African American owned grocery stores: A framework for food policy development

The purpose of this thesis is to 1) enhance the sustainability of grocery stores locating to the inner city, 2) strengthen the existing grocery stores in the inner city and 3) support existing businesses that have a good relationship in the community. Capital and investment has played a major role in the inner city. Supermarkets are one of the many manifestations of this capital investment. Current policies today---the funding and support for supermarkets in neighborhoods---call into question their relationship to the inner city. African American owned supermarkets are important to look at because they are examples of private capital that have had a fundamentally different relationship to inner city neighborhoods. They are instances in which resources have been leveraged to develop a business in spite of lack of financing, government subsidy, and security costs. Their narratives are important because they point to some of the deep challenges policy makers face and will continue to face if food access is not thought of as a manifestation of a much larger issue: lack of transformative community development. Their narratives encourage policy makers to inject the right kinds of capital into communities.