Food security is emerging as an important aspect of community and social planning, reflected in part by a recent special issue on Community Food Systems of the Journal of Planning Education and Research (JPER). As noted by Campbell (2004), food systems involve many stakeholders with differing values across space and time. One particular element of this larger food security issue revolves around...

Using a bilateral trade equation derived from a monopolistic competition model, we investigated market access reciprocity in food trade among the US, Canada, the EU and Japan. We explore country and industry–specific market access asymmetry through the border effect approach, re-challenging the underlying main explanations. Our findings reveal marked asymmetry in reciprocal trade openness; inde...

BACKGROUND Individuals and families are relying more on food prepared outside the home as a source for at-home and away-from-home consumption. Restricting the estimation of fast-food access to fast-food restaurants alone may underestimate potential spatial access to fast food. METHODS The study used data from the 2006 Brazos Valley Food Environment Project (BVFEP) and the 2000 U.S. Census Sum...

The increased presence of modern/Western style food retail outlets is changing the food retail environment in many developing countries. This phenomenon, known as “supermarketization,” is just recently taking off in Sub-Saharan Africa. Through a case study methodology, this research uses direct observation, retailer interviews, mapping, a food retail assessment and household surveys, first to d...

In recent years, research and public policy attention has increasingly focused on understanding whether modifiable aspects of the local food environment - the types and composition of food outlets families have proximate access to - are drivers of and potential solutions to the problem of childhood obesity in the United States. Given that much of the earlier published research has documented gr...