[3] The lack of transportation options present in transit deserts may have negative effects of people’s health, job prospects, and economic mobility.
[4][5][6][7] The term 'desert' has been variously applied to areas that lack key services like banks, food access, or even books.
[8][9][10] The idea of transit deserts was coined by Junfeng Jiao and Maxwell Dillivan, first appearing in print in 2013.
[1] Since that time, the concept of transit deserts has been expanded upon and competing definitions and measurement techniques have emerged.
[14] Sometimes this definition has been expanded or slightly redefined to refer areas that lack a certain type of transportation such as "subway deserts".