Toward a Greater Understanding of Food Access in Melbourne

This is a scoping paper that addresses healthy food access in Melbourne. The investigation is premised the concept of ‘food deserts’, spaces within cities that lack ‘adequate access’ to affordable, healthy food. The paper is more broadly located within the on-going debate around Melbourne’s purported two-track urban growth. However, the paper reframes the discussion away from housing supply/demand asymmetries of such planning dysfunction and instead toward potential disparities in healthy food access. This specific exploration aims to investigate a largely un-researched dimension of Melbourne’s two-track development and sets out a proposed methodology for mapping ‘fresh food’ in the MSD (Melbourne Statistical Division) through the use of empirical data and quantitative methods. Future findings intend to provide a more nuanced, evidence-based understanding of whether two-track development is contributing to differences in healthy food access between inner and outer suburbs as well as their relative magnitudes.