Proceedings dec2015 part 1 [cover + pp 1-439] by AESOP TORINO 2015

LOCALIZING URBAN FOOD STRATEGIES FARMING CITIES AND PERFORMING RURALITY 7TH INTERNATIONAL AESOP SUSTAINABLE FOOD PLANNING CONFERENCE PROCEEDINGS TURIN, ITALY 7‐9 OCTOBER 2015 Edited by Giuseppe Cinà and Egidio Dansero Editorial coordination by Stefania Guarini, Franco Fassio, Alessia Toldo and Giacomo Pettenati Cover image : Archivio fotografico della Città metropolitana di Torino "Andrea Vettoretti" Published in Torino, Italy by Politecnico di Torino Corso Duca degli Abruzzi, 24, 10129, Torino ‐ ITALY December 2015 Conference email: info@aesoptorino2015.it Conference website: www. aesoptorino2015.it ISBN 978‐88‐8202‐060‐6

UNIVERSITIES PROMOTERS Politecnico di Torino (DIST) University of Turin (Dept. CPS, DISAFA) University of Gastronomic Sciences of Pollenzo

WITH Consorzio Risteco Eating City International Platform 2015‐2020

IN COLLABORATION WITH EU‐ Polis and Unesco Chair

WITH THE SUPPORT OF AESOP and Compagnia di San Paolo

INSTITUTIONSAL PATRONAGE

CONFERENCE ORGANISATION CO‐CHAIRMAN Giuseppe Cinà and Egidio Dansero

AESOP SUSTAINABLE FOOD PLANNING GROUP Andre Viljoen (Chairperson) Arnold van der Valk (Secretary) Coline Perrin (Phd and new researchers group)

COORDINATORS FOR THE PROMOTING INSTITUTIONS AND ORGANISATIONS Giuseppe Cinà (Politecnico di Torino ‐ DIST) Egidio Dansero (University of Turin ‐ CPS) Franco Fassio (University of Gastronomic Sciences of Pollenzo) Maurizio Mariani (Consorzio Risteco, Eating City)

KEYNOTE SPEAKERS Serge Bonnefoy, Terres en Villes, Grenoble, France Gilles Novarina, Université Pierre Mendès, Grenoble, France Wayne Roberts, Toronto, Canada Jan‐Willem van der Schans, Wageningen University, the Netherlands

INTERNATIONAL SCIENTIFIC COMMITTEE Gianluca Brunori (University of Pisa, Italy); Giuseppe Cinà (Politecnico di Torino, Italy); Katrin Bohn (Bohn&Viljoen Architects and University of Brighton), Andrea Calori (ESta' ‐ Economia e Sostenibilita, Milano, Italy); Damien Conaré (Unesco Chair ‘Alimentations du monde’, Montpellier, France); Egidio Dansero (University of Turin, Italy); Piercarlo Grimaldi (University of Gastronomic Sciences, Pollenzo, Italy); Jan‐Eelco Jansma (Wageningen University, the Netherlands); Alberto Magnaghi (University of Florence, Italy); Maurizio Mariani, (Eating City, France); Davide Marino (University of Molise, Italy); Mariavaleria Mininni (University of Basilicata, Italy); Gilles Novarina (Université Pierre Mendès, France); Anna Palazzo (University of Rome 3, Italy); Coline Perrin (Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique, SAD, France); Guido Santini (FAO, Rome, Italy); Arnold van der Valk (Wageningen University, the Netherlands); Andre Viljoen (University of Brighton, UK).

LOCAL SCIENTIFIC COMMITTEE Franco Ajmone (DISAFA, University of Turin); Mario Artuso (DIST, Politecnico di Torino) Filippo Barbera (Dept. CPS, University of Turin); Giancarlo Cotella (DIST, Politecnico di Torino); Francesca De Filippi (DAD, Politecnico di Torino); Marco De Vecchi (DISAFA, University of Turin); Elena Di Bella (Città Metropolitana di Torino); Franco Fassio (University of Gastronomic Science, Pollenzo); Federica Larcher (DISAFA, University of Turin); Dario Padovan (Dept. CPS, University of Turin); Cristiana Peano (DISAFA, University of Turin); Marco Santangelo (DIST, Politecnico di Torino); Angioletta Voghera (DIST, Politecnico di Torino).

SECRETARY Gabriela Cavaglià (Unesco Chair, University of Turin); Stefania Guarini (DIST, Politecnico di Torino); Giacomo Pettenati (Dept. CPS, University of Turin); Nadia Tecco (DISAFA, University of Turin); Alessia Toldo (DIST, University of Turin)

ACADEMIC AND SCIENTIFIC SOCIETIES, NETWORKS Associazione dei Geografi Italiani ‐ AGeI, Bologna Istvap, Istituto per la tutela e la valorizzazione dell'agricoltura periurbana, Milan Rete Ricercatori AU Agricoltura Urbana e periurbana e della pianificazione alimentare, Italy SdT, Società dei territorialisti, Florence Società Geografica Italiana, Rome Società di Studi Geografici, Florence Terres en Villes, Grenoble

ASSOCIATIONS AND FOOD MOOVEMENTS Federazione Provinciale Coldiretti Torino Slow Food Piemonte e Valle d'Aosta

CONTENTS THE 7TH AESOP SUSTAINABLE FOOD PLANNING CONFERENCE

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THE AESOP SUSTAINABLE FOOD PLANNING GROUP

THE EATING CITY INTERNATIONAL PLATFORM

SHORT SUMMARIES OF THE CONFERENCE SESSIONS

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TRACK 1. SPATIAL PLANNING AND URBAN DESIGN Andrea Oyuela, Arnold van der Valk Collaborative planning via urban agriculture: the case of Tegucigalpa (Honduras)

1 2

Magda Rich, Andre Viljoen, Karl Rich The ‘Healing City’ – social and therapeutic horticulture as a new dimension of urban agriculture?

Mario Artuso Urban agriculture, food production and city planning in a medium sized city of Turin metropolitan area: a preliminary note which compares geography and local policies

Christoph Kasper, Juliane Brandt, Katharina Lindschulte, Undine Giseke Food as an infrastructure in urbanizing regions

Giuseppe Cinà Somewhere the city slows down and the country comes back. Figures of a starting change of course in many Italian urban fringes

Megan Heckert, Joseph Schilling, Fanny Carlet Greening us legacy cities—a typology and research synthesis of local strategies for eclaiming vacant land

Daniela Poli Sustainailble food, spatial planning and agro‐urban public space in bioregional city

Andre Viljoen, Katrin Bohn Pathways from Practice to Policy for Productive Urban Landscapes

Jacques Abelman Cultivating the city: infrastructures of abundance in urban Brazil

107

Susan Parham The productive periphery: food space and urbanism on the edge

118

Matthew Potteiger Eating Ecologies: Integraging productive ecologies and foraging at the landscape scale

131

David Fanfani, Sara Iacopini, Michela Pasquali, Massimo Tofanelli Sustain‐edible city: Challenges in designing agri‐urban landscape for the ‘proximity’ city. The case of Prato, Tuscany

146

Radu Mircea Giurgiu, Fritz‐Gerald Schröder, Nico Domurath, Daniel Brohm Vertical farms as sustainable food production in urban areas. Addressing the context of developed and developing countries. Case study: brick born farming, Dresden, Germany

156

Dirk Wascher, Leonne Jeurissen Metropolitan Footprint Tools for Spatial Planning. At the Example of Food Safety and Security in the Rotterdam Region

171

Bruno Monardo, Anna Laura Palazzo Healthy Works. Food System and Land Use Planning in San Diego Region

185

TRACK 2. GOVERNANCE AND PRIVATE ENTREPRENEURSHIP

199

Lisa V. Betty The historic and current use of social enterprise in food system and agricultural markets to dismantle the systemic weakening of african descended communities

200

Jane Midgley Making food valued or the value(s) of food: a study of local food governance arrangements in Newcastle, England

215

Melika Levelt Creating space for urban farming: the role of the planning professional

226

Nadia Tecco, Federico Coppola, Francesco Sottile, Cristiana Peano Adaptive governance or adjustment for planning and management the urban green spaces? The case of communal and community gardens in Turin Gaston Remmers Cracking codes between the health care and the agrofood system: the development of a food supplement for prostate cancer in the Netherlands

238

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Andrea Calori Do an urban food policy needs new institutions? Lesson learned from the Food Policy of Milan toward food policy councils

261

Alessia Toldo, Giacomo Pettenati, Egidio Dansero Exploring urban food strategies: four analytical perspectives and a case study (Turin)

270

TRACK 3. RELEVANT EXPERIENCES AND PRACTICES Esther Sanyé‐Mengual, Jordi Oliver‐Solà, Juan Ignacio Montero, Joan Rieradevall Using a multidisciplinary approach for assessing the sustainability of urban rooftop farming

283 284

Jeroen de Vries, Ruth Fleuren A spatial typology for designing a local food system

297

Kathrin Specht, Esther Sanyé‐Mengual Urban rooftop farming in Berlin and Barcelona: which risks and uncertainties do key stakeholders perceive?

307

Erica Giorda, Gloria Lowe Restoring houses and restoring lives: experiments in livability in the Detroit East Side

314

Rosalba D’Onofrio, Decio Rigatti, Massimo Sargolini, Elio Trusiani Vineyard Landscapes: a common denominator in Italian and Brazilian landscapes

324

Sergi Garriga Bosch, Josep‐Maria Garcia‐Fuentes The idealization of a "Barcelona model" for markets renovation

336

Patricia Bon Participatory planning for community gardens: practices that foster community engagement

343

Aurora Cavallo, D. Pellegrino, Benedetta Di Donato, Davide Marino Values, roles and actors as drivers to build a local food strategy: the case of Agricultural Park of “Casal del marmo”

355

Emanuela Saporito Roof‐top orchards as urban regeneration devices. OrtiAlti case study

365

Joe Nasr, June Komisar Rooftops as productive spaces: planning and design lessons from Toronto

374

H.C. Lee, R. Childsa, W. Hughes Sustainable Food Planning for Maidstone, Kent, UK

381

Katrin Bohn, André Viljoen Second nature and urban agriculture: a cultural framework for emerging food policies

391

Biancamaria Torquati, Giulia Giacchè, Chiara Paffarini Panorama of urban agriculture within the city of Perugia (Italy)

399

Ana Maria Viegas Firmino Learning and Tips for more Sustainable Urban Allotments in Portugal

414

Melika Levelt, Aleid van der Schrier Logistics drivers and barriers in urban agriculture

427

TRACK 4. TRAINING AND JOBS

440

Charles Taze Fulford III, Sadik Artunc Service‐learning and Urban Agriculture in Design Studios

441

Anna Grichting A productive permaculture campus in the desert. Visions for Qatar University

453

Jan Richtr, Matthew Potteiger Farming as a Tool of urban rebirth? Urban agriculture in Detroit 2015: A Case Study

463

TRACK 5. FLOWS AND NETWORKS

478

Simon Maurano, Francesca Forno Food, territory and sustainability: alternative food networks. Development opportunities between economic crisis and new consumption practices

479

Jean‐Baptiste Geissler Short food supply chain and environmental “foodprint”: why consumption pattern changes could matter more than production and distribution and why it is relevant for planning

490

Rosanne Wielemaker, Ingo Leusbrock, Jan Weijma and Grietje Zeeman Harvest to harvest: recovering nitrogen, phosphorus and organic matter via new sanitation systems for reuse in urban agriculture

501

Silvia Barbero, Paolo Tamborrini Systemic Design goes between disciplines for the sustainability in food processes and cultures

517

Gianni Scudo, Matteo Clementi Local productive systems planning tools for bioregional development

526

Fanqi Liu Eating as a planned activity: an ongoing study of food choice and the built environment in Sydney

540

Egidio Dansero, Giacomo Pettenati Alternative Food Networks as spaces for the re‐territorialisation of food. The case of Turin

