Constrained, Convenient, and Symbolic Consumption: Neighborhood Food Environments and Economic Coping Strategies among the Urban Poor

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Abstract
Residents of poor and minority neighborhoods have less access to healthy, affordable food than their counterparts in more advantaged neighborhoods, and these disparities translate into population-level health disparities by race and socioeconomic status. Current research debates the extent of these disparities and how they translate into unequal health outcomes, but it has paid less attention to the micro-level decision-making processes and strategies residents employ to access food in the context of constrained personal and neighborhood resources. We examined this gap in the literature using data from in-depth qualitative interviews with 66 poor residents of three urban neighborhoods with varying nutritional environments. We found that economic and geographic constraints strongly influenced where and how residents shopped, but within those constraints, residents developed a number of adaptive strategies to maximize the quality and variety of their groceries. We also found that higher-quality stores and purchases were important to residents not only for their material benefits—such as health and cost—but also for their symbolic value. The presence of many stores, close stores, and high-quality stores offered opportunities for symbolic consumption and boosted neighborhood reputations but also created settings for social exclusion. These results illuminate how inequalities in nutritional environments shape residents’ lived experiences and highlight residents’ agency and resourcefulness in responding to such constraints.

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