Food Connects Washington DC in 2050—A Vision for Urban Food Systems as the Centerpieces of a Circular Economy

This article presents a vision for an urban food system in Washington DC in 2050 that serves as the centerpiece of a circular economy for the capital region of the United States. Food serves as the connecting link for an inclusive, adaptive, and resilient urban economy embedded in the region. This food economy values natural resources, cultural diversity, and commitment to nature-based innovations. The vision is the result of a three-pronged methodology of: (1) community engagement; (2) a thoughtful, process-focused transformation; and (3) the scaling up of existing urban food initiatives. We argue that small, hyperlocal, neighborhood-based initiatives can become crucial game changers and catalysts of change for entire neighborhoods, cities, and regions. Therefore, we propose a design-based approach to advance our 2050 vision of a circular food system. Our design-based approach consists of three building blocks: (A) systems thinking; (B) the ability to manage wins and tradeoffs; and (C) transitional leadership and cooperation. We explain these building blocks and the way in which they are incorporated in the 2050 vision of Washington DC. We further argue that the food economy is an ideal sector to embark on such a design-based approach due to its systemic nature, its critical position as an indispensable economic sector, and the complex connections it brings to multiple other sectors of the economy. An urban food system can therefore offer the ideal starting point for a transition towards a circular economy.

Food democracy: possibilities under the frame of the current food system

Food democracy is a concept with growing influence in food research. Food democracy deals with how actors may regain democratic control over the food system enabling its sustainable transformation. Following multi-level perspective framework's connotations, food democracy research has so far mainly focused on the niche level of the food system. An integrative approach that includes the perspectives of both the regime and the niche is still missing. This study addresses this research gap and proposes a new conceptual framework for food democracy that includes actors from the niche and the regime level. Furthermore, we apply our conceptual framework to the urban food system of Vienna (Austria) to explore the deeper meaning and practice of food democracy. Finally, we have conducted semi-structured interviews with actors at niche level (10) and regime level (25) within Vienna’s urban food system. Findings from this research broaden the perspective on food democracy and illustrate actors’ contributions at niche and regime level such as promoting organic food, re-localizing food provision, and procuring environmentally sustainable public food. Barriers to food democracy were also identified, e.g.: actors’ self-enhancement values, market-orientation, and capitalist alignment or lack of transparency. We conclude that actors at the niche and, to some extent, at the regime level may contribute to a process of on-going changes that fosters a transformation of established structures within the food system.

Integrating Food Sensitive Planning and Urban Design into Urban Governance Actions

Food access, stability and utilisation are key dimensions of food security at an urban scale. When the majority resided in rural areas, and lived predominantly agrarian lifestyles, it made sense for the state to govern food security through national agricultural ministries, focusing predominantly on the availability dimension of food security. With the transition to a majority urban world, coupled with the food security challenges currently experienced in urban areas, specifically in Africa, these historical policy and governance structures are increasingly inadequate in responding to essential food and nutrition needs. Problematically, urban areas, and specifically urban managers, cite unfunded mandates, and absent authority, as the reasons for not engaging food and nutrition governance responses. This paper argues that this is a false position. Drawing on recent data from household food security and poverty surveys, the paper calls for new and expanded planning and design approaches at the urban scale. The paper argues that spatial planning and urban design principles and actions provide an immediate and effective means through which to engage urban food system questions. Importantly these actions are essential to the transition from the current piecemeal project responses to urban food system inadequacies. Food sensitive planning and urban design is offered as a specific approach that could assist in programming food system–related challenges at the urban scale, responding to conceptual, analytical, organisational and design related dimensions of planning, and in so doing offering a longer term, systematic response to urban food insecurity.

Urban Food Systems: A Bibliometric Review from 1991 to 2020

The increase of urbanization is affecting the urban food system (UFS) in many areas, primarily production, processing, and consumption. The upgrading of the urban food consumption structure not only puts forward higher food production requirements, but also poses a challenge to resource consumption and technological innovation. Considerable case or review studies have been conducted on UFS, but there is no bibliometric review attempting to provide an objective and comprehensive analysis of the existing articles. In this study, we selected 5360 research publications from the core Web of Science collection from 1991 to 2020, analyzing contributions of countries, institutions, and journals. In addition, based on keyword co-occurrence and clustering analyses, we evaluated the research hotspots of UFS. The results show that global research interest in UFS has increased significantly during these three decades. The USA, China, and the UK are the countries with the highest output and closest collaborations. UFS research involves multiple subject categories, with environmental disciplines becoming mainstream. Food security, food consumption, and food waste are the three main research areas. We suggest that food sustainability and resilience, food innovation, and comparative studies between cities should be given more attention in the future.

