Fast-food fights in sleepy villages and urban jungles: The importance of community characteristics and policy purpose in debates over fast-food zoning

INTRODUCTION

Over the last decade, communities around the country have proposed zoning policies to restrict fast food restaurants, from a moratorium on new fast food outlets in South Los Angeles to a drive-through ban in Granville, New York. Their reasons for doing so ranged from improving community health to protecting community appearance or the local economy.

METHODS

We examined news coverage, legislative histories and census data to analyze the policy characteristics, community demographics, legislative outcomes and public debates around each fast-food zoning policy proposed between 2001 and 2012.

RESULTS

We identified 100 fast-food zoning policies proposed since 2001; only 20 were proposed in order to improve the local food environment. The nutrition-focused policies were proposed primarily in large, urban, lower-income communities of color, while policies focusing on economics or aesthetics were concentrated in small, majority-White and relatively affluent communities. Nutrition-focused policies tended to be less restrictive, but were still much less likely to pass, and generated substantially more criticism in the news. For example, nutrition-focused proposals were routinely criticized as examples of “nanny-state” government overreach, and critics sometimes used racially-coded language to argue against restrictions on fast food in low-income communities of color.

DISCUSSION

Our findings suggest a number of important implications for public health advocates interested in pursuing zoning policies, including the potential value of emphasizing economic and community appearance co-benefits, and the importance of considering the role of race in shaping the debate around zoning policies.