Reckoning with Food Apartheid: Lessons from U.S. Cities and Counties

In recent years, food justice activists and scholars have pushed to move away from the use of “food desert,” a misleading term that implies a naturally occurring phenomenon, and towards a “food apartheid” framing, which better reflects the intentionality and racially discriminatory approaches that have led to inequitable access to food seen in the U.S. today. Numerous cities and counties across the U.S. have established food justice programs to address these racialized inequities. Through interviews with staff members, this report explores the planning and policy interventions being implemented to fight food apartheid and sheds light on the language local governments are using to frame their work. These findings highlight the impact of language on how food insecurity is approached, and provide food apartheid-informed strategies for city and county staff to consider in this work.Master of City and Regional Plannin