Food in Frenchtown

Living on the edge of Frenchtown for the past two and a half years has made me familiar with the area, and as I further developed my interests for urban planning, my curiosity around Frenchtown associated itself with factors that place it in its current socioeconomic status.

One of the first things I noticed when venturing around the streets is the lack of sidewalks, yet it is one of the areas around Tallahassee where I see the most pedestrians around some times of the day. Many times, Frenchtown residents are forced to walk in the middle of the street, and rarely have I spotted public buses circulating around the area (besides school buses). Additionally, Frenchtown has a fair amount of cyclist that circulate around the area, yet they are forced to move around between narrow sidewalks or the road.

My second observation was the amount of convenience stores I found. From Family Dollar to liquor stores, they can be found sporadically within few blocks from each other, and not a single grocery store that would carry fresh fruits and vegetables. Dominantly, the majority of edible products you could find in there were dollar pastries or highly processed foods.

The reading Understanding and Measuring Food Environments highlights the correlation between my two observations in areas that lack of a healthy food environment, also it indicates how lower income communities struggle with access to food, and the products that are readily available heavily contribute to malnutrition and obesity. Ideally, cities aim to avoid such conditions for a great part of their citizens, but how do planners and city officials work together to ameliorate issues related to the food environment?

In Community Food Assessment, Pothukuchi names appropriate guidelines for a sustainable and healthy food system, saying that community food assessments (CFAs) can bring major benefits to community at different scales within a city or county. CFAs are flexible and adapt to the needs of a community, thus showing great potential to address the primary issues of any community’s food struggles.

If more cities were to include CFAs in comprehensive plans or adopt a policy that includes one, major issues that relate to the health and access of food in communities may be addressed and potentially solved. Pothukuchi further mentions that engaging communities enhances education about food issues and result in better outcomes whilst promoting individuals and groups to be agents of change.

For the Frenchtown community, a CFA can signify the beginning of positive change in their food and economic environment that can flourish and interact better with the city of Tallahassee without compromising its residents. By application, the citizens of Frenchtown would also be able to voice their opinions and create a community-based neighborhood renewal.