Environmental justice & Sustainability Indicator

Urban Food Deserts

Urban Food Deserts is a metric that contains the total number of people living in urban areas within the 8-county region with low access to food. Low access to food in urban areas is defined as living more than 1 mile from the nearest supermarket.

  • The data for the total population living in Urban areas within the 8-county region with low access to food is sourced from USDA - Food Access Research Atlas. The data spans from 2010 to 2019 for the United States, New York State and the 8 counties in our region.

-3.1%

The population residing in urban regions with limited access to food within the 8-county region has seen a decline of 3.1% since 2010, dropping from 311k to 301k individuals in 2019.

252k

In 2019, Monroe County was home to more than 252,000 individuals living in urban areas with limited access to food, comprising 86.2% of the total population across the 8-county region.

Yates County

In 2019, Yates County had the lowest urban population with limited access to food in our region, with only 151 individuals.

1.5x

The urban population with low food access in Seneca County surged by 1.5 times between 2010 and 2019, marking the highest increase among the 8 counties in our region.

This infographic displays a line graph depicting the total population living in areas with low access to food in the 8-county region from 2010 to 2019.

Interestingly, the high concentration of population in Monroe County contributes more than 86% of the total population with low food access.