552

Franco Fassio Cultural events as “complex system” in their territorial relationships: the case study of the Salone Internazionale del Gusto and Terra Madre

566

Michael Andrew Robinson Clark, Jason Gilliland Mapping and analyzing the connections and supply chains of an Alternative Food Network in London, Canada

574

Salvatore Pinna Agricultural landscape protection and organic farming ethics: the role of Alternative Food Networks in spatial planning. A case study from Spain

591

UNESCO CHAIR SPECIAL SESSION

605

YOUNG RESEARCHERS AND PHD WORKSHOP

607

POSTER SESSION

611

The 7th AESOP SUSTAINABLE FOOD PLANNING CONFERENCE One of the main goals of the Association of European Schools of Planning (AESOP) (www.aesop‐planning.eu/) is to acquire “a leading role and entering its expertise into ongoing debates and initiatives regarding planning education and planning qualifications of future professionals". In this frame, the AESOP thematic group “Sustainable Food Planning” (www.aesop‐planning.eu/blogs/en_GB/sustainable‐food‐planning) find its rationale recognizing that “Fashioning a sustainable food system is one of the most compelling challenges of the 21st Century. Because of its multi‐functional character, food is an ideal medium through which to design sustainable places, be they urban, rural or peri‐urban places. For all these reasons, food planning is now bringing people together from a wide range of backgrounds, including planners, policy‐makers, politicians, designers, health professionals, environmentalists, farmers, food businesses, gastronomists and civil society activists among many others”. In 2015, after having been hosted in England, Wales, Germany, France and the Netherlands through out this time providing a unique forum for cross disciplinary and interdisciplinary exchanges, the 7th Annual Conference of the AESOP thematic group SFP has been held in Torino, Italy (October, 7‐9). The Torino Conference (Localizing urban food strategies. Farming cities and performing rurality) aimed at exploring new frontiers of education and research, drawing inspiration by policies and practices already implemented or still in progress, and in the meantime bringing advancement over some key issues already tackled during previous SFP conferences. To this end, Localizing urban food strategies implied to relate education and research as well as policies and practices, to the national, regional and local levels, not only as administrative scales but as physical and cultural contexts in which food discourses have a deep influence on urban and regional planning agendas. In this light Localizing meant: to connect scales of discourse and action: how we can promote, co‐produce, analyze and compare urban food strategies in different places, linked together by common goals of SFP that valorise the role of local territories and policies, but also by global food networks that have a strong geopolitical power on local contexts. to better understand the possible contribution of the different places in building a glocal discourse on food planning, in line with the general debate brought forward by United Nations agencies (i.e. UNCHS and other agencies and networks) on the localization of Sustainable Development Goals after 2015; to stress the role of the local dimension, remaining conscious, on the one hand, of the risk of “local traps” and, on the other hand, of the isomorphism of a flat world in which “local” is mostly a rhetoric behind the so‐called “green washing” process; to build a local insight in which the different disciplines and knowledge are re‐connected by re‐ considering food systems: scholars and practitioners are called to apply their theoretical and operational perspectives in order to frame and perform in local terms their idea on urban food strategies. In general terms, the Conference focused on the following goals: to reinforce the struggle for food safety and the environmental protection in the Global North and South; to provide a proper insight on how current training and research programs meet the new challenges of food planning in different countries and cultural contexts; to shape the key perspectives which food planning must deal with: governance, disciplinary innovation, social inclusion, environmental sustainability; to consolidate the network of planning practitioners, policymakers, scholars and experts dealing with SFP in Europe and beyond.

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More in detail the following issues have been addressed: how to develop a social and spatial strategy aimed at the achievement of a SFP and to answer to the specific conditions of different urban/metropolitan contexts; how to provide a thorough technological innovation able not only to orient global responses towards food security but also to enable locally appropriate solutions that take into account ecosystem cycles; how to develop food planning policies able to connect in a multilevel governance approach the different scales from micro (urban districts) to city‐region and to national and international food policies; how to secure a more important role for farmers as basic stakeholders of food planning; how to sustain a broader inclusion of food planning issues in the research and the educational system, connecting knowledge and disciplines from urban, rural and food studies in building a new planning domain.

The conference in numbers The papers presented in these proceedings have been selected by a group of experts being part of the scientific committee. We received 118 abstract proposals of which the scientific committee selected 84 while 65 of them were presented at the Conference. Moreover, the poster Session included 24 contributions. The present proceedings include 49 full papers. Transcriptions of key‐note presentations (by Serge Bonnefoy, Gilles Novarina, Wayne Roberts, Jan‐Willem van der Schans), the special guest speech (by Carlo Petrini) and the opening remarks are not included in the following proceedings. However, video recording of these interventions and of the overall Conference are available on the Conference website (http://www.aesoptorino2015.it/the_videos) and on the AesopTorino2015 YouTube channel. Our heartfelt thanks go to all those who have contributed in making the 7th AESOP conference on Sustainable Food Planning a success. We are thankful to all the students and the volunteers that supported us before, during and after the conference and in particular to: Francesca Basile, Silvia Borra, Alessandra Michi, Ginevra Sacchetti, Stefania Mancuso, Valeria Squadrito, Sara Muzzarelli, Simone Pirruccio, Alberto Keller, Elisa Gemello, Chiara Marchetto, Chiara Fratucello, Giulia Franchello, Rossella Bianco, Tatiana Altavilla, Alessandra Rauccio, Matteo Faltieri, Lorenzo Bottiglieri, Filippo Bolognesi, Roberta Garnerone, Alberto Cena, Silvia Zucchermaglia, Andrea Aimar, Andrea Coletta, Yaiza Di Biase, Alessandro Ventura e Ramona Manisi. The Editors Giuseppe Cinà and Egidio Dansero

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THE AESOP SUSTAINABLE FOOD PLANNING GROUP Since establishing the Sustainable Food Planning Group in 2009, we have been interested in building cross disciplinary dialogues between practitioners, academics and activists concerned with developing equitable, sustainable, healthy and enriching food systems. Giuseppe Cinà and Egidio Dansero, who have planned and designed this 7th AESOP sustainable food planning conference, continue to pursue this aim, so that once again we see an expanding and dynamic community of practice. Turin, with its close connections to the Slow Food Moment, the Milan South Agricultural Park and the Milan EXOP 2015 “Feeding the Planet, Energy for Life” resonates with our interests in real world issues, for example how to translate individual practices into policy. Alongside our strong multidisciplinary focus we have a particular strength in the age and gender profile of our participants, presenting a unique opportunity for building future capacity. To that end the Sustainable Food Planning Group wishes to consolidate our network by putting in place a more clearly defined framework for electing committee members and, as a priority, expanding our “new and emerging researchers’ group”. This process has been initiated during the conference. I would like to thank our secretary Arnold van der Valk and our new and emerging researchers’ group co‐ coordinator Coline Perrin for their invaluable and reliable input. And we look forward to the 8th Sustainable Food planning Conference, being co‐ordinated and hosted by Michael Roth at Nuertingen‐Geislingen University, in Germany, between the 21st and 24th of September 2016. Finally to see live keynote presentations go to: http://www.aesop‐planning.eu/blogs/en_GB/sustainable‐food‐ planning and to access the Sustainable Food Planning Group’s website which includes information about earlier conferences go to: http://www.aesop‐planning.eu/blogs/en_GB/sustainable‐food‐planning. Chair of the AESOP Sustainable Food Planning Group Andre Viljoen December 2015

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THE EATING CITY INTERNATIONAL PLATFORM Who is Risteco Risteco was born as the environmental department of the Italian SME Sotral S.r.l., a company specialized in food transport and logistic services for public catering. Risteco has then become a no‐profit consortium in 2005, which gathers actors working in support services to catering industry. Aware that economical development is compatible with suitable environmental quality, Risteco has assumed the following mission: the formulation of public catering development strategies based on the improvement of communication between stakeholders and on the results of technical and scientific innovation, land aiming at the integration between environment, social responsibility and Human Work. The main objective of Risteco is “to promote the sustainable development in Public catering". Risteco especially aims, evidencing economical returns, to share its own conviction that it is possible and advantageous to work according to ethics and sustainable development principles. Risteco pursues its goals by creating a meeting platform “Eating City” with other professional sectors such as scientific communities, institutions, associations etc. to promote sustainable development within food services according to Life Cycle Thinking approach.

The ideal place where Food, Health and Environment meet Business Our Vision To handle Food issues, Cities must revise their usual competences. To do so, they need to build up a vision in which feeding people shifts from its mere definition to a more systemic understanding. Indeed, food is not only a sum of calories and nutrients necessary to make our body working, but it is embedded in a whole system that influences our quality of life and includes all activities and actors necessary to grow, harvest, process, package, transport, market, consume, and dispose food and all food‐related items. This life‐cycle thinking approach allows to build a model of food lifespan from origin to plate that makes possible to identify all food‐related activities and infrastructures in and out the city and to design an organization chart that connects all stakeholders and infrastructures involved in the food supply chain, giving them a role and a responsibility. Through a deep cultural change, Cities Food Policies may turn food into a thread to connect all the main competences of the cities related to economic development, education, health, environment, solidarity, culture and leisure, governance, but it can also give consistency to a synergic osmosis between cities and adjacent territories. Our Process Deeply convinced that all activities related to food production and consumption are essential for the sustainable development of cities, Risteco aims, with the project “Eating city”, to carry on the dialogue, in order to foster long term vision of public & and private decision makers on the future of sustainable urban food supply chains worldwide. In short, Eating City platform designs a road map to contribute to the construction of a new economic paradigm that aims to place again human labor at the center of economy and to consider the environment among the entrepreneurial decision variables, in order to develop a new culture of doing Business. Eating City process moves forward through the summer campus, thematic workshops and conferences. www.eatingcity.org Wwinfoon 3 main pillars : Food Production, Food Consumption and Human Labour. Maurizio Mariani

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SHORT SUMMARIES OF THE CONFERECE SESSIONS

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TRACK 1 / SESSION B Cristoph Kasper spoke about 'Food as an infrastructure in Urbanizing Regions', the sequel to a comprehensive research project exploring the genesis and promotion of urban agriculture conducted in the city of Casablanca. The proposed research design met with approval in the audience. Urban agricultural in a regional perspective is an emerging topic which attracts much attention from organisations such as FAO and RUAF. In the second presentation Giuseppe Cinà focused on the blurring of the traditional rural‐urban nexus. Only too often agriculture is considered to be the left‐over in a process of deliberation about the future prospects of metropolitan regions. Some observers in the audience provided illustrations of the need to consider the interests of agriculture in the context of urban planning in other European countries such as the Netherlands and the UK. The ongoing conference opens windows on an issue which merits attention of the EU. One obstacle is the isolation of different aspects in separate policy sectors such as agriculture, environment, transportation and economics. Fanny Carlet, the third speaker in this slot, presented the results of her research of urban agriculture as an element of greening strategies in American cities which have to cope with industrial brownfields, so‐called Legacy Cities. Urban agriculture is perceived as an effective strategy to reclaim vacant lots in the inner city. Well known examples are the city of Detroit and the city of Buffalo. The last speaker was Daniela Poli who presented the results of her research on Sustainable Food and Spatial Planning in the context of agro‐urban public space in Italy. She focuses on the bio‐regional dimension of regional urban development. In this session disparate perspectives on urban agriculture were discussed. The common threat was the shared conviction that agriculture is an emerging field of study and planning in the context of regional spatial planning. Arnold van der Valk TRACK 1 / SESSION C During the session different visions, policies and practices concerning the design and the planning of urban and peri‐urban agriculture have been discussed. The two first presentations addressed some distinct but convergent experiences. That of Andre Viljoen and Katrin Bohn, based on a set of various interventions spread out in the porosity of the contemporary city (brown field, vacant areas, unused areas etc.) was related to the line of research developed around the concept of ‘continuous productive landscape’, today fostered by an international network. In particular, the speakers gave a short account on how policies and practices at various levels have impacted and still are influencing on the implementation of six European urban agriculture projects, led mainly by architects, artists and researcher activists, and how these experiences can help to identify future pathways to enhance a productive urban landscape infrastructure. Differently, in her presentation Susan Parham specially focused on some issues of urban periphery of burgeoning conurbations, arguing that in order to support ‘gastronomic landscapes’ as well as to remake the edge of conurbation space, a new range of design‐based tools is now available. These new tools, also based on retrofitting techniques, can address food‐centred sprawl repair and give an upgraded role to spatial design in supporting productive peripheries. The following two contributions introduced two additional approaches to productive urban landscapes. In the presentation of Matthew Potteiger what mattered was not so much about activating a productivity starting from scratch, but rather to 'use' the existing one by integrating ‘productive ecologies and foraging’ at the landscape scale. To this end the findings of an ethnographic research on urban foraging in Syracuse, NY, were presented and some proper strategies responding to the opportunities for urban foraging and productive ecologies were discussed. Also Jaques Abelman addressed its research toward the use of the resources of local ecology (or ‘infrastructures of abundance’) in urban Brasil, but in this case he clearly adopted a design strategy by proposing a network of urban agriculture typologies consistent with the nature of Puerto Alegre. In this frame, by emphasizing the fruitful connections between agro‐forestry and native species, a basis for dialogue among potential stakeholders as catalysts for future projects is created; as a result the landscape architecture project become a mediator in processes aiming at envisioning just and sustainable urban and peri‐urban agriculture.

