Soglin calls for citywide food policy to curb problem of ‘food deserts’

With the assistance of Bill Buckingham, a health geographer with the Applied Population Laboratory at UW-Madison, food deserts (areas of Madison without access to a grocery store within one mile) and food swamps (areas with no grocery but one or more fast-food and convenience stores within a mile) were plotted. Some campus areas where few people live or where students may use meal plans in dormitories show up as deserts, as well as areas along the city boundaries where the plotting of grocery stores stopped, Buckingham notes. Future mapping may eventually include all of Dane County.