Forecasting Agroforestry Ecosystem Services Provision in Urban Regeneration Projects: Experiences and Perspectives from Milan

The expansion of urban agglomerates is causing significant environmental changes, while the demand and need for sustainability keep on growing. In this context, urban and peri-urban agriculture can play a crucial role, mainly if associated with an agroecological approach. Indeed, the extensive use of living fences and tree rows can improve the environmental quality, assuring ecosystem services (ES), developing a sustainable urban food system and increasing local productions and the related socio-economic improvements. This study aims to assess the benefits of an agroecological requalification of a dismissed peri-urban area in the South Milan Agricultural Regional Park (Italy), by evaluating two possible scenarios, both involving planting trees and shrubs in that area. The software I-Tree Eco simulates the ecosystem services provision of planting new hedgerows, evaluating the benefits over 30 years. The study underlines the difference between the two scenarios and how the planted area becomes an essential supplier of regulating ecosystem services for the neighbourhoods, increasing carbon storage and air pollution removal. Results were then analysed with a treemap, to better investigate and understand the relationship between the different ecosystem services, showing a notable increase in carbon sequestration at the end of the simulation (at year 30). The study shows a replicable example of a methodology and techniques that can be used to assess the ES in urban and peri-urban environments.

Mapping the production-consumption gap of an urban food system: an empirical case study of food security and resilience

Urban food systems are complex and increasingly recognised as not being sustainable, equitable or resilient. Though globalisation and lengthening of agrifood supply chains has brought many benefits, such as year-long availability of fresh produce and modernisation opportunities for some developing regions, they have increased reliance on food imports and reduced the food and nutrition resilience of many cities. This premise has been widely witnessed following recent financial, climatic and pandemic driven disruptions to food supplies. A greater understanding is thus needed of the lived reality of a modern city’s ability to sustainably and equitably feed itself in a crisis situation or otherwise. In a changing world, such knowledge is valuable on a variety of strategic planning levels. Employing publically available data, the scale of food security and resilience, and options for their improvement, are holistically assessed through a case study spatial analysis of the urban food system of the city of Leeds in the United Kingdom. The case study found that the Leeds city region is home to a significant and diverse food production and provision system, but it is not food secure in terms of providing sufficient energy or macronutrients, or functioning in an equitable manner for all of its residents. Options for improving the performance of the system, including urban farming and industrial symbiosis, were found to be nuanced and would only be effective alongside a range of complimentary interventions as well as high levels of investment, multi-sector cooperation and strong governance. Though food system evolution and development are grounded in local context, the methods, general findings and circular economy focussed recommendations emanating from the case study, are widely applicable.

Sustainable Urban Agro Ecology and Its Implications With Food Systems

This chapter has the aim to analyze the implications and interrelationships between a sustainable urban agro ecology and the food system. The beginning assumption of this analytical review considers that sustainable urban agro ecology has positive implications in the development of a sustainable urban food system. The analysis is based on the theoretical and empirical literature review confronted with common spatial-functional observations of urban development and configurations. The analysis concludes that the sustainable urban food system based on agro ecology is growing as an alternative movement towards the building and maintenance of a fairer and healthier urban sustainable environmental development.

Supplying Barcelona: The Role of Public Market Halls in the Construction of the Urban Food System

The origin of Barcelona’s food system can be determined at the time when open-air markets were moved to covered spaces. Since then, market halls have adapted to many different scenarios: they have been the built form of public support for food sanitary control, a guarantee of quality and variety of edibles or a tool for the regeneration of urban fabrics. While in the second half of the twentieth-century comparable market systems in other European cities began to decline, half of the thirty-eight active markets at the end of the 2010s were built out of time in the city as a result of a public policy that accompanied urban expansion through the consolidation of small neighborhood centers. With the development of the so-called “Barcelona model” of regeneration of public space in the 1990s, markets became key pieces for urban transformation through food supply systems, a strategy still in force today.