Gardening in the desert: a spatial optimization approach to locating gardens in rapidly expanding urban environments.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Food access is a global issue, and for this reason, a wealth of studies are dedicated to understanding the location of food deserts and the benefits of urban gardens. However, few studies have linked these two strands of research together to analyze whether urban gardening activity may be a step forward in addressing issues of access for food desert residents.

Methods

The Phoenix, Arizona metropolitan area is used as a case to demonstrate the utility of spatial optimization models for siting urban gardens near food deserts and on vacant land. The locations of urban gardens are derived from a list obtained from the Maricopa County Cooperative Extension office at the University of Arizona which were geo located and aggregated to Census tracts. Census tracts were the

SUBMITTER: Mack EA 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5644113 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature