RESEARCH

COLLABORATIVE PLANNING VIA URBAN AGRICULTURE: THE CASE OF TEGUCIGALPA, HONDURAS

Journal of Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems

The city of Tegucigalpa today is a result of the rural-urban migration phenomenon triggered in the 1950s across Honduras, and the accompanying blueprint models of urban development at the time. Nowadays, the city is dominated by social disparity, urban violence, and environmental degradation. We question the adequacy of Tegucigalpa’s top-down planning system, and explore the concept of urban agriculture (UA) as a multifaceted lever that can provide building blocks for an alternative bottom-up strategy to address the intricate web of problems. Noteworthy among our discoveries is the potential of school gardens to serve as a channel for strategically achieving community goals. UA is a result of the citizens’ need to overcome food insecurity and hardship in the city. Still, the topic of active citizenship and bottom-up development is not yet consolidated in Tegucigalpa. Moreover, the city poses challenges regarding the resources needed for practicing UA and the diffusion of knowledge to the population. Nevertheless, steps must be further taken towards considering UA and its social assets—which may compensate the unfavorable access to resources in the urban area.

XIAMEN CALL TO ACTION: BUILDING THE BRAIN OF THE CITY—UNIVERSAL PRINCIPLES OF URBAN HEALTH

Perspective Piece for the Journal of Urban Health

The question of how to achieve healthy, sustainable urban futures demands a singular emphasis. The scale and rate of change of modern urbanization is unprecedented—so much so that it threatens the health gains of the past century. Urbanization is the greatest ecological shift in human history, and in modern times has attained dimensions never seen before.

In a meeting in Xiamen, China, the International Council for Science’s global, transdisciplinary science program on Systems Science for Urban Health and Wellbeing (UHWB), in collaboration with Future Earth’s Health Knowledge-Action Network (FE Health KAN), highlighted the need for innovative new approaches to making urban environments healthier. Health experts, researchers, city planners and decision-makers agreed on the Xiamen Call for Action. This call brings together several intellectual pieces over the course of several years’ work in the urban health space by a range of different actors—representing the latest state-of-the-art on what is needed for urban health and societal engagement.