ANNUAL CONGRESS 2025

Revisiting the City-Region Concept in CRFS: Bridging Theory, Methodology, and Application in the Context of Turin, Italy

Not scheduled

20m

Yildiz Technical University, Istanbul

Oral Track 16 | FOOD

Speaker

Mr Riccardo Giovanni Bruno (Polytechnic of Turin)

Description

This contribution is derived from my broader doctoral thesis on "Urban Food Policies" developed within the context of Turin, Italy, where the local food system and its emerging food policy are investigated using a City-Region Food System (CRFS) approach. The focus of this presentation is the effort, conducted in collaboration with colleagues involved in several projects within the Turin Food Atlas group, to innovate the theoretical-methodological framework behind the construction of the city-region concept within the CRFS context.
Specifically, I conducted a systematic literature review to understand what use of the city-region knowledge, per how understood in urban and economic geography, was made in the CRFS framework and how the latter reflects prior scholar discussions. The review revealed five distinct interpretations of city-region, with a notable dominance of the normative paradigm.
The finding starkly contrasts with earlier literature, which views the city-region as the result of an organic process rather than a normative construct, and highlights the critical need to discuss the methodologies that contribute in selecting the components that constitute a relevant city-region. Drawing on the FAO’s conceptualization of "Territoriality and City-Region"’s pillar, the discussion examines how territoriality shall support the normative delineation of the city-region, with the specific goal of understanding whether it successfully contributes to perimeter contexts that should otherwise emerge from a preceding process rather than be created ad hoc for the research’s purposes.
This theoretical framework, enriched with the Italian Territorialist School knowledge, was tested through the development of a methodology designed to delineate the CRFS using the territoriality concepts as proposed by geographic scholarship also in relation to food systems. This methodology was then applied to the case of Turin, where the CRFS delineation was analyzed across various potential scales (City of Turin, Metropolitan City of Turin, Piedmont Region, Italian North-West industrial triangle of Genoa, Milan and Turin), reflecting the interplay of urban and rural relations in multiple fields.
This research aims to address a significant theoretical gap by critically evaluating the shortcomings in the use of the city-region concept within CRFS studies. Furthermore, it proposes a methodology that, building on existing knowledge, supports the delineation of city-regions that reflect local specificities rather than being the top-down selection of external actors. This approach offers a nuanced tool for scholars and practitioners seeking to integrate territoriality into sustainable food planning at the city-region scale.

References

Allen, J., & Cochrane, A. (2007). Beyond the territorial fix: regional assemblages, politics and power. Regional Studies, 41(9), 1161-1175.
Battersby, J., & Watson, V. (2019). The planned 'city-region' in the New Urban Agenda: an appropriate framing for urban food security? Town Planning Review, 90(5), 497-518.
Blay-Palmer, A., Halliday, J., Santini, G., Carey, J., Malec, R., Taguchi, M., . . . Young, L. (2023). The City Region Food System Broadening Space for Urban Governance. In A. Moragues-Faus, J. Clark, J. Battersby, & A. Davies, Routledge Handbook of Urban Food Governance (p. 353-364). New York: Routledge.
Brenner, N., & Theodore, N. (2002). Spaces of neoliberalism Urban Restructuring in North America and Western Europe. Malden: Blackwell Publishers.
FAO. (2023). Building sustainable and resilient city region food systems Assessment and planning handbook. Rome: FAO.
Rodrìguez-Pose, A. (2008). The Rise of the “City-region” Concept and its Development Policy Implications. European Planning Studies, 16(8), 1025-1046. doi:https://doi.org/10.1080/09654310802315567
Roosendaal, L., Herens, M., de Roo, N., Stuiver, M., Pittore, K., Soma, K., & Hetterscheid, B. (2020). City Region Food System Governance; Guiding principles and lessons learned from case studies around the world. Wageningen: Wageningen Centre for Development Innovation.