Speaker
Description
The intersection of food systems and urban planning has proven to be one of the permanent areas of theory and practice over the past two decades and has drawn insights into social studies scholars and urban planning practitioners (Morgan, 2013). While significant progress has been made in understanding and implementing urban food planning efforts, there are pitfalls of the theory and practice that fall short of addressing systemic inequalities and power dynamics within urban food systems. This literature survey, in this manner, offers a critical reading of current sustainable food planning, highlighting fundamental oversights in scale, sector, and agency considerations that impede the achievement of food justice across urban and regional landscapes. Therefore, it presents primary areas of concern in contemporary urban food planning based on readings of the major works in the literature (Brinkley, 2013; Cabannes and Marocchino, 2018; Ilieva, 2020). Then, based on the emphasis or loose considerations of social and spatial patterns in urban foodscapes, it maps out the gaps and areas of negligence in food planning and policy repertoire. Finally, the paper outlines specific recommendations for urban planners and policymakers to address these identified gaps.
Among the roots of theoretical and practical pitfalls of the urban food landscapes, this paper sheds light on three issues in urban food policy and planning frameworks: First, the community and households as the prominent agency; second, the residential neighborhoods as the significant scale of practice; and third, the array of spatial configurations of fresh food wholesale and retail as the target urban sectors to build networks among producers and consumers in regional scales. These three issues led the theory and practice of food planning to overlook the uneven spatial patterns of food landscapes in commercial and industrial districts and workplaces of urban areas and the problems of working populations in these areas, considering issues such as workplace lunches (Wanjek, 2005)Such avoidance misses the possibilities of the labor agency in urban sectors that might expand grassroots endeavors of sustainable food planning toward residents' workplaces. With particular attention to workplaces beyond food retail, the seemingly uncharted territory of private sector food provision in urban planning frameworks might become a field of research and practice in urban food planning. Unfolding these gaps might help address developing labor-centric urban food research and planning via grassroots organizations across workplaces.
References
Brinkley, C. (2013) ‘Avenues into food planning: A review of scholarly food system research’, International planning studies, 18(2), pp. 243–266.
Cabannes, Y. and Marocchino, C. (2018) ‘Food and urban planning: The missing link’, in Integrating Food into Urban Planning. London; Rome: UCL Press; FAO , pp. 18–59.
Ilieva, R.T. (2020) ‘A new frontier for city and regenerative food system builders’, in J. Duncan, M. Carolan, and J.S.C. Wiskerke (eds) Routledge handbook of sustainable and regenerative food systems. Routlegde, pp. 388–405.
Morgan, K. (2013) ‘The rise of urban food planning’, International Planning Studies. Taylor & Francis, pp. 1–4.
Wanjek, C. (2005) Food at work: Workplace solutions for malnutrition, obesity and chronic diseases. International Labour Organization.
| Keywords | Urban Food Planning; Labor Agency; Workplace |
|---|---|
| Best Congress Paper Award | No |