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In the final presentation, by adopting a point of view focused on both food issues and land use planning, Bruno Monardo and Anna Laura Palazzo proposed a further insight on a territorial based approach. In this frame the authors discussed the case study of San Diego Region (CA), showing how the goals of a sustainable food system are addressed by a set of instruments ranging from food policies to land use tools and zoning codes, mobilizing from the very beginning the community at large: producers, brokers, consumers. So doing, the case study is discussed looking at some effective tools and operational aspects but also prompting for new meanings and uses for vacant land. Summing up, the presented experiences showed on the one hand the increasing set of policies and practises underway in several countries, and on the other hand the work in progress of research in drawing attention to the big potentialities of urban and territorial resources for a sustainable agriculture. Giuseppe Cinà TRACK 1 / SESSION D Over the last decades the urban and the rural have become increasingly difficult to differentiate. Yet, both the powerful cultural resonance of such distinction and the traditional separation between human and natural sciences have led, even when tackling matters such as urban growth and open space strategies, to the supremacy of the “standpoint of the City”, providing unvarying interpretations of the urban fringe as a mere receptacle for sprawl. Empirical evidence shows that these transformations can less and less be interpreted as transitions from low‐ density patterns towards an overall urban condition in the sense we are used to think of. Open space proves the main asset in sustainable food policies, while remaining crucial for biodiversity enhancement, protection of natural and spatial values, soil protection, promotion of open‐air facilities for leisure time. Thus, urban farming is going to play a role that goes far beyond that of supplying essential food products, while counteracting rural unemployment. A common denominator is social integration, which is a fundamental element in any regeneration process. Relevant work from this point of view was done by the Italian “Territorialist” School that, for some time now, has been working on community‐building processes through an active participation in decision‐making related to sustainability issues of our living environments. In this session, along with local healthy food concerns, the point is to come to grips with an idea of resilience embedding spatial coherence and landscape connectivity both at the local and territorial scale. The first paper, "Sustain‐edible city: Challenges in designing agri‐urban landscape for the ‘proximity’ city" by David Fanfani, Sara Iacopini, Michela Pasquali, Massimo Tofanelli, explores residual farmland in the urban fringe of Prato and stresses its effectiveness both in giving shape to rurban areas and in providing commodities to the Italian and Chinese communities settled in the City. The second paper, “A Metropolitan Footprint Tool for Spatial Planning”, by D.M Wascher and Leonne Jeurissen, explores the ecological footprint in the Rotterdam Region. The contribution stresses that food production and consumption is not only linked via one‐directional food chains in terms of processing and logistic pathways, but also part of cross‐sectoral and hence multidirectional value chains associated with bio‐economy. The third paper, “Vertical farms as sustainable food production in urban areas”, by Radu Mircea Giurgiu, Fritz‐ Gerald Schröder, Nico Domurath, introduces to Vertical Farming, which allows for high construction and operating costs, in exchange for high quality and quantity of fresh food all year round. The fourth paper, “The potential of peri‐urban and ecotonal areas in resilience strategies design. Milano metropolitan panorama and perspectives”, by Angela Colucci, intercepts a wide range of initiatives tackling resilience and challenging collective perceptions, planning standards and rules regarding food management strategies. What new insights can we draw from this review? Conceptually speaking, the core problem is to bridge the privileges of the urban condition ‐ the sharing of social and civic value ‐ with the benefits of the countryside ‐ a better living environment, a healthier lifestyle, and also a level of “naturalness” on the outskirts of the city. In practical terms, the “shape‐giving” potential of the ongoing experiences is still to be explored and assessed, along with the different rurban patterns. Beyond the consideration that a “good form” is a vehicle for a healthy ecological system, these experiences offer a “case‐

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by‐case” set of arguments against the “individualistic” centrifugal impulse related to urban sprawl and convey all‐pervasive practices of re‐appropriation. Anna Laura Palazzo TRACK 2 / SESSION A Positioning within the broader sphere of sustainable food governance, the session aimed at reflecting upon the role of food policies in addressing social, cultural and economic dynamics. The contributions presented during the session focused on various issues, as the conditions of Afro‐American community in the United States, the actual political implications of New York City’s food policy and the configuration and self‐reproduction of food governance regimes in Newcastle (UK). More in detail, in her analysis of the historic and current use of social enterprise in food system and agricultural markets in the North‐East of the United States, Lisa V. Betty focused on the role of the latter as a potential antidote to the systemic weakening of African descended communities. The author did this by exploring the historical relevance and current necessity for grassroots social enterprise and entrepreneurship, from the base of underserved communities overwhelmed by hyper‐incarceration and underemployment, to support the production of community empowering capital with prospects for economic growth in food system and agricultural markets. She analyzed various organizations that are at the forefront of supporting and advocating for employment training and entrepreneurship support, policy changes, community development, and empowerment for correctional controlled individuals and underserved communities of African descent through the alignment of solutions for individual and community development with food system advocacy. On his hand, Nevin Cohen proposed a thorough analysis of New York food policy under mayor De Blasio as a way to promote social equity in the city. He argues that, whereas an increasing number of US mayors have responded to widening economic disparities and increasing attention to racial discrimination by adopting populist political agendas, an important question for food planners is whether and to what extent this political shift has affected the urban food systems. As the proposed case illustrates, food policy appears to be shaped by governance networks including stakeholders who have interests in maintaining the status quo, and therefore contribute to hinder policy change together with other factors as budget scarcity, established laws and programs, entrenched agency conventions, competing political priorities and existing state and federal regulations. As a result, food policies and programs developed by the Bloomberg administration continue largely unaltered, demonstrating the complexities of redesigning food policy to fit different political priorities. A third contribution by Jane Midgley focused on local food governance arrangements in Newcastle, paying particular attention to recent changes regarding different actors’ perceptions and involvement with the potential creation of a holistic food policy for the city. The paper highlights the important role played by external elements as funding bodies, government targets, evaluation mechanisms etc. in stimulating local food‐ related policy initiatives. Even though external conditions may change over time, the appropriateness and awareness of food may be more continuous than at first appears. The linkages to existing policy areas and associated support (i.e. public health) appear to be initial facilitators of food policy debates within existing policymaking structures but also potential framework constrains due to their association with other more powerful discourses (e.g.: obesity and the associated food‐based policy measures). Towards the end of the session, an intense debate took place, surrounded by the general willingness to examine in depth both individual players’ and municipalities’ responsibility, in order to strengthen those beneficial effects for the civil society that could potentially come from sustainable food policies and initiatives. Giancarlo Cotella TRACK 2 / SESSION B The session featured two presentations analyzing the social interaction between citizens, the food production and food policies’ development and implementation, based on well documented case studies. The first one presented two examples of urban farms in Amsterdam, as an entry point to discuss citizen participation in urban planning and the role of planners and local authorities in business or community initiatives. The second one presented the FAO‐RUAF programme on assessing City Region Food Systems (CRFS), currently

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implemented in seven city regions. After having described the conceptual framework and assessment methods, the authors underlined the key role of information exchange, political will and multi‐actors participation in order to build a more inclusive multilevel food governance. Coline Perrin TRACK 2 / SESSION D To face the new challenges, food‐systems need innovation. To foster innovation, food‐systems need to combine different orders of worth or “quality conventions”. In this regard, search for the optimal solutions through more information it is not enough. Search means above all interpretation, not just finding a solution for a well‐defined problem. In other words, innovation in food‐systems means to accept the idea that the fundamental challenge is the kind of search during with you do not know what you are looking for but will recognize it when you find it. As David Stark (The Sense of Dissonance. Accounts of Worth in Economic Life, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 2009) reminds us, John Dewey called this process inquiry. Inquiry, differently from problem solving, involves the management of “perplexing situations” or a disagreement about what counts. Innovation is precisely the ability to keep multiple principles of evaluation in play and to benefit from that productive friction. Systems of food need thus to be arranged as forms of distributed intelligence, where units are laterally accountable according to different principles of evaluation, that makes entrepreneurship and innovation possible. The environment of modern economy resembles a “rugged” fitness landscape with a jagged and irregular topography, with many peaks and many optimal solutions. In such an environment, the most innovative solutions are those able to promote radical decentralization in which virtually every unit becomes engaged in innovation. In all the papers, it is clear that orders of worth different from market and prices provide an account of “what matters” in the world and how the “world works”, so they also serve as a blueprint for regulatory experiments. In cases such as those, new social technology of judgment emerge as something more than market mechanisms that mimic competition through regulatory devices, This is the fil‐rouge of the papers presented in the session: innovation needs hybridization and new forms of governance. For instance, both the agrofood system and the health care system are known for their sector specific rules and routines. These routines in general do not favour innovations that transgress the borders of the sector. Change makers, who cross borders without hesitation, linking the health care and agrofood sector in new organizational arrangements. But also urban gardens take on different forms and meanings, combining different governance principles and organizational solutions. Furthermore, sustainable food planning assumes an 'unbridgeable gap' between the conventional agribusiness complex of industrial food production and the alternative urban localecological food movement, with the latter having grasped the attention and imagination of recent planning scholarship. Finally, if food is the most essential component for human life, it is still unclear how this right could become a priority within institutional policies, when choices related to food and nutrition are mainly sectorial and only rarely characterized by a strategic, coordinated and coherent approach. Filippo Barbera TRACK 3/ SESSION A Over the past ten years a lot of technical tools have been developed for supporting both analytical as well as planning activities in the context of urban and periurban agriculture and horticulture. Some of the main fields of development of such tools can be synthesized in the following points: ‐ rules and knowledges concerning access to land, facilities and infrastructure to give farmers, distributors, and food entrepreneurs a chance to become established; ‐ policies and standards to encourage local food operations and to reduce the cost and uncertainty of urban farming in the more comprehensive context of food systems; ‐ policies and regulations for local food procurement for schools as well as other public canteens and hunger assistance programs, as a part of welfare policies and for encouraging new markets, innovations, businesses, and entrepreneurs.

