The making of a racialized place: the production of race-based inequities in Newark

Keywords: Urban geography, historical geography, Black geographies, food geographies
Abstract Type: Virtual Paper Abstract

Abstract

This work investigates the production of uneven food access in the Black neighborhoods of Newark, New Jersey from its foundation in the late 17th century to the present day. I analyzed historic city directories, documents, and maps, as well as relevant federal policies to determine the urban processes explaining race-based economic, food, and health inequities as well as the current spatial distribution of food stores in Newark. The spatial processes of residential segregation, industrialization followed by deindustrialization, suburbanization, urban renewal, and gentrification shaped the city’s present food environment. Prior to the Civil War, Newark’s Black community was located in an integrated working-class neighborhood in the heart of the city closest to Newark’s burgeoning factories. At this time, residential segregation was based on class more than on race. However, with the first wave of gentrification and the arrival of freed Southern Blacks after the Civil War, Black Newarkers found themselves displaced and more and more segregated by race. My findings also highlight the interplay between local, state, and federal governments which all contributed to uneven food access in Newark. While racist economic, housing, and transportation policies set a national framework for economic, food, and health inequities, my work shows that the local city government also bears responsibility for segregating Black Newarkers in sub-standard public housing projects in the inner city with very little physical access to food retailers due to poor urban planning associated with many urban renewal projects as well as economic development projects.