Building more grocery stores won’t necessarily make things better. Sometimes grocery stores are unaffordable to their surrounding communities. Sociologists have started using the term “food mirage” to describe the phenomenon when there are places to buy food, but they are too expensive for the neighborhood. And, as Karen Washington and research from Johns Hopkins University highlight, people who live in the places labeled “food deserts” most of the time do have food, but often the food they can afford is fast food or junk food. People who work in public health have come up with another term for areas with easier access to fast food and junk food than to healthier food: “food swamps.” Rather than simply building grocery stores, some of these communities need stable jobs and a livable wage to change their access to healthier food.
https://www.nrdc.org/experts/nina-sevilla/food-apartheid-racialized-access-healthy-affordable-food