Food Deserts in Asheville: Severity, Impacts, History, and Future Projections
The “Foodtopia” Paradox
Asheville, North Carolina, often celebrated as a “Foodtopia” for its vibrant culinary scene, faces a stark contradiction: significant food insecurity and the presence of food deserts within its city limits. A food desert, as defined by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), is a low-income area where residents have limited access to nutritious food, typically more than one mile from a supermarket in urban settings. While the USDA identifies four food deserts within Asheville, this definition often falls short, as it doesn’t fully account for the inadequacy of convenience stores, transportation barriers, or the affordability of healthy food. For instance, even if a grocery store is geographically close, a lack of personal vehicles or limited public transportation can make it practically inaccessible for residents, such as those in Hillcrest and Livingston Heights. This highlights that “access” in Asheville is a complex issue, extending beyond mere proximity to a store.
The “Foodtopia” image, with its abundance of farm-to-table restaurants and farmers’ markets, contrasts sharply with the reality that over 20% of residents in the greater Asheville area struggle with food access or hunger. This disparity indicates that the issue is not a scarcity of food resources, but rather systemic barriers to equitable distribution and access.
Severity of Food Deserts in Asheville
Asheville officially contains four USDA-designated food deserts, with a prominent example being the census tract between I-240 and the French Broad River in West Asheville, which includes the Pisgah View Apartments. In this area, 14.1% of the population has low access to healthy and affordable food. The Southside neighborhood is consistently identified as one of Asheville’s six USDA-designated food deserts.
However, local organizations like Green Opportunities (GO) recognize additional low-income communities, such as Hillcrest and Livingston Heights Apartments, that face significant food accessibility issues despite not being USDA-designated food deserts. All nine of Asheville’s public housing complexes are located a mile or more from an affordable grocery store, compounding access problems for many vulnerable residents.
Quantitatively, food insecurity is a significant concern. In Buncombe County, 14.3% of households and over 14% of individuals experience food insecurity. While this is numerically lower than the national average (15.4%) and North Carolina’s statewide average (17.7%), the Asheville metropolitan statistical area was ranked as the ninth hungriest in the country in 2012. More recently, a September 2024 estimate placed North Carolina’s food scarcity rate at 13.9%, ranking it 12th highest nationally. The Food Bank of Eastern and Central North Carolina reported a 40% rise in demand for food assistance in 2024 compared to 2023, serving an additional 100,000 people, indicating a worsening situation despite existing efforts.
Qualitative Impacts: Health and Dietary Implications
The limited access to full-service grocery stores in food deserts forces residents to rely on convenience stores or fast-food establishments, which typically offer few fresh, healthy options. For instance, Crossroads Grocery, on the edge of Asheville, notably lacks fresh produce. This reliance on processed and packaged goods contributes to unhealthy dietary patterns and a range of chronic health problems, including obesity and diabetes. In Buncombe County, one in four individuals is obese. Latino adults and children, in particular, face a higher risk for obesity and diabetes, highlighting existing health disparities. This situation underscores that food insecurity is a critical public health crisis, leading to higher healthcare costs and reduced quality of life.
Populations Disproportionately Affected
Food deserts in Asheville disproportionately affect specific socio-economic and demographic groups, intensifying existing inequities.
Socio-economic Vulnerability
Low-income households are fundamentally more susceptible to food insecurity. Nationally, 33.5% of low-income households and nearly 40% of poor households experience food insecurity. In Western North Carolina (WNC), approximately 13% of adults live below the poverty level. The Southside neighborhood, a designated food desert, had a median household income of just $19,747 in 2021, the lowest among 27 Buncombe County neighborhoods surveyed. This economic reality severely limits the ability of residents to afford healthy food.
The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) is a crucial support, with North Carolina seeing over 84,000 new recipients between January 2024 and January 2025. The increasing reliance on SNAP suggests that more households are struggling to afford food, even with assistance, indicating that food deserts are a symptom of broader economic inequality.
Racial and Ethnic Disparities
Food insecurity in Asheville is marked by significant racial and ethnic disparities, stemming from historical discriminatory policies. In WNC, Black (29.6% food insecure), Hispanic (35.7% food insecure), and American Indian/Alaska Native (57.8% food insecure) adults are significantly more likely to experience food insecurity than their white counterparts. Nationally, Black and Hispanic households face food insecurity at more than twice the rate of White households.
In Asheville, Black individuals, who make up 13% of the overall population, constitute a striking 71.8% of public housing residents. All nine public housing complexes are located a mile or more from an affordable grocery store, creating inherent barriers to healthy food access for these communities. This systemic lack of access, often termed “food apartheid,” is a direct result of historical policies like redlining and urban renewal that disinvested in these neighborhoods.
Specific Vulnerable Groups and Interconnected Barriers
Children are among the most affected, with 13.8 million food-insecure children in the U.S. in 2023. In North Carolina, one in four children is not guaranteed a daily meal, a rate that can reach eight out of ten in some rural WNC areas. Food insecurity in childhood has severe, long-lasting negative impacts on health, academic achievement, and future economic prosperity. Single-parent households (over one-third of those headed by a single woman are food insecure) and seniors (often on fixed incomes with increased healthcare expenses) are also at greater risk. SNAP data shows that 40.4% of recipient households include at least one person aged 60 or over, and 46.3% include a person with a disability.
