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Multiply-deserted areas: environmental racism and food, pharmacy, and greenspace access in the Urban South

ABSTRACT Unequal access to important resources like grocery stores, pharmacies, and parks in the urban built environment has been a significant social problem under study by social scientists. Drawing from work in urban and environmental justice studies that conceptualize racism as a structural factor that shapes environmental inequality, I assess spatial inequality in urban cities across the southern USA. Utilizing data from the U.S. Census, U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), the National Provider Identifier (NPI) registry, and county and state government websites, I examine the relevance of race and class to the existence of neighborhoods as single or multiple resource deserts, coined multiply-deserted areas (MDAs). Results indicate that predominantly Black neighborhoods are more than twice as likely to be resource deserts, even after adjusting for class. Additionally, predominantly Black neighborhoods are nearly three times as likely to have more intense, compounded resource scarcity than other neighborhoods. Moreover, results indicate a race and class interaction effect such that a predominantly Black neighborhood has increased odds of being a multiply-deserted area as median household income increases. The findings implicate yet another route through which racism shapes inequality and demonstrate a need to address racial differences in access to resources across socioeconomic status.