Project Description

To create the report, the Studio will:

Determine the extent of hunger in Trenton

Document the food delivery system

Identify and map the points of food delivery

Document the public food assistance system

Explore what people know about food and how they behave

The Spring 2005 Graduate Community Development Studio in the Urban Planning and Policy Development Program at Rutgers University is working with Isles. Inc., a community development corporation, in Trenton, New Jersey. Isles’ staff asked for assistance to develop a report about access to healthy food in Trenton. Isles will use the report to better understand food availability and consumption in Trenton. The organization will also use the report to work for change to improve the delivery of healthy, affordable food to all Trenton residents.

Isles

Created in 1981, Isles has become a leader in the community development movement. Isles’ citywide scope and broad approach to community development sets it apart from other community based organizations. Among its many programmatic areas, Isles addresses environmental improvement, neighborhood planning, regional organizing, housing development, and community gardens. Community gardening, the organization’s first program, was intended to improve community food security by making good food more accessible. Today, Isles has forty-three gardens, engages youth through urban ecology, exercise, nutrition, and educational programs; it also tackles brownfield redevelopment, and develops strategies to otherwise improve community health especially around lead and asthma. Isles is concerned about community access to healthy food in Trenton.

Community Development Studio

Community Development Studio courses provide graduate students in planning and public policy with opportunities to work directly with non profit community organizations on a real project in real world contexts. Professors Glickman and Newman have co-taught the Community Development studio for the past four years. Materials and information about previous projects are available at http://policy.rutgers.edu/cupr/rcopc

Faculty

Norman Glickman, an economist, is University Professor. His research has spanned community development, econometric modeling, foreign direct investment, and Japanese urban policy. He is at work on a study of the role of community organizations in the education of inner city children for the National Science Foundation and a national survey of the training needs of community based organizations. Glickman received his degrees from the University of Pennsylvania and taught at Penn and the University of Texas at Austin before coming to Rutgers. From 1989 to 2000, he served as Director of the Center for Urban Policy Research.

Kathe Newman, a political scientist, is an Assistant Professor in the Urban Planning and Policy Development Program. Her research focuses on urban change, community development, urban politics, housing mortgage finance, and gentrification. She is the co-director of the Rutgers Community Outreach Partnership Center. Newman has published in Environment and Planning A, Housing Studies, Urban Affairs Review, and GeoJournal.