A growing body of evidence from multiple U.S. cities reveals that opening new supermarkets in low-income urban neighborhoods does little to change residents’ purchasing habits or improve their overall diet. Despite significant public and private investment aimed at increasing the availability of fresh and healthy foods, studies consistently show that proximity to a grocery store is not the primary factor driving food choices, challenging a decade of conventional wisdom on how to solve the problem of urban “food deserts.”
This research indicates that the complex issues of food insecurity and poor nutrition are not solved by simply adding a new store. More powerful factors, including the cost of healthy food, ingrained dietary habits, educational levels, and cultural preferences, play a much larger role in determining what people buy and eat. As a result, many of the large-scale initiatives designed to eradicate food deserts by improving physical access to groceries have failed to produce their intended health benefits, prompting experts to reconsider the fundamental assumptions behind these popular public health interventions.
Geographic Access Not a Primary Driver
Multiple studies analyzing the impact of new grocery stores have reached the same conclusion: when a new supermarket opens, residents may appreciate the convenience, but they do not significantly alter the nutritional quality of their grocery baskets. One of the earliest notable studies focused on the Morrisania section of the Bronx after a 17,000-square-foot supermarket was opened in 2011 with the help of city tax incentives. Researchers from New York University found that, despite the new store, there were no meaningful changes in the consumption of healthy foods or the overall purchasing patterns of local residents. Brian Elbel, an associate professor of medicine at NYU and an author of the study, noted that neither consumption nor purchasing habits changed in a significant way.
This pattern has been observed nationwide. A comprehensive study published in the Quarterly Journal of Economics tracked about 10,000 households in food deserts across the country between 2004 and 2016. During this period, over a thousand new supermarkets opened in these areas. The research confirmed that while these households do buy less healthy groceries than those in wealthier neighborhoods, the arrival of a new supermarket did not cause them to start buying healthier food. Instead, residents shopped at the new stores but continued to purchase the same types of groceries they had before. This suggests that the lack of healthy options on local shelves is not the core problem; rather, it is a reflection of lower consumer demand for those products in the first place.
Economic and Social Factors Prevail
If store proximity isn’t the key, other socioeconomic factors appear to be far more influential. The high cost of nutritious food is a primary barrier. Research from a University of Chicago study highlights that initiatives bringing supermarkets to food deserts reduced nutritional inequality by only 9 percent, largely because the price of healthy food remained a significant obstacle. Eating habits rarely change when residents who are accustomed to buying inexpensive, high-calorie foods are presented with healthier but more expensive options.
The Role of Education and Habits
Beyond price, educational attainment and long-standing habits are powerful predictors of diet quality. A paper from the National Bureau of Economic Research found a larger gap in healthy eating between families with and without a college education than between high- and low-income families. This indicates that nutritional knowledge and ingrained preferences are critical components of consumer choice. Barry Popkin, a professor of nutrition at the University of North Carolina, has argued that when supermarkets are placed in low-income neighborhoods, people simply continue buying the same foods they always have. These findings suggest that improving diet requires a dual approach: making healthier foods both more accessible and more affordable while also addressing the educational and behavioral factors that shape what people choose to eat.
Competition from Fast Food
Another complicating factor is the high density of fast-food restaurants in low-income areas. One study published in the Archives of Internal Medicine revealed that residents in these neighborhoods are often far more reliant on fast food than on grocery stores, even when healthier options are nearby. People living below the poverty line have been found to have 2.5 times more exposure to fast-food establishments than middle-class individuals, compounding the challenge of promoting healthier choices. Researchers from this study suggested that policy efforts might see more success by reducing the number of fast-food chains and subsidizing the cost of healthy foods, rather than focusing solely on adding supermarkets.
Re-evaluating a Decade of Policy
The consistent findings from this body of research call into question the effectiveness of major government programs aimed at eliminating food deserts. Over the past decade, federal and local governments have invested hundreds of millions of dollars to incentivize grocery store development in underserved communities. Initiatives like the federal Healthy Food Financing Initiative have leveraged over $1 billion for this purpose, and former First Lady Michelle Obama’s “Let’s Move!” campaign prominently featured tax breaks for supermarkets opening in food deserts. The core assumption of these programs—that access is the primary barrier to healthy eating—is now being directly challenged by scientific evidence.
The city of Philadelphia provides a crucial case study. As a center of the food justice movement, the city invested millions in building new grocery stores in impoverished areas. However, the results were underwhelming. One analysis found that only about 27 percent of residents living near a new supermarket began using it as their main food source. Even among those who did shop at the new stores, their food choices did not show significant improvement.
Unintended Consequences and Future Directions
In some instances, the strategy of adding supermarkets to low-income neighborhoods can have unintended negative effects. The phenomenon known as the “Whole Foods Effect” describes how the arrival of an upscale grocery store can accelerate gentrification, raising property values and potentially displacing the long-term, low-income residents the policy was designed to help. This further complicates the narrative that simply building more stores is a universally beneficial solution.
In light of the evidence, experts are now exploring alternative and complementary strategies. A study in Chicago that examined supermarket access between 2007 and 2014 found that while the total number of stores increased, access for African-American and socioeconomically disadvantaged residents remained persistently poor and in some cases worsened. On the city’s South Side, the closure of just one store could jeopardize the food security of an entire area, a vulnerability not seen in more affluent neighborhoods described as “food oases.” This highlights the fragility of access and suggests that a more resilient food system requires more than just new buildings. Future efforts may need to focus more on making healthy food affordable, investing in nutritional education, and supporting community-based food systems that are less vulnerable to the economic shocks of single-store closures.