Addressing Bogotás food deserts
through public space improvements

City: Bogotá, Colombia
Year: 2020 — present
Status: Piloting

Local partners: Bogotá Health Secretariat, Despacio, Maya Tejedores de la Tierra, Huerta Orellanas, Oasis by Fondacio, and Fuerza Ambiental

Read the full report in English here.
Lea el informe completo en español aquí.

 

San Luis Chapinero, the location of this project’s pilot study, is a neighbourhood at the outskirts of Bogotá.

In Colombia, where 50% of the population is food insecure, Gehl partnered with Cities Changing Diabetes, Bogotá’s Public Space and Public Health Secretariats, and Despacio to envision a built environment that improves community-wide access to nutritious food in Bogotá.

The Challenge

The public realm poses a major challenge to accessing healthy food in many peripheral neighbourhoods of Bogotá

Bogotá is home to a diverse and distinctive cuisine that includes a variety of locally grown produce. Despite this, many people living on the outskirts of the city lack access to fresh, culturally appropriate, and nutritious food – on the contrary, they rely on ultra processed daily meals that negatively impact their health.

To better understand these challenges and assess the forces driving high rates of food insecurity in Bogotá, Gehl used the Thriving Foodscapes Approach to conduct a comprehensive Foodscape Assessment, in partnership with the Bogotá Health Secretariat. They found that people's greatest barrier to eating nutritious food and attaining a healthy lifestyle were challenges posed by the public realm – not cost barriers as previously believed.

Steep terrain, lack of transportation, and limited access to healthy food offerings make it difficult for Bogotanos living in peripheral neighbourhoods to access the fresh produce they need to cook healthy meals at home. The nature of the public realm forces them to rely on processed and fast food that is more accessible and heavily advertised.

Quick facts

Foodscape assessment

Studying four food deserts in Bogotá

In 2020, Gehl and the Bogotá Health Secretariat chose to study four neighbourhoods on the urban edges of Bogotá, all of which were considered food deserts. These neighbourhoods were hardest hit during the pandemic and had high rates of health issues like obesity, which made their local populations more vulnerable to COVID-19.

Methods used

  • To understand everyday life in the two neighbourhoods, the team conducted a Foodscape specific Public Space and Public Life Survey (PSPL). During the PSPL, the team observed people moving through the neighbourhoods, who they were and how they were moving. Additionally, the team recorded people staying in the neighbourhood, who they were, if they were alone or with others and what they were doing. This PSPL data gave the team a comprehensive understanding of how public life unfolds in the four neighbourhoods on a day-to-day basis.

  • The team mapped food places in the neighbourhoods, paying attention to the kinds of food available and visual cues that made certain kinds of food seem more appealing.

  • To collect qualitative insights about how people feel about the food options available to them, the team spoke with passers-by and food vendors. The intercept surveys were designed to understand how the built environment affected everyday food habits.

    Fifty five percent of people surveyed identified challenges related to the experience and quality of the built environment as a barrier to accessing healthy food. Furthermore, 50% of surveyed residents shared that they don’t believe food impacts their health.

  • The onsite team carried out a qualitative assessment of public space using the Urban Quality Assessment method. The team evaluated if spaces made people feel safe and secure, if they provided opportunities to stop, stay, talk and play, if they were at human scale, and if they provided a pleasant sensory experience.

Gehl and the Bogotá Health Secretariat used foodscapes methods to understand food access challenges in four food deserts in Bogotá.

The team utilized Thriving Foodscape methods to understand how the public realm contributes to health issues and identify opportunities to invite for healthier food choices among residents. By deploying a combination of observational techniques, surveys, and quality assessments, the team generated a new understanding of residents' lived experiences through quantitative and qualitative lenses.

Faced with pandemic related challenges and limited access to technology and internet on site, Gehl developed paper-based survey tools to conduct the research. Because of travel restrictions, Gehl and local partner Despacio recruited a team of six local volunteers and trained them in Thriving Foodscape methods through a series of online workshops. The volunteers then collected data in the four neighbourhoods and gathered invaluable quantitative and qualitative information.

Food places lack basic amenities, such as seating, tables, and shade. Storefronts are also opaque and do not signal what food is offered inside.

Street vendors are adapting to this lack of amenities, despite inhospitable conditions. With novel DIY solutions, people can enjoy food in public space.

Synthesis of key findings

Overall, the study revealed that the public realm makes it more difficult for people to choose healthy lifestyles

The four neighbourhoods offer different food experiences, and the quality of food offerings and public space types vary. Despite these differences, 55% of all people surveyed identified challenges related to the experience and quality of the built environment as a barrier to accessing healthy food. Gehl found that most residents cook and eat at home, yet struggle to get their daily produce. This is primarily due to the lack of connectivity to healthy food options within the public realm.

The team found that when available, grocery stores along neighbourhood access routes are difficult to navigate and 75% of the food offered is ultra-processed. Adding to these challenges, advertising along these routes champions processed food options. The prevalence of advertising and the ubiquity of ultra processed food not only impacts residents’ health but also how they think about food and it's relationship to leading a healthy lifestyle. Fifty percent of surveyed residents shared that they don’t believe food impacts their health.

Transit stops are common eating places, but lack basic amenities and much of the food available is unhealthy

Compounding these issues is the time spent commuting in these neighbourhoods. Forty percent of people dedicate more than 60 minutes to commuting daily and 25% of people eat their meals in public space or in transit. The team observed what types of food were most plentiful at transit stops and what types of food people were carrying with, using Cities Changing Diabetes's definitions of healthy versus unhealthy foods. Overall, 40% of food sold at transit stops was ultra processed and unhealthy.

