5 Beers And A Coke, Local Neighborhood Food Environments

The Weinland Park community is home to a highly crowded grid of housing. Fourth Street Farms offers the most green space in the area. Located between Summit and Fourth Street, it hosts a high density of traffic, and large housing options making it a large population. The lighting seems sporadic, and the sidewalks are square against the road with no real set back or quality width. Secured parking appears widely unavailable, resulting with people relying on walking and public transportation like COTA.

A trip to the nearest grocery store requires heading to 7th and High to stop at the Kroger on the corner. Between there lies numerous small corner stores, as well as numerous previously closed stores. 4th Street Farms finds itself the healthiest option in numerous directions for quality food. This is an alarming problem, seeing as this community is very high density, including numerous families that deserve a quality sustenance.

The number of local stores within walking distance gives a false promise of food security. Unfortunately, a rather large community has a lack of quality grocery stores that offer numerous foods for the area. This area appears to be a food swamp due to its high amount of convenience stores and plethora of fast food options provided to the west on high street. The one Kroger to the south is not adequate for the Weinland Park community compared to the other options offered to them.

The Beer Barn on 5th Ave is an example of wasted space that could be replaced with healthy option groceries.

Due to its high density area and lack of green space to work with and expand in, the best idea for the Weinland Park community is to work with what they are already given. As previously noted, numerous corner stores are home to nothing, just empty buildings taking up space. Renovating these buildings up to code and moving small, local groceries stores into these complexes holds numerous benefits. It stimulates the areas economy, offers numerous jobs to local residents in that area, and provide closer, quality groceries to this food swamp. The introduction of deli’s and fresh vegetables, like ones such as provided by Fourth Street Farms, makes strides in the right directions for providing a healthier standard of living for Weinland Park. As a community that has already taken good steps in the right direction in the last few years, an introduction of small local business to the area is the step in the right direction, for private sector and families alike.

Quick stores like these highlight numerous corners in the area

Above is the community farm of 4th Street Farms, and just a portion of the work being done there