While the Bus Rapid Transit system will be up and running in a few years and will help residents cope with the “food desert” that exists in Saskatoon, to really get the full stock of groceries a family needs, it’s quite a lot to carry.

That from Alan Wallace, retired city planner for the City of Saskatoon, who says a food desert is a growing geographic area within a city where there is limited access to affordable and nutritious food products. He says while there is always food offered at a convenience store; a food desert is defined by accessibility to fresh fruits and vegetables like in a grocery store.

Wallace says in Saskatoon the food desert is concentrated in the city centre, south and southwest.

“What we’re looking at here is the neighbourhoods of Montgomery Place, King George, Holiday Park, Riversdale. Our downtown of course has no grocery store, and then it even stretches up into City Park. It’s now crossed the river, and you have no Extra Foods on Broadway anymore, so there really isn’t a full line grocery store until you get down 8th Street a little ways.”

He says it is several kilometres to a grocery store in those areas, and he notes all cities have a food desert of some kind.

“The other sad part about this is, much of our food desert is in some of our lower-income neighborhoods. People do have difficulty getting around and traveling long distances for food. It affects low-income populations a little bit more than it does for others that have means to travel.”

Wallace says he’s surprised the redevelopment on Broadway won’t include a food store pointing out the area is a bit higher income and there is increasing density because he says that’s what drives the location of grocery store – dollars per square foot. He suggests tax abatements as an incentive to attract grocery stores to areas that need them is a good idea but what will really help over time, is population density.

He says builders come into an area and want to increase the number of units on a parcel of land and its usually met with some resistance.

“I think we just have to start getting over that. It’s time to densify the area we’re talking about here. In parts of King George and Holiday Park and so on, it’s mainly single-family homes. These single-family homes are not going to attract a grocery store anytime soon. We need to have more people living in these areas to attract a decent sized grocery store.”

Wallace estimates the food desert in Saskatoon at 15 square kilometres in size.