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In the context of these fields of technical assistance to actions, plans and policies, there are some emerging areas of investigation that are consolidating some specific roles for researchers in relation to the existing and diffused actions that are carried on by activists, non‐profit associations, private initiatives or business entrepreneurs for social as well as commercial purposes. One area of investigation is about the creation and the implementation of technical tools to support analysis and evaluations of urban agriculture and horticulture, with a focus on the evaluation of sustainability. In this direction some recent experiences that have been developed in Berlin and in Barcelona are trying to combine life cycle assessment (LCA), to quantify the environmental impacts of Urban Rooftop Farming (URF) forms; and life cycle costing (LCC), to quantify the economic costs of URF forms. This combination is a technical base to support the implementation of different kind of existing tools in the context of urban horticulture, taking advantage of the fact that rooftop farming can provide a kind of living laboratory with less analytical variables than other farming activities. The different life cycle analysis qualitative research can be used to support and counterproof the evaluation of the perceptions of different stakeholders and, beside this, can feed a geographic information systems (GIS), to quantify the availability and the localization of potential roofs for implementing URF. These kind of tools have a potential in supporting the quantification and comparison of the environmental and economic aspects of different URF types and practices to inform stakeholders in decision‐making processes. More in general and not only for rooftop gardening, for planning, designing and evaluating a sustainable, local food system for urban areas a spatial typology of urban agriculture is required. An example of this kind of definition and classification have been studied and applied in the Netherland by combining spatial analysis, property analysis, and the classification of the kind of food production, in order to define a tool that can support decision makers to evaluate the capability of each farming initiative to contribute to a amore general plan for urban farming at a city level. What is emerging in these experiences of definition of analytical tools for evaluation and planning, is the need of breaking the limits of land use planning that are mainly based on real estate values or on the combination of traditional urban functions. Urban agriculture and horticulture implies a lot of different values, objective, activities and interests: so we do need different point of views, planning principles, expertise and, finally, tools. In this directions, the papers of this section are a good combination of a re‐orientation of existing tools for evaluating the sustainability of a system, and the proposal of new tools for taking into consideration new issues to combine food and urban contexts. Andrea Calori TRACK 3/ SESSION B Urban agriculture is the term used to define agricultural production (crops and livestock) in urban and peri‐ urban areas for food and other uses, the related transport, processing and marketing of the agricultural produce and non‐agricultural services provided by the urban farmers (www.hortis‐europe.net). The session discussed methods and approaches for linking urban agriculture and food planning through some applicative research projects and practical experiences moving from USA to Europe. In particular, the papers were focused on two elements of the urban food system: the community gardens and the local markets. Community gardens are plots of land managed by volunteers for the purpose of open space, food production, self consumption, or many other educational and recreational functions. Local markets are in Europe related to specific architectures and an old selling system (most of vegetables and fresh products). The first contribution by Giorda E. reported the case of Detroit (USA), post‐industrial city similar with Turin, in which the approach in urban renewal is based on taking care of people providing home and food to homeless. Then we moved to the Spanish research (Garcia‐Fuentes J.M. and Garriga Bosch S.) on the restoration of local markets and their role in the local food chain in Barcelona. The case of a participatory project for the realization of a community garden in Chicago (USA) reported by Bon P. pointed out how the stakeholder involvement guarantee the success of the process and the future use of the place by citizens overcoming conflicts of interests. The last experience (Cavallo A. and Di Donato B.) described an ongoing process in the metropolitan area of Rome based on the construction of a local food strategy in the contest of the big sprawl of the city.

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Some common elements emerged from the discussions: ‐ The importance of a bottom‐up approach for the success of the food planning strategy, which must be participatory based. ‐ The need to quantify the ecosystem services provided by rural areas with the aim to recognize them in terms of farmers income. ‐ The idea that in the cities the presence of ‘public food places’ (like community gardens or local markets) is important not only in terms of food provisioning but also in terms of social aggregation and multicultural integration. ‐ The fact that a ‘good’ urban food chain is short, local and democratic. In conclusion further researches for defining the real potentials of urban and peri‐urban agriculture in providing food and services to citizens are required. Furthermore mapping the ecosystem services in the urban ecosystem can be the first point for a more sustainable urban planning strategy. Federica Larcher TRACK 3/ SESSION D This session saw a refreshing mix of presentations highlighting the specific local contexts of aspects of urban agriculture – practical and theoretical ‐ that have emerged / are emerging in different European countries. Urban agriculture was in the centre of all presentations, but investigations ranged from the studies of urban farms (Switzerland) and of urban allotments (Portugal) to the exploration of appropriate logistical systems for food stuffs (The Netherlands) to the emergence of community gardens (Italy) to the study of cultural frameworks for urban food production (Germany/UK). What kept the papers together and served as the basis for vivid discussion amonst the 25 or so session participants were the relationships of particular local urban agriculture practices to their equally particular local cultures and customs. So was it very important to understand the emergence of a community garden culture in Perugia, Italy, in the light of recent economic changes or the development of planning typologies in tandem with the study of existing food production practice on the example of urban farms in Switzerland. The historical dimension of urban agriculture practice was related to current social conditions, as in the example of long‐ established versus spontanous allotment gardens in Lisbon, Portugal, or the dramatic increase of community gardens in Perugia originating from victory garden predecessors. Whilst 3 of the papers took a very practice‐based approach, one paper aimed to discuss a concept that may provide an overarching cultural framework to urban agriculture practice and food‐related lifestyles. Introducing the concept of Second Nature in relation to urban agriculture, the paper triggered discussions in the audience about other philosophical/cultural concepts, such as the one of biophilia, which were then applied to all papers presented. Finally, it was a pleasure to integrate a relocated paper that dealt with logistical and managerial aspects of urban food growing focussing on The Netherlands. This paper on how to fine‐tune transport and delivery of food products gave the session a “reality check” on the practical transformations that food‐productive cities will have to undergo in the future. Katrin Bohn TRACK 4/ SESSION A The presentations report various experiences through which educational and training programs deal with sustainable urban food planning. Taze Fullford and Artunc (Mississippi State University) are identifying local opportunities for service learning projects and the opportunities to lessen the effects of food deserts in rural areas. They discuss advantages and disadvantages of using a service‐learning pedagogy in classrooms for planning and designing ecologically sensitive sites. Service‐learning combines service objectives with learning objectives, with the intent that the activity changes both the recipient and the provider of the service. This constructive and inspiring process

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allows students to actively engage and gain real experience with communicating conceptual ideas to communities that otherwise would not be able to afford consultation. Grichting (Qatar University) is presenting research and projects on edible landscape at the campus of Qatar University to contribute to food supply. Permaculture is used as the philosophy and framework for all the interventions proposed (transforming decorative landscapes into productive landscapes, creating productive green roofs, etc.). Its maximum resource efficiency is experienced through water recycling and treatment, organic waste recycling, clean and renewable energy producing, etc. Projects exposed are also based on the concepts of regenerative cities, and circular metabolism. Verdini (Xi’an Jiaotong‐Liverpool University) is exposing achievements and limitations of 3‐years training and action‐research for sustainable rural fringe development in urban China. He wants to show how the research titled “When local meets global: urban fringe planning, and institutional arrangement” has informed the development of an innovative training module that equips students with tools for dealing with sustainable food planning, from an institutional perspective. Verdini also shows how this teaching experience has resulted in extra‐curricular activities, in forms of intensive workshops in rural villages with the involvement of local stakeholders and governments. Richtr (Czech Technical University in Prague) is showing that the case study of Detroit reveals the value of urban agriculture in reimagining urban landscapes and food systems of shrinking cities and the importance of a systemic network in this process, with the descriptions of Greening of Detroit (plant trees to replace those lost to Dutch elm disease); Detroit Black Community Food Security Network (address issues of food quality, availability and securtity especially for the African Amercian community); Earthworks Urban Farms (one of the most well‐established urban ag projects); Michigan Urban Farming Initiative (a students’ non‐profit organization). Richtr underlines that this kind of approach could be transferable to the European cities rather than individual projects and strategies that have to be always carefully contextualized. Damien Conaré TRACK 5/ SESSIONS A+C The Session, moving from the assumption that food is one central element of flows and networks that contribute to cities’ survival, continuation and well‐being, focused on flows declined in diverse forms and ways, such as environmental flows, food flows, flows of materials, energy, water, nutrients and waste. The Session was also intended to cover networks that influence the urban food metabolism, going from food production to food consumption and food waste management. Attendance to the Session was fairly high and the discussion that followed the talks of presenters was lively and enriching. The Session provided insights and points of reflection for the audience as well as good opportunities for networking, given that also other authors present in the Session were interested in discussing more in depth specific cross‐cutting issues. The first contribution to the Session dealt with alternative food networks to examine to what extend such economic practices maintain or enhance resilience and resistance, while taking into account main constraints and opportunities that foster/limit their spread. The investigation focused on mapping grassroots organizations promoting sustainable practices and groups that are contriving an alternative food system in Bergamo, a medium sized town in northern Italy. The re‐territorialization of the food system was an interesting point that stemmed out of the discussion, as this reflection brought forth the ‘question of scale’ for the food system, more specifically the connection of the food system with its territory, as the local scale appear to be the basis for organizations of ‘critical consumption’. Moreover, discussion from the floor was also oriented on alternative food networks as possible driving forces of territorial development. Are short food supply chains (SFSCs) a major potential contributor to food’s environmental footprint or a shift to consumption patterns could have a greater impact? This was one central question posed by the second distribution at the Session which argued positively towards the second hypothesis while proposing SFSCs as major contributors to sustainable consumption patterns through the reconnection to the agricultural territory, the routinization of sustainable behaviors and educational processes.

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The discussion and questions that followed posed an interesting discussion on how participation in SFSCs, sustainable consumption practices and local sustainability policy and planning are linked. The third contribution focused on food flows analysis and mapping, arguing that the urban demand for local food is quite discussed in recent literature, however it appears that mapping precisely those farmlands supplying this demand for local food is not yet explored sufficiently. This contribution offered a critical analysis of the relocalization process of urban food supply by focusing on spatial configuration, surface and location of agricultural areas in Millau, a small town in south France. From the discussion that followed it appeared that the subject has generated interest, especially as to what extend the methodology followed for mapping the flows of food can be applied in vast areas as well as to what commodities and their number is to be taken into consideration for a comprehensive assessment of a local food system. Guido Santini e Panayota Nicolarea TRACK 5/ SESSION D This session presented four case studies on Alternative Food Networks drawn from 4 different geographical contexts. The countries of reference were Greece, Canada, Spain and China. The panelists presented the evolution of food networks in different social, cultural, economic and environmental contexts. From the discussion that followed the presentations emerged thatrather than viewing alternative and conventional food networks as alternatives, they should be considerend in relation to one another. Moreover the discussion highlight the need to explore how these new ventures can constitute a viable solution for a more equal and sustainable agro‐food system and rewrite the the geography of periurban agriculture with significant implications for spatial policies. Dario Padovan

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TRACK 1. SPATIAL PLANNING AND URBAN DESIGN The track focuses on the ways to include food in spatial planning and design practices, policies, services and research.

