Low Access to Supermarkets (USDA 2019 Map)

Limitations

One release, not a series: where Georgia's 2010 Census population lived relative to the supermarkets, supercenters and large grocery stores of 2019 (year 2019 labels the store list; see year_meaning). A resident has low access when the nearest such store is more than a set straight-line distance away: by USDA's main definition (distance_threshold 1_mile_urban_10_miles_rural) more than 1 mile in an urban census tract and more than 10 miles in a rural one. The thresholds nest: pick one. Not USDA's 'food desert' (low-income and low-access tract) designation: this counts everyone beyond the distance, at any income and in any tract. County and state figures are our calculation: ERS publishes 2010 census tracts, which do not match the 2020 tracts, so each county row sums its tracts' counts and 2010 populations (Georgia's 159 counties did not change between 2010 and 2020) and the share is the summed count over the summed population. Distance is straight-line, from the center of each half-kilometer grid cell where ERS placed the population (from 2010 census blocks) to the center of the cell with the nearest store: not travel distance, and blind to roads, vehicles, transit, prices and store quality. Other food sources (convenience and dollar stores, small grocers, farmers' markets) do not count. A county's figure at the urban/rural thresholds mixes its urban tracts (the 1-mile or half-mile rule) and its rural tracts (10 or 20 miles); ERS calls a tract rural when its population-weighted center is outside any urban area of 2,500 or more people. Where nobody lives beyond the distance, ERS writes NULL (no value) in place of a tract's count; those tracts count as 0 here (ERS flags none of them as low access at that distance, and none has anyone at a farther distance). Tract counts are ERS's whole-number estimates, so a 0, a tract's or a county's, can be a fraction of a person rounded down rather than nobody (a few tracts show a count of 0 beside a positive share), and sums can differ by a few people from ERS's own unrounded county figures. Residents of group quarters (dormitories, barracks, prisons, nursing homes: 253,199 Georgians in ERS's file) count where they live, though many have food provided on site; ERS marks 10 Georgia tracts where at least 67% of residents live in group quarters. Not comparable with USDA's 2025 SNAP-authorized Retailer Access Map (SRAM): it counts any SNAP-authorized store (including convenience and dollar stores), on 2020 tracts with 2020 population, so never splice the two or read a trend between them. ERS expects a new version of this map in winter 2026-27, which would be a separate release. ERS's file lists 1,957 Georgia tracts; the 2010 tracts it leaves out have no residents (its population adds up to Georgia's 2010 Census count, 9,687,653). ERS suppresses nothing, and there are no NULLs; a 0 means nobody, or by ERS's estimate less than one person, lives beyond the distance. Not served: ERS's counts for low-income people, children, seniors, race and ethnicity groups and households without a vehicle, its tract flags, and tract rows. tract_geoid is always NULL.