Building a healthy urban food network
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In the U.S., despite the large number of food outlets, many neighborhoods in urban areas lack reliable access to fresh, nutritious, healthy food due not only to economic barriers, but also because of a lack of efficient networks and an underuse of the logistics infrastructure.
UIC Assistant Professor Carla Tejada is studying a potential solution to the lack of food access by taking a new approach to bring fresh, nutritious food to urban communities in need using urban freight and city logistics solutions. She has partnered with Assistant Professor Sofia Perez-Guzman at Georgia Tech, supported by a National Science Foundation Smart and Connected Communities (S&CC) grant titled “SCC-DG: Leveraging Data and Community-Driven Freight Systems to Support Urban Agriculture Models for Enhancing Food Access.”
The purpose of the NSF S&CC program is to accelerate the creation of new intelligent technologies and concepts through high-risk/high-reward research that addresses significant challenges and issues faced by communities across the U.S. A “smart and connected community” is a community that synergistically integrates intelligent technologies with the natural and built environments, as well as the functions of civic institutions and organizations.
“Our goal is to enhance access to fresh, nutritious food in urban areas by designing integrated supply-side, community-driven freight systems and urban agriculture models that scale into economically viable urban food logistics networks,” Tejada said. “We want to establish urban agriculture and logistics systems as vital components of the infrastructure, enhancing the availability of food for everyone.”
Prior efforts to alleviate this problem focused on consumer behavior and demand-side systems, while supply-side logistics systems, particularly those leveraging existing community assets, went underexplored.
The researchers aim to improve national health outcomes and urban economic vitality by supporting neighborhood-based food production and delivery, developing new planning tools for cities, and expanding opportunities for students and residents to actively participate in designing food distribution systems.
“We aim to create a system that collects data and builds an artificial intelligence-powered tool to help make better decisions about food distribution in cities,” Tejada said.
The tool will look at how food moves through a community by considering transportation systems, delivery methods, and social connections. The researchers are trying something new: combining technology, logistics systems, and community knowledge to understand how these parts work together.
“The system will use tools like spatial analysis, mathematical models, and social science tools to design efficient food delivery plans, but also be shaped by the needs and priorities of local communities,” she said.
In addition, the project integrates the Asset-Based Community Development framework, which focuses on using community strengths and relationships in planning.
“The project focuses on developing interdisciplinary methods to design and optimize urban food distribution networks. To accomplish this, the first step is to set up the right type of data and testable models to build a working prototype of the system,” Tejada said. “Overall, the project aims to transform how we design and model urban food systems by focusing on integrating local freight networks, urban agriculture, and investigating the fundamental mechanisms for connecting the supply and demand of healthy food in ways that are geographically feasible, community-centered, and logistically efficient.”