7 International Aesop Sustainable Food Planning Conference Proceedings, Torino, 7‐9 October 2015

Andrea Oyuela, Arnold van der Valk, “The ‘Collaborative planning via urban agriculture: the case of Tegucigalpa (Honduras)”, In: Localizing th urban food strategies. Farming cities and performing rurality. 7 International Aesop Sustainable Food Planning Conference Proceedings, Torino, 7‐9 October 2015, edited by Giuseppe Cinà and Egidio Dansero, Torino, Politecnico di Torino, 2015, pp 2‐21. ISBN 978‐88‐8202‐060‐6

COLLABORATIVE PLANNING VIA URBAN AGRICULTURE: THE CASE OF TEGUCIGALPA (HONDURAS) Andrea Oyuela1, Arnold van der Valk2 Keywords: Sustainable development, Urban agriculture, Collaborative planning, Bottom‐up development Abstrac:. The city of Tegucigalpa has been subject to an accelerated growth due to the country’s rural‐urban migration phenomenon triggered in the 1950’s decade, which accompanied by the blueprint Northern models of urban development at the time, produced a city dominated by social disparity, urban violence, and environmental degradation. As the top‐down planning system continues to be unresponsive to the situation, we question whether an alternative bottom‐up strategy could present solutions to the complex social, environment, and political problems in this city. Thus, we explore the topic of urban agriculture (UA) in this paper as a multi‐faceted lever that can provide with building blocks for an emerging bottom‐up movement. Two case studies are presented: the first being representative of top‐down programs, while the latter illustrates a case of collaborative bottom‐up initiatives, followed by windows of opportunity and challenges in the integration of UA in the urban area. Noteworthy among our discoveries is the potential of school gardens as a channel for strategically achieving community goals. UA is undertaken through the people’s need to overcome the issue of food insecurity and under‐development in the city. Still, the topic of active citizenship or bottom‐up development is not yet consolidated under the context set by Tegucigalpa. Moreover, the city poses challenges regarding the resources (land and water) needed for practicing UA and the diffusion of knowledge to the population. Nevertheless, effort must be placed considering that the social assets of UA may compensate for the unfavorable access to resources in the area. 1. Introduction “Tegucigalpa keeps growing… but is there space for more people?” (La Tribuna, 2013) “51.5% of Tegucigalpa’s inhabitants are living under poverty conditions.” (El Heraldo, 2015) “Tegucigalpa’s topography is telling us something.” (Interview with an architect working on revitalization projects in Tegucigalpa)

Tegucigalpa the capital of Honduras faces huge (poverty related) challenges such as a steady influx of poor peasants, income inequality, food insecurity, health problems, widespread criminal practices, scarcity of safe drinking water and environmental pollution (AMDC, 2008). Over the last fifty years conventional top‐down urban planning strategies have failed to provide any comprehensive solutions to a web of ever‐growing problems. The problems are thus complex, interrelated and widespread that some observers may simply shrug and look away, others may feel tempted to come up with all encompassing solutions which may eventually prove to be overly simplistic and not befitting the complexities and dynamism of the complex system of (un)sustainable development in Tegucigalpa. In this paper we try to avoid these traps by exploring the contours of a promising 1

Wageningen University. Corresponding author, andy.oyuela@gmail.com Full professor of Land Use Planning at Wageningen University

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strategy of urban development via the advocacy of urban agriculture and education tailor‐made to the special needs and constraints of Tegucigalpa. The quotes on top point out risks and uncertainties that throw shadows over the future of Tegucigalpa. Like many cities of the global South, in Latin America and the Caribbean region, the Honduran capital has been subject to an urban explosion2, due to the rural‐urban migration process triggered in the 1950’s decade. Shifts from agricultural to industrial bases across Honduras encouraged the rural‐to‐urban movement, along with the national trade policy reform and international business agreements, in the quest of modernizing the country’s economy. The Honduran population employed in agricultural activities declined from 43% to 34% between 1983 and 2003, while the capital simultaneously received 32,179 immigrants from rural areas in the period from 1988 to 2001 (Angel et al., 2004; AMDC, 2014b). Yet, even though this process was initiated in the mid‐20th century, it was not until the 1970’s decade when the larger migration flows and urban expansion affected the capital’s area; for the latter, it means that the city grew in size from 2,360 ha to 6,020 ha in the period from 1975‐1987 (Angel et al., 2004). The planning system at the time, driven by blueprint‐Northern models of urban development, failed to adapt to this growth and was unable to provide the people with proper housing and basic services (Angel et al., 2004; Cálix, 2008); a situation that along the social services crisis and the lack of employment during the 1980’s aggravated the city’s conditions. This in turn produced the informal economy phenomenon, an issue that is enhanced throughout the years by the constant migration and the absence of urban planning practices that respond to the use of the territory and the population’s needs (Martín, 2010). Between the years from 1974 to 2013, the city’s population tripled from 302,483 to 1,094,720 inhabitants3, mainly composed of the already established inhabitants and newcomers seeking for better livelihoods in the urban area. Tegucigalpa has been subject to a process of urban‐rural convergence, meaning that the rural society that has been so characteristic in the country is disappearing, while the urban society’s consolidation remains to be seen (Martín, 2010). Today, the city is an area characterized by social inequality, driven by market forces and the predominant informal economy of the urban poor. The expansion of vulnerable areas and the increasing population has led to problems in informal settlements, public services, land ownership, public health, environmental management, and the most recent and pressing issue of urban violence. In terms of insecurity, the capital city presented in 2014 the second highest amount of homicide incidents in the country (987 homicides), after the city of San Pedro Sula in the North with 1084 incidents, an issue that is also represented in the following Figure 1 (UNAH‐IUDPAS, 2015). The authors of this paper, one of them a resident and student of Tegucigalpa, the other a professor in land use planning from the Netherlands, have questioned the adequacy of Tegucigalpa's recent top‐down urban planning strategies and explored seeds of an alternative bottom‐up strategy. The paper starts from the observation that the conventional blueprint approach has failed to provide any comprehensive solutions so far. In this respect, Tegucigalpa like so many other Latin American cities has applied planning models imported from the global North to no avail. So the question is on the table: What could be an alternative direction to make the planning system more responsive to the complex social, environmental and political problems addressed in the opening sentences? We feel that urban agriculture (UA) can provide building blocks for an emerging alternative bottom‐up 2

As labeled in UN‐Habitat. (2012). Chapter 1, Population and urbanization. The State of Latin American and Caribbean Cities 2012: Towards a new urban transition. 3 National Statistics Institute (INE), Censuses 1974‐2013. The statistics presented depict the population in the Central District municipality identified as ‘urban population’ according to the INE. th

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strategy of sustainable urban development (e.g. Redwood, 2012; Dubbeling, 2011; Mubvami et al., 2006; Quon, 1999). 140

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100 80 60 0

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120

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Figure 1. Mortality rates in three major cities of Honduras, represented by the two main motives for death in the country. Source: UNAH‐IUDPAS.

The global North has adapted its planning discourses to the urban issues produced by modern society, yet, many developing countries continue to be driven by blueprint approaches; a type of planning characterized by inflexibility and unresponsiveness to societal issues (Mubvami et al., 2006). Planning systems are based on particular features from the time and place in which they are constructed, and thus, this “borrowing” of ideas results inappropriate (and even outdated) to the context in which they are imitated (Watson, 2009). In the case of Tegucigalpa, where North‐ American development practices were adopted, this meant a zoning or organization of spatial activities that did not correspond to a rural, poor, and uneducated population (Cálix, 2008). Still, nowadays the need to evolve into a different scheme arises in the global South, and thus begins to take part in the bottom‐up development trend that has grown in the developed world over the last decades, as seen in examples across Brazil, Peru, and Tanzania, among others (see Watson, 2009; Green, 2000). As urban planners and developers attempt to keep pace with the increasing problems produced by urbanization, individuals might start seeking their own solutions. Within this setting, urban agriculture comes into the picture as a historical survival strategy for urban dwellers and an integral part of urban systems (Quon, 1999; Mougeot, 1994). Apart from its food production component, UA is a topic that is being addressed in the literature as a medium that aids the transition into more collaborative forms of city‐making. Moreover, it is a practice that pertains to societal issues (e.g. household economics, public health, and the urban environment), and that empowers citizens with the share of responsibilities between top‐down actors and the public when it comes to urban development. Hence, UA may serve as a starting point to actively engage the problems of modern urban society and for vulnerable populations to come out of under‐ development (FAO, 2014; Mubvami et al., 2006; Wekerle, 2004; Bryld, 2003). Nonetheless, UA is a context‐specific activity in terms of its progress and outcomes. Models and practices have to be created or adapted to the economic, social, and political circumstances each setting presents (Bryld, 2003). Therefore, this paper addresses conditions for the advancement of UA and its possible outcomes in urban development on the specific case of the city of Tegucigalpa by exploring its application around two main themes. First, its possible contribution for transitioning the city's planning system into a more collaborative‐adaptive approach that works under sustainability

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principles. And secondly, the identification of windows of opportunity for the integration and improvement of UA practices within the city. The paper is divided into four sections. The first section provides a condensed description of the social and physical characteristics of Tegucigalpa. The second part is a description of an empirical research of ongoing practices in education‐related urban agriculture projects in Tegucigalpa. In the third section, the outcomes of the case studies function as grips in an analysis of opportunities and constraints in the context of an envisioned novel‐planning scenario featuring urban agriculture projects associated with education4. In the fourth section lessons are drawn and put in perspective of current practices in the domain of planning, urban agriculture and education. 2. THE CITY, sustainable development and planning The country of Honduras has taken part in the world's urbanization trend with its urban inhabitants now ascending to 50.5% of its total 8,303,771 citizens (INE, 2014). In addition, it is among the poorest countries in the world, with an urban population under one of the highest poverty rates in Latin America and the Caribbean; by the year 2013, more than half (60.4%) were living under the national line of poverty (FAO, 2014; INE, 2014). Conclusively, the Honduran capital of Tegucigalpa is an emblematic representative of the development challenges the country is facing, being the home to nearly 1.2 million people (2013) of the nation's population (Figure 2). 9.0

Population growth in Honduras

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1974

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Figure 2. Tegucigalpa's population growth in relation to the national population growth. Source: INE, Censo de Población y Vivienda 2013; INE, Anuario Estadístico SEN 2013.

Tegucigalpa’s modern history begins in the 1950’s decade, when an array of economic shifts throughout Honduras initiates a rural‐urban migration phenomenon (Martín, 2010); among the 4

As a remark, this paper does not intend to critique past development discourses or build on a new planning domain, or question the actions that have led to the current situation in Tegucigalpa. Instead, it focuses on providing foundational information and initiate a dialogue on what are the alternatives when the planning system is no longer able to respond to the increasing problematic in the Honduran capital. th

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most recent evidence is the Ley para la Modernización y Desarrollo del Sector Agrícola (LMDSA)5 in 1992, which marked the end of the cooperative (ejidal) lands in the country (Angel et al., 2004). Even though the first initiatives for planned development are in place years later, the results are not as expected due to massive land occupations and the authorities’ lack of capacity to provide basic needs (AMDC, 2014a). Later in the 1980’s decade, a national revision of the last century’s Liberal views takes place; an ideology under which the State, as the main driver, aimed to modernize the economy and place it in the global market. The result is a Neoliberal doctrine that establishes a need to revive the country’s political and economic structure, by removing the State’s position of leading developer, and opening opportunities for other initiatives. In addition, this economic adjustment is further influenced by the financial support from international organizations (e.g. The World Bank and the International Monetary Fund) and the private market (Cálix, 2008; Zelaya y Ferrera, 2012). The sum of the economic and political reforms over these last decades led to the privatization of agricultural land, with the transfer of State land to individuals, and its industrialization, which introduced new production technologies and techniques such as crop switching for an increased export‐oriented production. Consequently, the rural environment was disrupted since less labor force was needed; it is in this last point where the greatest migration flow affected the country’s main urban areas: Tegucigalpa in the central region and San Pedro Sula in the North, as shown in Figure 3 (Angel et al., 2004).

Figure 3. Location of major cities in Honduras.

In the timespan of decades, the city doubled in size with a series of poverty strips that now encircle the central city (AMDC, 2008; FAO, 2014). An estimated half of the population (52.9% of households6) lives in vulnerable barrios and slums, over inappropriate land for settlements such as steep hills and riverbanks where they become exposed to the natural hazards posed by the physical conditions of the region, and with no access to urban services (e.g. water or roads), as can be seen in the Figure 4 below (Martín, 2010); adding to other issues such as health, education, transportation, environmental degradation, food access, and insecurity. Regarding the economic dimension, market forces continue to become stronger by a retreating local government from public investment, and with the privatization of public services. An example of this withdrawal is the capital’s historical district, once the center for political, economic, and recreational

This law encourages land market liberalization, and privately owned lands to apply modern farming techniques, all with the purpose of competing in the international market. 6 INE, Encuesta Permanente de Hogares de Propósitos Múltiples (EPHPM), 2014. Cuadros de Pobreza. th

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functions, is abandoned by the end of the 20th century. Private initiatives are left to recover such spaces with the construction of shopping centers and the more recent malls that serve the upper classes (Cálix, 2008). In addition, the socio‐economic characteristics and lack of education in the urban poor has produced a predominant informal economy across the city. At the physical level, the constant demand for resources and productive activity guides the city’s expansion along major transportation routes and natural corridors, endangering with a period of resources deprivation in the future. As can be seen in the Figure 5 below, Tegucigalpa is expanding towards the Guacerique watershed, one of its major water sources. Within this context, the following quote identifies the resulting situation:

Figure 4. Numbers for urban poverty in Tegucigalpa.

