A food desert is a place where the nearest source of fresh food sits far past the people who need it, and where many of those people have no car to close the gap. This is a sculpted view, not a crowd: ten of the hardest-hit counties in the country, each set in the empty space that stands for its distance from fresh food. The fainter and lonelier a point, the heavier its burden of poverty and missing vehicles.
Across the counties studied, 10.6 million people have no vehicle, 13.8 million are eligible for SNAP yet not enrolled, and 9.2 million children live in poverty. Move across the field, or tap a point, to read a single place and its real figures.
Sources: Census ACS (poverty, vehicle access), Census County Business Patterns, USDA Food Access Research Atlas. Figures aggregated across 3,222 counties.