Travel and mom duties have kept me away for nearly a month and I’ve got a huge backlog of things to write about. But I found this article in my travels today and I just had to share it.

It contains some startling facts about the almost total food desert that exists in Detroit. One factoid: “About 80 percent of the residents of Detroit buy their food at the one thousand convenience stores, party stores, liquor stores, and gas stations in the city.” Walk into a convenience store today if you get the chance and imagine being restricted to the offerings there. Sobering, isn’t it?

However, unlike a lot of articles I’ve read in urban newspapers over the past few years, this one offers an equally startling, innovative solution. Turn the vast tracts of abandoned land in Detroit into cropland. From the article: “An American Institute of Architects panel concludes that all Detroit’s residents could fit comfortably in fifty square miles of land. Much of the remaining ninety square miles could be farmed.”

What an amazing thought. The entire article is highly worth reading and I encourage you all to take the time to do so. Peace out…

Unlike MO State Rep Cynthia Davis, Will Allen has a positive attitude and real-world solutions to the problem of urban food deserts. The world needs more people like this guy.

Rep. Davis would do well to read this article and remediate some of her ignorance. For example, Mr. Allen mentions that, for one housing project in Milwaukee, the nearest grocery store is *three miles* away. For someone making minimum wage without a car, that’s a trip of near wagon-train proportions. Yet there are numerous fast-food restaurants within easy walking distance of the project. There’s something deeply classist about that. Access to wholesome food should be a baseline human right for every person.

I realize I’ve been on a rip about Rep. Davis lately, but it’s because I think the problem of urban hunger is incredibly important. Rep. Davis is probably no more ignorant than most middle- and upper-class Americans about the problem of urban hunger. She just happened to speak up about what she thought she knew. I’m constitutionally incapable of allowing that kind of ignorance to propagate.

In a follow up to my post last week about Missouri state rep Cynthia Davis and her “interesting” attitudes about childhood hunger, I offer Steven Colbert’s commentary from last night.

I would like to issue a public challenge to Ms. Davis to live on the equivalent of a food stamp budget for a month. Get back to me afterwards, Ms. Davis, and let me know if your attitudes have changed. If you would like to contact Ms. Davis you can do so at:

Cynthia.Davis@house.mo.gov
Phone: 573-751-9768
Post Office Mail: 201 W. Capitol Ave., Room 112, Jefferson City, MO 65101

Came across this lovely example of shocking ignorance earlier today. Cynthia Davis is the Republican state representative from Missouri’s 19th District. Unsurprisingly, she represents a county where the median income is over $70,000 (1). Even so, her utter lack of understanding of poverty and hunger issues is nearly incomprehensible. It seems her answer to hunger is suggesting cutting back on Twinkies and getting jobs at McDonalds.

She’s apparently decided that attacking the highly successful summer nutrition program is a good idea. The program provides lunch for children during the summer who would normally receive free or reduced-price lunches during the school year.

She actually asks the question, “Is school the only place a child can get a nutritious meal?” Apparently, Ms. Davis didn’t bother to check her statistics. If she had, she’d have found that 12.4 million children live with the daily risk of going hungry(2). So yes, Ms. Davis. Sometimes, it is.

The most laughable part of the press release is when Ms. Davis recommends teenagers address the problem of going hungry by getting a job at McDonalds where “they will feed you for free.” Um…yeah. Because with a youth unemployment rate of 14% (3) (in 2008…it’s probably even higher now) that is just going to be so easy. Not to mention she harps all through the newsletter on nutrition. McDonald’s, Ms. Davis? Seriously?

I am embarassed to live in a state where the residents elect such a rampantly uninformed, uncaring individual.

(1) St. Louis Regional Chamber & Growth Association
(2) Share Our Strength, Facts on Childhood Hunger
(3) U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Employment and Unemployment Among Youth, 2008