Figure 5. Tegucigalpa's urban growth over the years, and its expansion towards the Guacerique watershed. Sources: Angel et al., 2004; AMDC, 2014a.

“The problem lies not in the normative, but in the practice and the incapacity to enforce policies and standards. We could say that there are two cities: formal and informal, where the latter is governed by need and the search for its own solutions with no control over it, and the former is led by the private market, where public investment cannot keep pace and regulate growth to ensure the public’s interest.” (AMDC, 2011) th

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Today, Tegucigalpa’s future is highly dependent on sustainable development, which can be understood under this setting as the simultaneous pursuit of a just society, economic growth and its fair distribution, and the promotion of a “green” city. Moreover, sustainable development should be thought of as a comprehensive path or strategy, which aims to overcome or avoid the problems presented in Tegucigalpa (e.g. urban poverty, inequality, food insecurity, lack of basic services, and substandard housing, to name a few) in the progression towards a better city. Within this backdrop, urban agriculture becomes a multi‐faceted lever (Van Veenhuizen, 2006) that addresses the components and the overall problem itself. Still, whether or not sustainable development can be planned remains to be seen. The planning scene does not present the conditions for this scenario through its model of conventional‐top down development. A rupture of the current system is needed in order to transition into a more innovative and collaborative approach in planning, and promote the sustainability of the area and its citizens. 3. The Research In order to answer our questions on Tegucigalpa’s spatial planning and development scene and the potential for UA in this setting, this research was carried out as the Master’s thesis of one of the authors of this paper, inspired by the problematic in the city and the increasing importance of food movements worldwide (e.g. Amsterdam, New York, Havana, and Dar es Salaam, among others). An initial literature review provided the basis for understanding the concept of sustainable development and the role of urban agriculture in city‐making, followed by a one‐month visit to the city of Tegucigalpa to collect data through interviews, site visits, and documentation. The identified UA projects were later taken through a case study analysis, which consisted of a total of five formal UA initiatives and two cases of spontaneous UA activities in the urban area. The reflection phase of the research, in the end, allowed pinpointing major themes and topics that compose the UA scene in Tegucigalpa. 4. Urban Agriculture In Tegucigalpa Urban agriculture is not a wide‐spread practice in Tegucigalpa as yet. At least it is not visible from the public roads and it is not a popular theme in the local press and the dominant political discourse7. Nevertheless after careful and targeted inspection of websites, press releases and interviews with different professionals, our explorative search in Tegucigalpa revealed some interesting cases dispersed over various parts of the city. Their collaborators, participants, and methodologies vary in origin; however, they present common characteristics and goals for their development. This paper focuses on two of the selected case studies for the research, as the first is representative of the topic of conventional top‐down programs while the latter illustrates a case of collaboration and bottom‐up development in the city. Further on, two spontaneous UA initiatives are briefly presented in order to provide with an initial idea of the types of activities taking place in other neighborhoods of Tegucigalpa besides the projects stated beforehand. Case 1. The Project: “Family agriculture for a better life” This urban farming project is a household and school garden initiative proposed by the Honduran central government at the beginning of 2014, as part of their “Generation of Opportunities” Program. It aims at tackling food insecurity by improving the diets of children and adults in

According to the interviewees of this research and a review of local press and documentation. th

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vulnerable conditions, and who fall under the national and extreme poverty indicators. The target groups are families and public pre‐ and elementary schools across the country; who enter the program if they hold the prerequisite of water access, and land availability (50m2 in the case of households, and 200m2 for schools). The program is responsible for selecting the participants, as well as delivering the inputs for the development of their corresponding garden model (a drip irrigation system, seeds, fertilizers, and tools). Simultaneous to the installation of the garden, government technicians are responsible for training the participants in the preparation, maintenance, and harvest of the allotment. The main produce obtained is carrots, radishes, beets, beans, and corn. In addition, nutritionists give workshops on how to efficiently prepare the harvested products and improve the dietary intake of the families and school attendees. Furthermore, it is worth highlighting that the program has a strong educational component, as the gardens not only serve to improve the children’s nutritional intake but also aim at the recovery of agricultural traditions in the country’s youth (Figure 6). By the end of the first year, there were 55 schools involved in Tegucigalpa’s municipality, and hundreds more throughout the country. An active involvement from the parents, teachers, and students has been key for managing, developing the gardens, and for the use of the crops. The produce is added to the School Meal Program8 of each institution, contributing with the provision of vegetables that are not yet included in this program’s diet.

Figure 6. Harvesting in a school garden. Source: SEDIS.

Although this initiative has proven successful, there are socio‐political limitations that constrain its development, and on a greater scale, the legal status of the program (a feature that determines its financial support and continuation in future administrations). Thus, sustainability practices are also encouraged within this program, as the government only holds the capacity to provide for the initial inputs, and the participants must provide for themselves afterwards. Moreover, the development of the program in urban areas has been limited by the participants’ knowledge of agricultural practices. Even though a large portion of the population is a subject of rural‐urban migration, techniques in

The School Meal (Merienda Escolar) is a central government plan that aims at improving children’s health and academic performance, currently attending to 1.4 million children across the country. Rice, beans, eggs, milk, soy, and corn is delivered to schools with support from the World Food Programme, and parents and teachers must organize themselves to prepare the meals and distribute them to the children on a daily basis. th

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urban areas vary greatly from those in their places of origin; meaning that training must start from an elementary level, resulting in a longer implementation process. Case 2. The Cerro Grande School The Cerro Grande neighborhood school initiated a small academic entrepreneurship program in 2004, to which they added a small agricultural enterprise in 2010, aiming to educate the children in cultivation practices and their values. With a teacher’s interest in a FAO household project9 in the city, a school gardening program was adopted with the support from this organization, who provided the infrastructure and technical assistance for the implementation of the farming project (FAO, 2013; Fletes Ramos, 2012). In this case, teachers, who would later diffuse the knowledge among the students, were offered training. The garden was built on recycled materials such as tires, and developed through organic farming practices. Among the main products obtained are radishes, lettuce, spinach, onions, peppers, tomatoes, and a variety of herbs. The produce is later used in the preparation of the School Meal, and for food processing in another one of the school’s enterprises where the children learn to prepare pickled goods, jams, and tortillas mejoradas, to name a few products. Moreover, an important characteristic of this initiative is its particular irrigation system. Since the school receives water for only two days a week from the municipal drinking water system, irrigation could not be dependent on this service. The school had to become self‐sustainable in this aspect; and with the support from private sector foundations, a rainwater collection system with a storage tank and its distribution infrastructure was developed. Nowadays, the school has a vegetable garden, a water storage system, a greenhouse for producing aromatic herbs (Figure 7), and a small food processing enterprise. Therefore, such education center stands out for its entrepreneurship and sustainability, and for illustrating the value of integrating these types of activities in the children's curriculum. Likewise, the school is an example of the alliances these types of projects form to promote more sustainable development, due to the active involvement of NGOs, private sector, the school’s teachers, and the parents.

Figure 7. School greenhouse and cultivation tires at the Cerro Grande School. Source: Fletes Ramos, 2012.

It is expected that this particular initiative can be later replicated in other educational institutions of the country. Agreements have been signed between NGOs and government representatives to promote the incorporation of school gardens in the educational system, with the goal of tackling hunger and unsustainable practices (FAO, 2013). In the meantime, it is forecasted that by teaching 9

UA Pilot Project in Tegucigalpa from the local municipality, in cooperation with FAO, for household gardening in three of the city’s neighborhoods. See FAO, 2014. th

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the value of gardening to children, they can later diffuse it in their own households and motivate other family and community members into the practice, resulting in a "domino" effect across small communities of the urban population. Case 3. Spontaneous UA in Tegucigalpa. Apart from the formal projects mentioned before, a small number of informal UA initiatives were identified in Tegucigalpa. In order to discover other urban gardens in the city, a scouting of neighborhoods was done in accordance to the recommendations provided by the interviewees, and visual inspection throughout the fieldwork. These activities are labeled as "informal" as they receive no external support for their development and are solely implemented by their gardeners. Their spontaneous origin and purpose are among the main characteristics of these initiatives; however, their nature also affects their development and degree of resilience, and possibilities for future expansion. The first enterprise consists of a few UA activities taking place in the small public Preschool Amilcar Rivera Calderón in the inner city. Due to the achievements accomplished by their successful School Meal program, the school is now focusing on improving its academic curriculum by integrating field activities during classes, and not limit themselves to the classroom. Hence, the development of a program composed of small UA initiatives where the students get in contact with domestic animals and exercise cultivation. Similar to their School Meal program, “this project is dependent on the collaboration between parents and teachers for its success”, as expressed by the school’s director. As a result, an aviculture project is taking place in the school’s backyard, where the parents and faculty collected the materials for the construction of a henhouse (Figure 8). Fruit trees and a corn garden also take part in this agricultural initiative, of which the produce is included in the School Meal and the surplus (if any) is sold to the community as well. The sum of the activities contributes to the School Meal’s purpose of educating children on the importance of nutrition. In addition, it teaches the students the value and benefits of producing and using their own food. However, this initiative is limited by the space in the school grounds, narrowing its possibilities for expansion.

Figure 8. Left: henhouse built by the parents and teachers at the pre‐school. Right: corn cultivation in an empty lot.

The second set of informal UA activities is the temporary use of vacant land in the peri‐urban zone around the city. Even though Tegucigalpa continues to expand its area, it is still common to find empty lots throughout the city, particularly in residential neighborhoods that are considered as "more recent" urban developments. The lots are private property that is still unoccupied by their owners. The gardeners involved are usually the neighborhood guards or laborers working nearby,

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who start cultivating after permission to use the land is granted. The crops are mainly corn and beans, which are used in the gardener’s household or for commercialization in their own communities. Lastly, an important characteristic of these gardens is their temporary nature, since they are subject to the plot owners’ decisions and the gardener’s available time, resulting in dispersed cultivation sites across residential neighborhoods that tend to just last a few months. 4.1.

What do the cases suggest?

Considering the statements provided by the interviewees, the collected data, and the discoveries from the fieldwork used in the analysis phase of the study, the following sections build upon the common elements, strengths, and limitations of the recorded UA activities, as perceived by the collaborators and authors of this research. Firstly, it can be observed that different types of UA activities are already taking place in Tegucigalpa; refer to Table 1 below. From these initiatives we can see models of urban farming that range from household gardens to school gardens, and in which a variety of stakeholders participate: families (parents and children), professionals, NGOs, the government, and private foundations. However, one common element stands out from these experiences: the participating schools. Even though it is not required from the academic curriculum, UA has been added to the educational activities to motivate children and their families to take part in this movement. Table 1. Description of UA activities discussed in this paper.

For the concerns expressed at the beginning of this paper, the value of school gardens relies on their potential for community building and development in the city. Throughout the research, schools were represented as a medium to achieve common goals and encourage interaction between different stakeholders. In the process of developing the gardens, which in these cases are taken alongside the existing School Meal program, school teachers and families in the community come together with the goal of improving the children’s personal development, and consequently, their family’s situation. The focus on working for the children is stated by a representative of the School Meal program as: “Children are the future, it is an investment. Even though the parents do not have the ideal opportunities, investing on such activities improves their children’s chance for a better future.” Moreover, this should be thought of as investing in the city’s forthcoming society, meaning a long‐term effect in the path towards the improvement of the urban area.

