale
produce prices; the Mo’ Better Food Farmers’
Market; and a collection of teaching gardens run by
Oakland Butterfly and Urban Gardens (OBUGS). These organizations
are mapped and their focus areas inventoried in Image
3.
Neighborhood Agricultural Potential
West Oakland has enormous latent potential
in the form of vacant lots. As illustrated in Image
4, I created an Agricultural Potential Prototype Study
as a visualization tool, meant to demonstrate the productive
potential of West Oakland’s vacant land. I identified
three block types in the neighborhood: first, those
that are >50% vacant; second, those that are 25-50%
vacant; and third, those that are <25% vacant. For
study areas representing each block type, I categorized
land according to its use (front yard, back yard, building,
vacant, etc), assigned an ease-of-conversion factor
to each land type, and created conversion diagrams,
which may be thought of as agricultural zoning maps,
demonstrating the land’s potential. These diagrams
could be used to establish Ag Enterprise Zones, or by
block associations wishing to build support for new
community gardens. This initial study would be followed
by detailed site analysis on chosen plots of land. According
to estimates by biointensive growers, one acre of land
could provide all the fruits and vegetables needed for
ten people. If this is the case, all the vacant lots
in West Oakland, a total of 78.6 acres, could feed 786
people.
Regional Plan for California Certified Organic Farmers
Member Businesses
The problem of community food justice is deeply
connected to the problem of regional food distribution.
Small farmers and struggling neighborhoods are frequently
left out of the conventional, industrial food system.
If networks of local distributors and processors could
be established, farmers could be connected to local
markets much more easily. How can urban communities
and local growers work together? As you can see in Images
5 and 6, I geocoded the member database for California
Certified Organic Farmers (CCOF), and looked for logical
ways to cluster growers into geographically defined
groups. I used a hierarchical linear clustering algorithm
to achieve this. In the Bay Area bioregion and nearby
bioregions, there is great agricultural bounty that
is currently not getting into West Oakland. I proposed
new distributors at the geographic center of each Bay
Area cluster. This will create short supply chains with
food changing hands only a couple of times between field
and table, keeping prices affordable for the neighborhood
and profitable for growers. If we replace the local
and regional distribution infrastructure that has been
dismantled over the past few decades, farmers will be
able to make a decent living, and fresh, affordable
food will be available to our cities.
West Oakland Neighborhood Development Plan
As you can see in Image 7, The proposed People’s
Grocery store has few real competitors within a one-mile
radius, and that same area is home to a significant
existing population, and several large proposed residential
developments. These populations represent a good client
base for the new store. The flagship store will be part
of a network of smaller stores, teaching gardens, minifarms,
and food processing centers.
If all the growers in the nearby agricultural
community had to maintain individual distribution and
sales relationships with all the large and small stores
in West Oakland, the resulting web of relationships
would be complex, time-consuming, and expensive. Introducing
People’s Grocery as a cooperative buying club
will simplify life for the managers of small stores
and small farms, and result in lower prices for the
community, and better profit margins for growers. These
two distribution models are show in Image 8.
West Oakland, 2030
As diagrammed in Images 9 and 10, the geography
of food in West Oakland will evolve over the next twenty
years to including local production and processing,
and a robust network of large and small stores carrying
healthy produce and prepared foods. Neighborhood residents
will be employed in every aspect of the food supply
chain, from production to processing and retail. The
wellness village and demonstration garden at the flagship
store will help residents maintain healthy lifestyles,
and strategically placed new small stores will ensure
walking-distance access to food for every resident.
These stores will also provide a model for other corner
stores seeking to convert to produce sales. Teaching
Gardens and minifarms will be established on uncontaminated
vacant lots, new food processing centers will return
much-needed industry to the neighborhood, and the People’s
Grocery food label will help instill local pride. Less-profitable
aspects of this model will be subsidized by more-profitable
aspects, and People’s Grocery will be a catalyst
for a renewed local food system.
People’s Grocery and Wellness Village Site Design
The grocery store site is a physical embodiment
of the values of People’s Grocery. As you can
see in Image 11, the 15,000 ft2 full-service cooperative
grocery store is set in a pleasant pedestrian environment
with wide, shady walks, seating areas, a bus shelter,
and sidewalk bulb-outs at intersections. Safe, high-quality
bicycle facilities include a protected bike entrance
and parking area. Climate-appropriate planting is used
throughout the site. A large food forest demonstration
garden forms the centerpiece of the site, with space
nearby for a moveable stage to be set up festival days.
As shown in Images 12, 13 and 15, graceful
arches mark entrances to the site and the main intersections.
The site is transformed from a litter-strewn, forlorn
place to a well-cultivated, very green environment.
All plants are either edible, or used to attract beneficial
insects. The back façade, facing a residential
street, is covered in espaliered fruit trees and endowed
with a large window onto the cooking school to present
a pleasant image to the neighborhood. Trellises over
parking spaces keep the site green and cool, infiltration
swales handle runoff, and a chess table pocket seating
area provides a safe gathering place for people with
free time.
Illustrated in Images 14 and 15, the
Food Forest Demonstration Garden is based on permaculture
principles. Elements that will be common to every teaching
garden in the People’s Grocery network are found
here, including a grand trellised entry, a hand-built
gazebo for gatherings, and composting demonstrations.
Food forests are designed to maximize planting space
and use resources efficiently. Here, a U-shaped sun
trap of larger plants and trees along the north and
east edges of the site accommodates tall plants without
shading out smaller ones; narrow beds at the entrance
of the site are used for plants with long harvest periods,
such as tomatoes and cucumbers; spiral beds in the rest
of the garden maximize planting space and minimize path
space for crops like garlic and corn that are harvested
all at once; and an herb spiral provides appropriate
microclimates for a wide variety of herbs in a small
space.
Conclusion
This project will guide and inspire the work
of People’s Grocery and the local activist and
agricultural communities over the next twenty years.
Starting with a cooperative grocery store, expanding
to a development plan for the entire neighborhood, and
working up to a new local food system, this plan addresses
neighborhood food justice at several interrelated scales.
Local production, self-sufficiency, and the restoration
of cultural knowledge and local bonds are stressed at
every level, creating a vision for a thriving neighborhood
and a robust local food system. When infrastructure
upgrades and physical improvements are coupled with
economic development and education, an entire neighborhood
– including its residents – can be uplifted,
rather than simply displacing poorer residents. The
proposals made here for People’s Grocery and for
West Oakland should be thought of as models to be adapted
to local needs in other communities in the Bay Area
and beyond.
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