41% of DC Residents Live 5 Minutes From a Grocery Store

• March 26, 2014
• 4 Comments

by UrbanTurf Staff

Foggy Bottom Whole Foods

41 percent of DC residents live within a five-minute walk of a grocery store, a report out from WalkScore revealed on Wednesday.

DC ranked fifth behind Boston (45%), Philadelphia (57%), San Francisco (59%) and New York City (72%). The ranking only analyzed cities with over 500,000 people.

To calculate the percent of residents in a city with access to healthy food, Walk Score used population data and city boundaries from the U.S. Census, a list of grocery stores from Google, among other sources, and also calculated many millions of walking routes with its Travel Time application programming interface (API). In an effort to include only stores that sell produce, the company used algorithmic filters and crowdsourcing to remove convenience stores from the calculation.

The worst cities for access to grocery stores were Indianapolis and Oklahoma City, where just 5 percent of residents live within a five-minute walk of a store.

This article originally published at http://dc.urbanturf.com/articles/blog/report_41_of_dc_residents_live_5_minutes_from_a_grocery_store/8283

4 Comments

1. Judith K. Claire said at 11:01 pm on Wednesday March 26, 2014:
   Why not mention which parts of the District have the fewest grocery stores? It is not the upper/middle income areas.

1. Rob Cooke said at 6:23 pm on Thursday March 27, 2014:
   I agree with Judith! Her at Brookland Metro NE, it's a 15 minute walk to Giant at Rhode Island NOT 5 minutes! In matter of fact, though we have a YES market, they do not cater to everyone here....not to mention they are over priced, and have out dated food if you check the experation date!! Brookland needs a grocery store for ALL !!!!!

1. Robert Turner said at 8:33 pm on Thursday March 27, 2014:
   Unless you're including corner markets, this stat is completely bogus! Half of Capitol Hill and most places east of the River (Wards 7 and 8) are not a 5 minute walk from a grocery store. #TruthInAdvertising

1. cccc said at 2:06 am on Monday March 31, 2014:
   rob, a grocery store is NOT the same as a super market.