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For planners, the strong presence of schools in the city (1,089 centers in the Central District Municipality10) represents a starting point for the integration of UA activities in Tegucigalpa, as all public schools participate in the School Meal program and hold the potential for the development of a school garden. Similarly, as UA initiatives become visible in the city, other neighborhoods or citizens start adopting these practices in their respective area; such was the case of the Cerro Grande School. As expressed by the interviewees, the increasing network of UA activities spread throughout the capital should be viewed as a “ripple effect” or “domino effect” system (Figure 9), in which the school becomes the focus point of a community and later influences its surroundings to become involved in UA for the neighborhood’s social, economical, and environmental improvement. Given the socio‐political context in the city under the predominance of urban individualism and lack of communal space (refer to Section 4.5), schools in this case would hold the potential of becoming the entrance point to a community from the perspective of planners and developers, and a meeting point for its respective members.

Figure 9. Location of the recorded UA initiatives and their starting dates, including a representation of a ripple effect over Tegucigalpa. Image: Google Earth.

4.2. Windows of opportunity for UA Based on the idea that the city’s schools serve as a starting point for the integration of UA in Tegucigalpa, the following paragraphs describe the conditions and aspects that planners and developers (or even citizens) could take advantage of in the quest of implementing UA as a strategy for sustainable and participatory development in the city: A multi‐stakeholder process. The first aspect to observe, and one of the most repetitive points throughout the research, is the need for inter‐institutional collaboration and alliances among the stakeholders of UA in Tegucigalpa. UA is best achieved through a multi‐stakeholder mechanism that 10

Secretaría de Educación. Data includes public schools and educational centers under a private administration. th

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adds a comprehensive and dynamic character to the planning process (Dubbeling & Merzthal, 2006), and which may include government agencies, municipalities, international and local NGOs, the private sector, educational centers, and the citizens themselves. Within the case studies presented, UA was successful through good community organization (schools‐families‐neighbors) and institutional collaboration (public and private sector) for its socialization process and application. Furthermore, an active participation from stakeholders improves the quality of decision‐making, raises the level of trust among them, and increases the credibility of projects. Cooperation also enables the coordination of different mechanisms towards an effective use of human, financial, and environmental capital. A strong example of such alliances was the work between the Cerro Grande School, FAO, and the private sector in the acquisition of resources for the development of the school garden. Thus, within this framework, institutions or other fellow stakeholders become facilitators of the practice and empower the population towards city‐making. The existing initiatives. Existing initiatives serve as a starting point for UA in Tegucigalpa. The socio‐ political context in the city limits the application of new programs without a previous exploration of the issue at hand; therefore, the case studies represent pilot projects of which best practices can be extracted from and adapted to improve strategy‐building in the city. Likewise, the school initiatives can also be expanded (e.g. taking the school gardens to private schools) and their best practices can be adapted to other UA models (household or community gardens) to increase their reach and effects on the urban population. The School Meal venture especially demonstrates the potential of using an existing initiative for the implementation of UA: as the garden produce is added to the meals to improve the children’s daily nutritional intake, the community increases their interest in adopting a gardening program, and thus, a faster development of school gardens by the public and the gain of its benefits. Motivation from the participants. The case studies display there is strong motivation and interest from the participants in becoming involved in UA activities, meaning there is a general positive acceptance towards the practice to take advantage of. An example of such interest is the teachers who played the role as initiators of UA in their respective institutions, such as the case of the Cerro Grande School and the pre‐school, and their respective community members and institutions. However, such interest is triggered when UA becomes visible and accessible to other citizens through knowledge. The documentation illustrates how UA is an activity that can be undertaken by anyone who holds the prerequisite of knowledge (becoming aware of the practice and its techniques), and thus can be targeted at different groups. In the case of children, they show an eagerness to learn that can prove beneficial to UA’s implementation. 4.3.

What to expect?

Even though the impact of UA practices is expected over aspects that range from the ecological to social dimensions (Deelstra & Girardet, 2000; Smit & Nasr, 1992), we continue to focus on UA’s impact over Tegucigalpa’s particular features, and more specifically, on the effects of integrating UA in the urban area through the schools perspective. In the Honduran capital, UA practices would influence the city’s social and environmental setting, while raising awareness in the population on the value of UA over these aspects. And so, the following themes are showcased as perceived by the socio‐political context in the city, and as the immediate expectations of implementing a UA program in the area. Community building & citizen empowerment. First is the topic of empowering the population, in which citizens practicing UA appropriate their urban environment to improve their situation. This issue concerns more to lower‐income households, and more specifically women, who are generally

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the household managers and providers. As could be seen in the schools (and household gardens as well), women have an important role to play. UA practices become a form of occupation for them, besides being a medium to provide nourishment and reduce household expenses. Likewise, UA has shown to have an effect on improving a community's social relations throughout the examples. Cooperation has been key for the development of urban farms, produce harvesting, improving the School Meal (Figure 10), and commercializing any surplus. Within this context, UA is becoming a strategy that initiates social change, as it targets vulnerable groups and has a range of benefits on the long‐term. By improving livelihoods, and specifically children’s development, citizens may also become less exposed to the present issue of poverty and its consequent violence in the city, which has been rapidly increasing over the last years. Therefore, a transition into an improved quality of life for the city's inhabitants may be encouraged with the social, economic, and environmental benefits of UA.

Figure 10. Mothers preparing and distributing the School Meal to the children. Source: SEDIS.

Food security & nutrition. Most importantly, UA activities in the city tackle food insecurity and malnutrition, being the main driver for this practice in schools. In the area of Tegucigalpa, the main problem with food is the access (purchasing power), and not necessarily the food supply, especially for the urban poor. The application of UA in the examples shows food security as the priority, with the goal of producing for self‐consumption and sustainability. The result is an improvement of consumption habits and the level of nutrition of the beneficiaries through the diversification of their diets. In addition, involving children in UA “makes them value and understand the importance of producing their own food, and additionally, make an efficient use of water, considering it is the most valuable resource for food production”, as expressed by a government agent. 4.4. Impacts over the urban area Apart from small‐scale impacts mentioned before, the sum of the UA initiatives can generate substantial economic and environmental impacts at the city scale. Economic impact. On a general level, UA brings the recovery of agricultural practices and traditions that have been lost in the country, considering that Honduras is still a place where 37.8% of the economically active population is involved in agriculture and food chains (Consejo Económico y Social, 2005). At the smallest scale, UA can become a form of subsistence for vulnerable groups,

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where its contribution can be seen in household savings by reducing food purchases and the commercialization of surplus. Still, the economic impact of UA is dependent on the size of the garden, type of production, household members and income, among others. To provide a base idea of this impact, a study by the FAO (2012) in three vulnerable neighborhoods of Tegucigalpa shows a household garden's impact may be an estimated USD 20.00 per month, a 13‐25% of the amount families assign to food expenses, meaning that low‐income households can now allocate the savings to healthcare, education, or housing improvements. Moreover, the economical impact of UA is translated into the healthcare and productivity sector, through the phenomenon labeled as "the cost of hunger". Improving people's nutrition and personal development makes them build the capacities needed for education and employment opportunities, becoming a productive asset for the economical sector. Also, they become less prone to illness, which asides from benefiting their personal development, aids the country’s public healthcare system. For example, an average of 201 thousand cases in Honduras (2004) were in need of healthcare due to the exposure to malnutrition, resulting in a cost of USD 47.6 M for the country (Martínez & Fernández, 2007). Environmental impact. Firstly, vulnerable populations are the most affected by the impacts of climate change on agricultural yields and the subsequent food price fluctuations. In addition, climate influences natural phenomena such as water availability and quality, and increases the exposure to hazards and sanitation problems in the most vulnerable settlements. Thus, UA may serve as a strategy for climate change adaptation for inhabitants of the urban environment. Secondly, although urban agriculture makes use of resources (land and water) for its development, it can be deemed as an opportunity for the conservation and efficient use of such capital through strategic programs and practices for land, water, and waste management in urban areas, as could be seen in the case of the Cerro Grande School where rainwater is collected to irrigate the crops and solid waste is recycled for the construction of the vegetable garden. 4.5. Challenges for UA in Tegucigalpa Asides from the effects of implementing a UA initiative, it is important for city‐makers to also consider the limitations, in order to identify lessons‐to‐be‐learned and improve its future progress. Regarding the discipline of spatial planning, addressing these obstacles would mean to identify the conditions of the urban context that could constrain the application of such practice. Political context. The absence of UA from the national and municipal agenda limits the allocation of resources for its support and the channels for its promotion. Support from NGOs and private foundations becomes challenging without a solid demand or development scheme from the government, and for achieving inter‐institutional collaboration. In the case of the schools, UA cannot be guaranteed without the involvement of the Ministry of Education, and is therefore subject to a continuous interest from the teachers and parents. Furthermore, the issue of continuation affects its development, since there is little interest and political will to reinforce existing initiatives or commence new ones; thus, projects are interrupted every administration (four years), without gaining the benefits of a long‐term operation. Cultural context. Tegucigalpa's culture is shaped by different factors that include political ideologies, religion, and social status, among others. These points of view should be taken into account as they determine the acceptance and interest in UA across different society groups. An example is the government program in the first case study, where several school teachers have difficulties in adopting the initiative as their political perspectives contrast the current administration. Thus, the implementation of UA is attached to overcoming ideologies for its success.

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Similarly, urban culture tends to be less sensible to collective problems in comparison to rural communities. Individualist thinking challenges community building and empowerment, which adds to the issue of urban insecurity in the city, and consequently limiting UA as well. Insecurity affects people's reception towards outdoor activities, Moreover, society's response to insecurity has been the reinforcement of the privatization of property (e.g. enclosures and gated communities), reducing the interest in community interaction and intensifying urban individualism (Figure 11).

Figure 11. Children playing inside a gated community. Source: hondudiario.

Knowledge & diffusion. It is worth highlighting the topic of knowledge as the strongest limitation for the development of a UA movement in Tegucigalpa. As expressed by one interviewee: “people cannot practice it if they don’t know it”, and so the training phase within the case studies depicts the importance of knowledge for target groups to start practicing UA. Understanding the potential of the practice for changing their livelihoods will empower people to exercise it, regardless of their social group and context. Likewise, the type and level of knowledge determines the type of UA practices, regarding farming techniques (e.g. organic‐inorganic) and management of inputs, as well as the commercialization of products. In addition, knowledge defines the consumer culture, through which the demands that shape the urban environment are established. However, social stratum determines the opportunities for acquiring such knowledge, for which it is therefore important to address the issue of diffusion among the city’s diverse population. Planning context. Tegucigalpa's spatial development scene continues to be driven by past Neo‐ liberal discourses and thus continues to be unresponsive to the urban problematic in the area. UA does not take part in urban development activities, meaning it is not a permitted land use in the area. Taking into account that land is the first resource on which UA depends on, the allocation of plots and other space possibilities (e.g. vertical surfaces for gardening) must take place to enable the population to practice UA. Additionally, land tenure is a common problem in the city due to the illegal occupations and ownership insecurity, where only an estimated 65% (2001) of poor household hold formal titles to their land or property (Fay & Wellenstein, 2005). Hence, a clarification of land property and enabling the availability of space could encourage the rise in UA initiatives across the urban area. Yet, achieving this stage of formalization of UA requires time and effort from the local government. In the meantime, planners can contribute as the "enablers" or "mediators" in the process (Mubvami et al., 2006), by guiding UA's consolidation in the form of small initiatives, such as the schools cases, in which the citizens drive the activity along with the support from fellow stakeholders. Inputs of UA. An additional observation derived from the case studies is the participants' dependence on state agencies and NGOs for the provision of UA inputs (e.g. seeds, tools, or water) and instruction. Sustainability of the practice must be achieved to develop it independently from

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institutions or charities, and ensure the resilience of projects when external support becomes unavailable or the urban conditions change. Furthermore, the limited availability and the situation of resources in the area produces a need to adapt technologies that efficiently use land and water resources; for the latter, it involves addressing one of the biggest problems of Tegucigalpa (see The World Bank, 2012; Brand & Bradford, 1991; UNICEF, 1990). Planning then, must facilitate and manage the use of such resources, in order to ensure a sustainable development of UA and the revitalization of the city's urban environment. 4.6. Complementary strategies promoting healthy urban lifestyles Although UA opens a window on a viable strategy towards sustainable development and solution of the intricate web of problems in Tegucigalpa by means of a grassroots movement, it's not the only one. In addition, the following points do not only represent different alternatives to a UA phenomenon in the area, but also powerful allies for the improvement and up‐scaling of UA into a network that extends across the capital city. Emerging health movements in the city. Emerging health movements throughout the city are inculcating the importance of good nutrition and physical activity in Tegucigalpa’s population. Until recently, the city’s society has been generally characterized by unhealthy habits, caused by the globalization of food chains and branding throughout the country (Schortman, 2010), and the population’s discouragement towards outdoor activities due to the insecurity problem. With the rise in events regarding health campaigns, recreational fairs, and marathons as seen in Figure 12 (e.g. the Recreovías, Honduras Actívate, and several fundraisers), people are being stimulated to improve their lifestyles and consumption habits, serving as another opportunity to encourage the urban culture to adopt UA practices for its health and recreational values.

