Prohibitive property practices: The impact of restrictive covenants on the built food environment

2018 ◽  
pp. 141-156
Author(s):  
Sugandhi del Canto ◽  
Rachel Engler-Stringer
Keyword(s):  
Low Income ◽  
Food Systems ◽  
Healthy Food ◽  
Government Support ◽  
Alternative Food ◽  
Alternative Food Systems ◽  
Restrictive Covenants ◽  
Food Stores ◽  
Shopping Area ◽  
Built Food Environment

This chapter presents an overview of restrictive covenants as a corporate real estate practice that places conditions on land use, such as prohibiting the sale of food or prohibiting the development of grocery stores. Restrictive covenants are a significant barrier to establishing a new store in older neighbourhoods and the consequences are interconnected: when food stores act as anchors in a community shopping area, their closure can lead to a loss of neighbourhood-level identity and history. Rectifying existing nutrition deserts is much harder than preventing new ones. Alternative food systems are needed and should support urban agriculture, urban greenhouses and cooperative food store models, incentivise the development of mobile healthy food vending, and offer tax abatements or subsidies for healthy food retail in low-income nutrition desert neighbourhoods. Government support is needed to limit restrictive covenants and develop alternative food channels through various creative means.

scholarly journals Alternative Agri-Food Systems Under a Market Agencements Approach: The Case of Multifunctional Farming Activity in a Peri-Urban Area

Environments ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (7) ◽  
pp. 61
Author(s):  
Maria Cecilia Mancini ◽  
Filippo Arfini ◽  
Federico Antonioli ◽  
Marianna Guareschi
Keyword(s):  
Urban Area ◽  
Food Systems ◽  
Food System ◽  
Large Body ◽  
Alternative Food ◽  
Design Stage ◽  
Alternative Food Networks ◽  
Alternative Food Systems ◽  
Design And Implementation ◽  
Trade Offs

(1) Background: A large body of literature is available on the environmental, social, and economic sustainability of alternative food systems, but not much of it is devoted to the dynamics underlying their design and implementation, more specifically the processes that make an alternative food system successful or not in terms of its sustainability aims. This gap seems to be particularly critical in studies concerning alternative food systems in urban and peri-urban agriculture (UPA). This paper explores how the design and implementation of multifunctional farming activity in a peri-urban area surrounding the city of Reggio Emilia in the Emilia-Romagna region of Italy impact the achievement of its sustainability aims. (2) Methods: The environmental, social, and economic components of this project are explored in light of the sociology of market agencements. This method brings up the motivations of the human entities involved in the project, the role played by nonhuman entities, and the technical devices used for the fulfillment of the project’s aims. (3) Results: The alternative food system under study lacked a robust design phase and a shared definition of the project aims among all the stakeholders involved. This ended in a substantial mismatch between project aims and consumer expectations. (4) Conclusions: When a comprehensive design stage is neglected, the threefold aim concerning sustainability might not be achievable. In particular, the design of alternative food systems must take into account the social environment where it is intended to be put in place, especially in UPA, where consumers often live in suburban neighborhoods wherein the sense of community is not strong, thus preventing them from getting involved in a community-based project. In such cases, hybridization can play a role in the sustainability of alternative food networks, provided that some trade-offs occur among the different components of sustainability—some components of sustainability will be fully achieved, while others will not.

scholarly journals Nonhuman Animal Rights, Alternative Food Systems, and the Non-Profit Industrial Complex

PhaenEx ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 209 ◽  
Author(s):  
Corey Lee Wrenn
Keyword(s):  
Animal Rights ◽  
Food Production ◽  
Food Systems ◽  
Nonhuman Animal ◽  
Alternative Food ◽  
Industrial Complex ◽  
Alternative Food Systems ◽  
Non Profit ◽  
Alternative Systems ◽  
Nonhuman Animals

Alternative food systems (namely the humane product movement) have arisen to address societal concerns with the treatment of Nonhuman Animals in food production. This paper presents an abolitionist Nonhuman Animal rights approach (Francione, 1996) and critiques these alternative systems as problematic in regards to goals of considering the rights or welfare of Nonhuman Animals. It is proposed that the trend in social movement professionalization within the structure of a non-profit industrial complex will ultimately favor compromises like “humane” products over more radical abolitionist solutions to the detriment of Nonhuman Animals. This paper also discusses potential compromises for alternative food systems that acknowledge equal consideration for Nonhuman Animals, focusing on grassroots veganism as a necessary component for consistency and effectiveness.

Introduction

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alison Hope Alkon ◽  
Julie Guthman
Keyword(s):  
Food Systems ◽  
Alternative Food ◽  
Transformative Change ◽  
Political Transformation ◽  
Strategic Choices ◽  
Alternative Food Systems ◽  
Race And Class ◽  
To Come ◽  
Economic Inequalities

This chapter argues that food activists need to look beyond the politics of their plates to engage with broader questions of racial and economic inequalities, strategy and political transformation. It grounds the examples that follow in two ongoing scholarly debates. The first regards the role of inequalities, particularly of race and class, in shaping past and present industrial and alternative food systems. The second looks to strategies and tactics. While some have argued that the provision of relatively apolitical alternatives to industrial food systems lays the groundwork for transformative change, the editors of this volume urge activists to follow those profiled in this book towards more cooperative, oppositional and collective strategic choices. The introduction ends with an overview of the chapters to come.

scholarly journals Citizenship and Consumption: Mobilisation in Alternative Food Systems in France

2011 ◽  
Vol 51 (3) ◽  
pp. 304-323 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sophie Dubuisson-Quellier ◽  
Claire Lamine ◽  
Ronan Le Velly
Keyword(s):  
Food Systems ◽  
Alternative Food ◽  
Alternative Food Systems

Stacking Beliefs and Participation in Alternative Food Systems

2015 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 214-229 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laurel Valchuis ◽  
David S. Conner ◽  
Linda Berlin ◽  
Qingbin Wang
Keyword(s):  
Food Systems ◽  
Alternative Food ◽  
Alternative Food Systems

Disruptive Food Supply Chains

2018 ◽  
pp. 826-841
Author(s):  
Tony Beck
Keyword(s):  
Low Income ◽  
Food Systems ◽  
Hybrid Approach ◽  
Social Equity ◽  
Environmental Benefits ◽  
Alternative Food ◽  
Farmers Markets ◽  
Effect Change ◽  
Food Movements ◽  
Alternative Food Movements

Alternative food movements have, from their origins, espoused values of social justice and environmental stewardship in an attempt to challenge existing economic and social norms related to food and farming. Three alternative food movements in North America exemplify the trade-offs between the three pillars of sustainable development: social equity, environment, and economy. Organic food has brought environmental benefits, but has struggled to challenge the status quo and promote the social benefits of the original movement when it goes to scale. Farmers’ markets have brought social and environmental benefits, but only in some cases reduced costs when compared to mainstream market levels. Consequently, good-quality food is often out of reach of low-income groups, as highlighted in a case study of access by underserved people in British Columbia, Canada. Regional food movements are a hybrid approach that balance some of the gains and some of the challenges of these systems. The extraordinary concentration of power in North American food systems stands in contrast to notions of social equity and undermines efforts to effect change in pursuit of sustainable alternative food systems.

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