Spatial Supermarket Redlining and Neighborhood Vulnerability: A Case Study of Hartford,Connecticut

The disinclination of chain supermarkets to locate or relocate existing stores from inner city impoverished neighborhoods to affluent suburbs is termed ‘spatial supermarket redlining’. This study attempts to map and understand the effects of potential spatial supermarket redlining on food access in urban disadvantaged neighborhoods of Hartford, Connecticut. Using a combination of statistical and spatial analysis, we first built a Supermarket Redlining Index (SuRI) from five indicators (sales volume, employee count, accepts food coupons from federally assisted programs, and size and population density of the service area) to rank supermarkets in the order of their importance. Second, to understand the effects of supermarket closures in the inner city, a Supermarket Redlining Impact Model (SuRIM) was built with 11 indicators describing both socioeconomic and food access vulnerabilities. The interaction of these vulnerabilities identified neighborhoods that are maximally impacted by spatial supermarket redlining. Results mapped critical areas in the inner city of Hartford where, if a nearby supermarket closed down or relocated to a suburb with limited mitigation efforts to fill the grocery gap, a large number of minority, poor, and disadvantaged residents would experience difficulties to access healthy food, leading to food insecurity or perhaps a food desert. In conclusion we suggest mitigation efforts to reduce this impact of large supermarket closures.