Bogotanos who spend much of their time commuting rely on food places at transit stops, but food places nearby lack basic public infrastructure for eating, like places to sit. Oftentimes, mobile vendors in transit areas see the need for safe and comfortable places to enjoy food and respond by bringing stools and small tables for their customers to use. In doing so they offer a two-fold service: affordable food options in lower income areas and gathering spaces for the community (vendors recognize this value: Fifty percent of vendors felt they bring more than just food to their communities). Despite these efforts, transit centres are still difficult to navigate, with an opportunity to improve seating options and increase healthy food offerings.

Strategic planning

Six pillars for a Healthy Foodscape

With these findings and challenges in mind, Gehl and the City of Bogotá considered the question: How might we advance a place-based healthy foodscape strategy in Bogotá?

The team devised six overarching strategies that can be applied through public space, programming, and policy to address the barriers Bogotanos face to making healthy food choices. These pillars will serve as directives for the city to use moving forward to guide their efforts in creating healthier foodscapes.

  1. Cluster food along safe routes
    Food places should be clustered along key pedestrian routes and create safe and inviting destinations for the community to gather and enjoy healthy food options.

  2. Foster food identity
    Celebrate Colombian culture and identity through food. Forefront traditional ingredients and recipes, support local growers and entrepreneurs, and build pride around traditional culinary rituals. Raise awareness around the impact of unhealthy food choices.

  3. Make healthy food convenient
    Meet the demand for food options where people are already spending their time. Equip busy transit centres with a diversity of healthy food offerings and places to sit to enjoy meals in comfort while waiting for transit.

  4. Support corner stores
    Dignify and recognize produce vendors and family-run stores who play an essential role in the community by supporting bottom up initiatives through land use planning and policy.

  5. Consider daily routines
    Accommodate peoples' lives and daily routines by making access to healthy food accessible during commute hours.

  6. Expand efficient delivery
    Expand the micro-delivery network for healthy food to alleviate residents' burden of carrying groceries along steep terrain.

Pilot Design

The Healthy School Environment Pilot

With the six pillars in mind, Gehl, the City of Bogotá, and Despacio selected the neighbourhood of San Luis Chapinero as a site to pilot solutions. San Luis Chapinero experienced many of the dynamics and challenges seen in the overall study area, and several health-related community groups were already active in the neighbourhood; leveraging these existing efforts and relationships would make for a successful pilot site.

The team selected bus stop and sidewalks outside the Monteverde School as a pilot site for three key reasons. First, public life analysis found that the space outside the school was very 'sticky', meaning that the area not only attracted a large amount of pedestrian traffic, but also saw a high number of people stopping and spending time there. This presented an opportunity to create a better public space experience for those people while also providing healthy food options. Second, the area around the school is home to a diverse community in terms of socioeconomics and age mix. The team believed that this diversity would help the pilot reach a wider audience in the neighbourhood. Finally, the Monteverde School was an interested local partner with the capacity to operate and oversee the pilot project.

The purpose of the pilot was to create an active, healthy foodscape around the school by addressing the challenges identified in the Foodscape Assessment. Specifically, through the pilot project the team hoped to achieve:

  1. Increased access to information and healthy food offer
    — Connect school initiatives and local organizations with residents
    — Increase community involvement in neighbourhood initiatives
    — Increase knowledge of the impact of diet on health

  2. Increased levels of physical activity in the public realm
    — Create opportunities for outdoor recreation and active recreation
    — Increase the active stay of people of different ages
    — Increase the daily flow of pedestrians and people who remain in public space

  3. Inspire social interaction in the public realm
    — Encourage social exchange in the public sphere around activities
    — Increase the sense of belonging and the levels of perception of security
    — Improve the public transport waiting experience

To create and implement the pilot, Gehl partnered with local organizations Maya Tejedores de la Tierra, Huerta Orellanas, Oasis by Fondacio, and Fuerza Ambiental. The project kicked off with a thorough community engagement process that included students, teachers, and the community board coming together in a visioning exercise. This co-visioning led to the concept of enhancing an existing bus stop by creating a wooden shelter and seating, a public mural, and a vertical garden of edible fruit and herbs.

The bus stop outside the local school is being used for drop-off and pick-up each day.

Students eating lunch at one of the new tables the pilot introduced.

The pilot included spaces to inform passers by and the local community healthy dietary behaviours.

As part of the pilot project, an educational mural was painted by the school. This section of the mural was painted by Maya Cifuentes, the founder of ‘Maya tejedores de la tierra’, a local organization that grows local food in urban farms in San Luis and teaches people how to cultivate their own produce.

Impact Assessment

Impacts of the Healthy Food Environment Pilot

The intervention was successful in encouraging more and healthier eating habits around the school, making the space feel more welcoming and safe, and increased the number of people walking by the site. After the pilot was installed, the following changes were observed:

  • Food activities increased by 240%, including an increase in observations of healthy food consumption.

  • 60% of people surveyed reported that they felt inspired to introduce more healthy meals in their diets.

  • 22% more people reported that the space was pleasant to spend time in.

  • Concerns about safety at the site decreased by 50%

  • 81% more people walked by the area, including 9% more women than before.

Want to learn more?

Check out our other case studies or explore the methods used.