To combat the associated risk of food deserts in low-income neighborhoods and stimulate reinvest in the community, the City of Binghamton should establish a food cooperative in the North Side to ensure access to affordable and nutritious food.

Binghamton, NY has a poverty rate of 33.9 percent and two designated food deserts: The most prominent being the North Side. The USDA defines a food desert as an area in a low-income community with limited access to affordable and nutritious food. In 1996, the last full-service grocery store in the North Side closed its doors, leaving the surrounding neighborhood devoid of a reasonably close source of healthy, affordable food. The child poverty rate in Binghamton is 47 percent more than twice as high as the national average of 21 percent. Poverty negatively affects the nutritional value of consumed food and is itself exasperated by food insecurity, increasing the effects of poverty on individuals and families. Without affordable access to proper nutrition, children in low-income families potentially face serious health complications which result in higher municipal costs on welfare programs and health measures. Currently, the North Side relies on convenience stores, local eateries, and fast food outlets. Grocery stores do not open in the North Side because they are profit-driven businesses and have little motive to open in low-income neighborhoods. Binghamton has taken some action to address the issue by funding a mobile kitchen that offers groceries to residents of the North Side. But this is not sufficient to address the problem because the mobile kitchen has a vast area to cover, limiting access in some communities, and the community still lacks a full service grocery store.