East Cleveland is one of the neighborhoods struggling to stay economically stable. There is a lack of flourishing businesses and what will be described is the effect of this avoidance of this neighborhood for economic development and investment in regards to its food environment. I will be focusing on the specific part of East Cleveland from Superior Avenue to Doan Avenue along the main street Euclid Avenue. When traveling along Euclid Avenue through this neighborhood there is many abandoned buildings and gaps between each business because of this. The food environment I will assess is one of the few small collections of commercial activity in the city.
Food Environment
The businesses that make up this area range from fast-food, liquor stores, small clothing stores, a gas station, and phone stores. This is a high traffic area during the morning and evening rush as people go to their jobs in University Circle and downtown connected by Euclid Avenue. They also travel from their homes in EC, Cleveland Heights, or other surrounding cities. A bus depot, Louis Stokes Windermere provide buses that travel more than 2 hours to neighboring cities and multiple routes towards downtown. Crosswalks are situated at stop lights only because of the low pedestrian traffic. Sidewalks run everywhere along Euclid Avenue just like the bus stops for the Healthline (this is the name of the bus line that runs down Euclid Avenue from downtown to EC.). Eddy Road is connected to the interstate I-90 East and West if people were to travel north along the road.
Access to Healthy Food
Famous grocery stores for Cuyahoga County include Dave’s Supermarket, Marc’s, Simon’s, Aldi, Walmart, and Save-A-Lot. When searching for these places near East Cleveland, the neighborhood is without the majority of these grocery stores. This means people have to travel using bus or car to get to a grocery store that is not too busy or may lack variety of products. A lot of less known stores are throughout the neighborhood like Stop & Save Food Mart and Konni’s Family Foods. There is a community garden situated outside of the area of focus named E.C. Grows Community Garden.
Food Insecurity
Euclid Avenue, between Superior Avenue and Doan Avenue, is food insecure. As discussed in the lecture on food systems, there is a lack of acceptability between residents and stores, accessibility between the residents and larger grocery stores, and the lack of availability. Not being able to afford name brand food products should not mean the grocery stores offered in their neighborhood should be limited. Although the stores of EC have signs for EBT and SNAP accepted there is too large of a distance between one store and the next. For example, the larger grocery stores sit far away from the heart of the community requiring long distance traveling for people to shop for food. There are options for small grocery stores sprinkled throughout EC.
Food Swamp or Dessert
East Cleveland is a food swamp. Out of the restaurants I see there is Taco Bell, McDonalds, Wendy’s, Popeyes, and the list goes on. No family restaurants or places that offer fine-dining with homemade cooking is in the area. This may be because this area between Superior Avenue and Doan Avenue serves as a place for people to easily pick-up something up and keep going. The motivation of the area discourages people to spend a long time around the area or even for leisure activity. The largest green space of the area is a cemetery, second is Pattison Park.
Improvements
East Cleveland is one of the urban cities that struggled to recover from the effects of poor planning and suburbanization. To place a larger grocery store in the heart of this neighborhood now would take away from the local smaller grocery stores that have been there for years. Making the smaller investments into local businesses may be what makes this neighborhood thrive so a more strategic urban plan to help the city would be better. To begin EC could change the swarms of fast food for opportunities for local restaurants that offer healthier foods in the area. BBQ , seafood, and even vegan restaurants could encourage citizens of creating healthier choices for their diets. The neighborhood has a lot of abandoned buildings and could put those to use by allowing the expansion of the local grocery stores to provide more products. Community gardens could take place more around the city since they offer free natural foods and encourage community participation also. My analysis took place inside and outside of the area of focus to give a bigger understanding of what is taken away from this area of Euclid Avenue. East Cleveland surely made use of taking matters into their own hands to provide residents what they needed in an affordable way.