The Stores That Planning Doesn’t See
What immigrant supermarkets on Buffalo’s East Side reveal about how cities really work
For years, large sections of Buffalo’s East Side have appeared in planning reports and public discussions under a familiar label: food desert. In public health and urban planning research, the term refers to neighborhoods where residents have limited access to affordable and nutritious food, particularly fresh produce and staple groceries (Walker, Keane, and Burke 2010).
The policy logic that follows is straightforward. If a neighborhood lacks a full service grocery store, the solution is to attract one. Cities offer incentives. States create financing programs. Development agencies search for retailers willing to anchor new food infrastructure.
Yet the lived reality on Buffalo’s East Side complicates this narrative.
Walk along several commercial corridors in the area and a different food system becomes visible. Small immigrant run supermarkets and specialty grocery stores operate along neighborhood streets. Their shelves carry fresh vegetables, plantains, cassava, spices, rice, goat meat, and other staples tied to the culinary traditions of the city’s growing African, Middle Eastern, and South Asian communities. Customers arrive on foot, by bus, or by car to shop for daily meals.
These stores rarely appear in official food access narratives. Yet they function every day as reliable food providers for the surrounding neighborhoods.
Their presence raises a deeper analytical question:
What does it mean when planning frameworks describe a neighborhood as lacking food access even though local food systems are already working there?
The planning model of food access
Food access policy in the United States has long been organized around the idea of the supermarket as the anchor of healthy food environments. Programs designed to combat food deserts frequently aim to attract full service grocery stores into underserved areas through public subsidies and development incentives.
This approach has shaped federal and state initiatives such as the Healthy Food Financing Initiative, which seeks to stimulate grocery investment in communities identified as lacking supermarket access.
Researchers studying urban food environments increasingly argue that such models rely on simplified definitions of access. Many food desert measurements focus primarily on proximity to supermarkets while overlooking smaller grocery stores, ethnic markets, and culturally specific retailers that residents may depend on for everyday food provisioning (Walker, Keane, and Burke 2010).
As a result, neighborhoods can be classified as lacking access even when diverse networks of smaller food retailers operate within them.
Buffalo’s East Side and the overlooked food system
Buffalo’s East Side offers a clear example of the gap between policy frameworks and everyday urban life.
During the past two decades, the area has become home to growing immigrant and refugee populations from countries across Africa, Southeast Asia, and the Middle East. Alongside these demographic changes, a network of ethnic supermarkets and food retailers has emerged across neighborhood commercial corridors.
These businesses did not arise through large development initiatives. Instead they developed gradually through small scale entrepreneurship that responded to the daily needs of nearby communities.
Their success is grounded in practical realities.
Many of these stores are located within walking distance of residential neighborhoods and public transportation routes. For residents without reliable access to cars, this proximity significantly shapes where food purchases occur.
These markets also stock foods that align with the cooking traditions of the communities they serve. Instead of generic assortments of produce, customers find ingredients necessary for specific cuisines. Cultural familiarity becomes part of food access.
Small retailers are also able to adapt inventory quickly in response to demand. If a product sells well, the next shipment reflects that demand. If a new community arrives in the neighborhood, the store adjusts its offerings.
Taken together, these characteristics create a system of food provisioning that is embedded in daily life rather than imposed through large retail models.
Evidence from food access research
Urban food researchers have increasingly recognized the importance of ethnic markets in neighborhoods frequently described as food deserts.
In a study of food environments in San Diego, Joassart Marcelli, Rossiter, and Bosco (2017) found that ethnic food retailers often provide fresh and affordable foods while serving as culturally meaningful community spaces. These markets supply food that reflects the dietary practices of immigrant communities while strengthening local food security.
Other studies of neighborhood food environments have also shown that smaller grocery stores can contribute significantly to healthy food access when evaluated through consumer behavior rather than through store classification systems (Cummins and Macintyre 2002).
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These findings suggest that ethnic supermarkets may challenge conventional assumptions about what constitutes adequate food infrastructure.
When conventional grocery strategies struggle
At the same time that immigrant supermarkets have expanded across Buffalo’s East Side, efforts to introduce or sustain traditional grocery store models in American cities have produced uneven results.
Large grocery projects often involve significant capital investment and public support. These stores are frequently expected to function not only as places to buy food but also as anchors of neighborhood economic development.
Research indicates that introducing supermarkets into underserved neighborhoods does not automatically improve dietary behavior or shopping patterns. A study examining new grocery stores in low income communities found that while residents welcomed the additional retail option, their overall food purchasing habits often remained largely unchanged (Cummins et al. 2014).
Food access is influenced by more than store type. Routine, cultural preferences, transportation, pricing, and familiarity all play important roles in shaping where people buy food.
When these factors are overlooked, well intentioned interventions may fail to align with the everyday realities of neighborhood life.
Urban adaptation and everyday infrastructure
The growth of immigrant supermarkets on Buffalo’s East Side illustrates a broader pattern within cities.
Urban systems frequently evolve through gradual adaptation rather than centralized planning. When formal institutions fail to meet everyday needs, residents and entrepreneurs develop alternative systems that become embedded within the urban landscape.
Urban scholars sometimes describe these systems as informal infrastructure. These are networks of services and businesses that operate outside official frameworks yet perform essential functions for communities.
Ethnic supermarkets on the East Side exemplify this dynamic. They provide stable food access not because they were designed through policy intervention but because they respond directly to neighborhood demand.
Their continued growth reflects a basic principle of urban life. Practical solutions often emerge from the ground up.
Rethinking food access
The concept of the food desert has helped highlight inequalities in urban food systems. However, the example of Buffalo’s East Side suggests that this framework can sometimes obscure the presence of alternative forms of food provisioning.
Rather than focusing exclusively on the absence of supermarkets, planners may benefit from examining the food ecosystems that residents already rely on.
Understanding food access requires attention to the stores people actually use, the cultural practices that shape food purchasing decisions, and the neighborhood networks that sustain local retail.
Approaching the issue from this perspective shifts the conversation away from deficit narratives and toward recognition of existing systems.
Lessons for cities
The dynamics visible on Buffalo’s East Side are not unique. Across many American cities, immigrant entrepreneurs have built grocery stores, markets, and specialty food retailers that serve communities often described as underserved.
These businesses operate with limited institutional support, yet they demonstrate remarkable resilience.
Recognizing their role does not mean abandoning efforts to improve food access. It means expanding the range of solutions that planning frameworks acknowledge.
Cities are complex and adaptive environments. Their most durable systems often emerge not from formal design but from the practical intelligence of the people who inhabit them.
Buffalo’s East Side offers a simple lesson.
Sometimes the infrastructure that sustains a neighborhood is not the one planners design.
It is the one residents quietly build for themselves.
References:
Cummins, Steven, and Sally Macintyre. 2002. A Systematic Study of an Urban Foodscape: The Price and Availability of Food in Greater Glasgow. Urban Studies.
Cummins, Steven, et al. 2014. New Neighborhood Grocery Store Increased Awareness but Did Not Alter Dietary Habits. Health Affairs.
Joassart Marcelli, Pascale, Jaime Rossiter, and Fernando Bosco. 2017. Ethnic Markets and Community Food Security in an Urban Food Desert. Environment and Planning A.
Walker, Renee E., Christopher R. Keane, and Jessica G. Burke. 2010. Disparities and Access to Healthy Food in the United States: A Review of Food Deserts Literature. Health and Place.