These vulnerabilities are compounded by interconnected barriers:
- Transportation: Limited vehicle access (2.1% of Buncombe County households lack a vehicle) makes it difficult to reach full-service grocery stores, often requiring time-consuming bus journeys with transfers.
- Affordability: Even if stores are accessible, the high cost of nutritious food is a barrier for low-income residents, pushing them towards cheaper, processed alternatives.
- Housing Instability: High housing costs (41.9% of WNC renters paid over 30% of income on housing between 2016-2020) reduce disposable income for food and are the primary predictor of homelessness, which further complicates food access.
Historical Roots of Food Deserts
Asheville’s food deserts are a direct legacy of historical policy decisions and urban development patterns, particularly those rooted in racial and economic discrimination.
Urban Renewal and Redlining: The Southside Example
The Southside neighborhood vividly illustrates how deliberate historical policies created food deserts. Before urban renewal, Southside was a food-secure, self-sufficient Black community with seven local corner stores and widespread home gardens. However, urban renewal projects between 1970 and 1975 systematically dismantled this infrastructure, eliminating all seven grocery stores and displacing hundreds of primarily Black homeowners into public housing. Fifty years later, Southside still lacks a single grocery store, forcing residents to rely on convenience stores selling mostly processed foods. This transformation is a direct consequence of racially charged urban renewal, creating “food apartheid” where racial and economic disparities dictate food access.
Gentrification’s Role
Ongoing gentrification in Asheville further exacerbates food access challenges. Southside has seen average home sale prices soar by 116% between 2016 and 2021, the highest increase in Buncombe County. This rapid increase displaces long-time, often food-insecure, residents. While new, high-end restaurants emerge, their high prices create a “food mirage,” making them economically inaccessible to existing residents. Gentrification thus actively undermines food security by reducing disposable income and disrupting community networks, reinforcing systemic inequities.
Historical Context of Appalachian Food Systems
The historical context of Appalachian food systems, characterized by resilient practices like canning, pickling, and foraging, offers a blueprint for current solutions. The region’s terrain historically favored small-scale, localized food production. This inherent resilience contrasts with the external disruptions of urban renewal, suggesting that empowering community-based food practices, like the Southside Community Farm, is a return to culturally relevant, historically proven methods of ensuring food security.
Future Outlook: Projections and Pathways to Food Security (Next 10-20 Years)
The future of food security in Asheville is a blend of challenges and opportunities for resilience.
Anticipated Challenges
- Potential Federal Funding Cuts: Congress is considering cuts to anti-hunger programs like SNAP, which could significantly worsen food insecurity. North Carolina food banks and school districts have already lost nearly $30 million in federal funding, and cuts to SNAP would force vulnerable households to stretch resources or go without food.
- Continued Gentrification Pressures: Rapid gentrification will likely continue to drive up housing costs and displace low-income residents, disrupting community ties and making healthy food options unaffordable, creating more “food mirages”.
- Climate Change Impacts: Rising temperatures, extreme weather events (hurricanes, floods, droughts), and soil degradation are projected to reduce crop yields (e.g., corn yields potentially dropping by 24% by 2030) and disrupt transportation networks, leading to higher food prices that disproportionately affect lower-income communities .
These factors, combined with the stagnant food insecurity rate in Buncombe County over the past five years, suggest that external pressures may be outpacing local interventions.
Opportunities for Resilience
Despite challenges, Asheville has significant opportunities to build resilience:
- Strengthening Local Food Systems: Investing in local and regional food systems reduces reliance on distant sources, lowers carbon footprints, and ensures more reliable food access during crises . This includes supporting regenerative agriculture and cultivating climate-resilient crops like taro or yacon . Initiatives like the Asheville Edibles Map promote local foraging and cultivation .
- Policy Advocacy: Continued advocacy to protect and expand federal programs like SNAP is crucial. Locally, the Asheville-Buncombe Food Policy Council’s Food Master Plan and the City’s Food Action Plan provide frameworks for increasing food access, achieving regional food production self-sufficiency, and enhancing agricultural economic viability .
- Community-Led Solutions: Scaling successful community-based models is essential. The Southside Community Farm, for example, directly addresses food insecurity through its Free Grocery Program, Feed AVL Veggie Boxes, and BIPOC Farmers Market. Programs like the Double Bucks program, which doubles SNAP spending power for fresh produce, directly tackle affordability. Supporting community gardens and mutual aid initiatives further strengthens local networks . Protecting vital community assets like Southside Community Farm from land loss due to development is paramount.
- Addressing Root Causes: Long-term food security requires addressing underlying systemic drivers, including policies that increase wages, improve employment opportunities, and expand affordable housing . The Healthy Opportunities Pilot (HOP) demonstrates the effectiveness of integrating food, housing, and transportation services, recognizing their interconnectedness as social determinants of health.
- Collaboration: Continued collaboration among local government, non-profits, and community groups, facilitated by the Asheville-Buncombe Food Policy Council, is fundamental for a comprehensive approach to food security .