Figure 12. Fundraising race in a major boulevard of Tegucigalpa.

Investments in urban development. More importantly, recent investments in development point towards addressing the social problematic of the urban and peri‐urban area through the revitalization of public space, with the aim of improving community building and urban security. Among the ongoing projects, it is worth highlighting the intervention by the “Emerging and Sustainable Cities Initiative” from the Inter‐American Development Bank (IDB), which points towards the recovery of the Choluteca River’s basin and the historical center of Tegucigalpa through a process of urban revitalization and densification. Another project that is gaining visibility is the development

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of parks and communal space by the Fundación Convive Mejor, who aims at constructing a park network throughout several municipalities affected by crime and poverty; among which the first area to intervene is the capital city (Figure 13). Consequently, public space is becoming a medium for communities to converge, interact, and appropriate their urban environment in the search for community development. Hence, public or communal space is a potential mechanism for UA to take part in such initiatives that focus on the renewal of the urban area as well, and that will make it a more visible practice within and across the different communities.

Figure 13. Left: IDB proposal for the Choluteca area. Source: ESCI. Right: Completed park in San José de la Vega. Source: El Heraldo.

Reflections & Conclusions

In the city of Tegucigalpa, UA has developed under a very specific context due to the socio‐political conditions and the overall urban development of the capital over the years. As the planning scene is not able to cope with the increasing urban problems, alternative solutions focused on social cohesion and urban security are now in the making. Likewise, international agencies (seen in the examples of the IDB and FAO) are setting the framework for achieving the population's sustainability, among which UA can be included as a development strategy. Therefore, a rupture of the more traditional top‐down approach has commenced with the increasing participation of numerous stakeholders and multi‐party collaboration in the transition towards a better capital. However, the topic of active citizenship or bottom‐up development is not yet consolidated under this context, as the general population is not in a position to manifest their needs due to the limitations posed by the issue of knowledge. The case studies outlined a type of UA movement in Tegucigalpa where most examples showcase a willingness from "top‐downers" to improve the conditions of the urban area with the development of programs based on food production aimed at improving the inhabitants' livelihoods. Thus, the population has a certain level of dependence on support from external actors, leading to a passive demand from the population, instead of the expected spatial appropriation illustrated by other cases around the world (see Miazzo & Kee, 2014). Nevertheless, UA holds the potential for contributing to a citizen’s quality of life. Although it is not expected to become a medium for absolute self‐sustainability, it has provided the target groups with more benefits than setbacks, such as improved nutritional intake, skill building and empowerment, monetary savings, and social cohesion, among others. The food gardens have also demonstrated to have an impact on the topic of equity, as women are the outstanding participants in the cases, even though the gender issue does not necessarily hold the strongest stance among the examples. In addition, there is strong interest in the instruction to children as it is viewed as the qualification and development of the city's upcoming society, aiming at the long‐term benefits of these actions and securing a positive social change in the future of the urban area. th

7 International Aesop Sustainable Food Planning Conference Proceedings, Torino, 7‐9 October 2015

UA is not and cannot become the ultimate solution to the myriad of urban problems in Tegucigalpa. Tegucigalpa's conditions present multiple challenges regarding the availability of inputs (land and water) for practicing agriculture in the urban area. Effort must be placed on this issue, considering the social assets of UA may compensate for the unfavorable access to resources in the city. Therefore, it must be complemented by other initiatives that focus on managing the resources needed for developing urban gardens, considering there are several windows of opportunity for its strategic development and inclusion. Nonetheless, a different challenge for UA stakeholders arises. As the historical evolution of the city and its planning system shows, Tegucigalpa does not present the ideal scenario for continuing a top‐ down development of UA programs. In order to achieve a degree of self‐sustainability in the population and establish a bottom‐up demand of UA, it appears that the first issue to address is the topic of knowledge and diffusion, considering knowledge is a driver for empowerment and social exchange. Further on, collective action may strengthen the people's identity, and their sense of self‐ determination in the face of hardship (Smit et al., 1996). Hence, UA represents both an end (food production) and a channel for strategically achieving community goals. Lastly, the application of UA is not a matter of tackling the increasing urbanization, but improving the quality of life of the people that have been affected by this phenomenon throughout the years. Like so many other exploding urban agglomerations in developing countries, the city of Tegucigalpa is in need of a comprehensive urban strategy which may eventually create a resilient physical and socio‐ economic environment. Urban agriculture can provide with building blocks for an adaptive bottom‐ up strategy, conceived and carried out by its populace in the face of constantly changing conditions. 6. REFERENCES AMDC 2008. Capital 450, La Ciudad Que Queremos. Tegucigalpa M.D.C.: Alcaldía Municipal del Distrito Central. AMDC 2011. ¡Arriba Capital! Plan Municipal de Ordenamiento teritorial 2011‐2028. Tegucigalpa M.D.C.: AMDC, PNUD, CAH. AMDC 2014a. Diágnostico Integral Multidimensional. Borrador ‐ Plan de Desarrollo Municipal con Enfoque en Ordenamiento Territorial. Municipio del Distrito Central, Tegucigalpa M.D.C. AMDC 2014b. Subsistema Social. Borrador ‐ Plan de Desarrollo Municipal con Enfoque en Ordenamiento Territorial. Municipio del Distrito Central, Tegucigalpa M.D.C. ANGEL, S., BARTLEY, K., DERR, M., MALUR, A., MEJIA, J., NUKA, P., PERLIN, M., SAHAI, S., TORRENS, M. & VARGAS, M. 2004. Rapid Urbanization in Tegucigalpa, Honduras. Preparing for the doubling of the city’s population in the next twenty‐five years. Report from Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, Princeton University. BRAND, A. & BRADFORD, B. 1991. Rainwater harvesting and water use in the barrios of Tegucigalpa, UNICEF/Honduras' Water Supply and Environmental Sanitation Program. BRYLD, E. 2003. Potentials, problems, and policy implications for urban agriculture in developing countries. Agriculture and human values, 20, 79‐86. CÁLIX, D. N. 2008. Tegucigalpa, espejismo de la modernidad: el impacto de los discursos liberal y neoliberal sobre la capital de Honduras (siglos XIX y XX). Amérique Latine Histoire et Mémoire. Les Cahiers ALHIM. Les Cahiers ALHIM. CONSEJO ECONÓMICO Y SOCIAL. 2005. Diagnóstico: Producción y Empleo de Rubros de Exportación No Tradicionales (Sandía, Melón, Maranón y Camarón) [Online]. Available: http://www.trabajo.gob.hn/organizacion/dgt‐ 1/direccion‐general‐de‐empleo/oml/diagnosticoproduccionyempleo.pdf [Accessed February 16, 2015]. DEELSTRA, T. & GIRARDET, H. 2000. Urban agriculture and sustainable cities. Bakker N., Dubbeling M., Gündel S., Sabel‐Koshella U., de Zeeuw H. Growing cities, growing food. Urban agriculture on the policy agenda. Feldafing, Germany: Zentralstelle für Ernährung und Landwirtschaft (ZEL), 43‐66. DUBBELING, M. & MERZTHAL, G. 2006. 2. Sustaining Urban Agriculture Requires the Involvement of Multiple Stakeholders. Cities farming for the future: Urban agriculture for green and productive cities, IDRC.

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DUBBELING, M. 2011. Integrating urban agriculture in the urban landscape. Urban Agriculture Magazine, 25, 43‐46. FAO 2012. Sistematización del Proyecto Piloto AUP en Honduras. La agricultura urbana y su contribución a la seguridad alimentaria. Tegucigalpa M.D.C. FAO. 2013. Huertos se utilizarán como herramientas pedagógicas en los centros escolares [Online]. Available: http://fao.org.hn/l/noticias/73‐huertos‐se‐utilizar%C3%A1n‐como‐herramientas‐pedag%C3%B3gicas‐en‐los‐ centros‐escolares.html [Accessed February 04, 2015]. FAO 2014. Ciudades más verdes en Américca Latina y el Caribe. Roma: Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. FAY, M. & WELLENSTEIN, A. 2005. 3. Keeping a Roof over One's Head: Improving Access to Safe and Decent Shelter,. The urban poor in Latin America. World Bank Publications. FLETES RAMOS, Y. 2012. Sistematización de Cosecha de Agua para Riego de Huerto Escolar, Sistematización de Buenas Prácticas: Diplomado en Cambio Climático UNAH‐IHCIT. GREEN, M. 2000. Participatory development and the appropriation of agency in southern Tanzania. Critique of anthropology, 20, 67‐89. INE. 2014. Población y Empleo, Inicio [Online]. Available: http://www.ine.gob.hn/ [Accessed January 21, 2015]. LA TRIBUNA. 2013. Tegucigalpa crece… Pero, ¿hay espacio para más gente? La Tribuna. [Online]. Available: http://www.latribuna.hn/2013/12/09/tegucigalpa‐crece‐pero‐hay‐espacio‐para‐mas‐gente/ [Accessed August 30, 2015] MARTÍN, M. 2010. La Complejidad Urbana y Ambiental de Tegucigalpa. Proyecto "Tegucigalpa 2010", Capítulo 1. Tegucigalpa M.D.C.: Comité de Desarrollo Sostenible de la Capital, CCIT. MARTÍNEZ, R. & FERNÁNDEZ, A. 2007. El costo del hambre: impacto social y económico de la desnutrición infantil en Centroamérica y República Dominicana. MIAZZO, F. & KEE, T. 2014. Introduction. We Own The City: Enabling Community Practice in Architecture and Urban Planning. The Netherlands: Trancity. MOUGEOT, L. J. 1994. CFP Report 8: Urban Food Production: Evolution, Official Support and Significance. MUBVAMI, T., MUSHAMBA, S. & DE ZEEUW, H. 2006. Integration of agriculture in urban land use planning. Cities Farming for the Future: Urban Agriculture for Green and Productive Cities. RUAF, IIRR and IDRC, Silang, the Philippines, 54‐74. QUON, S. 1999. Planning for urban agriculture: A review of tools and strategies for urban planners. Cities Feeding People Report, 28. REDWOOD, M. 2012. Introduction. Agriculture in urban planning: generating livelihoods and food security. Routledge. SCHORTMAN, A. 2010. “The Children Cry for Burger King”: Modernity, Development, and Fast Food Consumption in Northern Honduras. Environmental Communication, 4, 318‐337. SMIT, J. & NASR, J. 1992. Urban agriculture for sustainable cities: using wastes and idle land and water bodies as resources. Environment and urbanization, 4, 141‐152. SMIT, J., NASR, J. & RATTA, A. 1996. Urban agriculture: food, jobs and sustainable cities. New York, USA. THE WORLD BANK 2012. Integrated Urban Water Management. Case Study: Tegucigalpa. Blue water, green cities. Washington DC: The World Bank UNAH‐IUDPAS 2015. Boletín Nacional Enero‐Diciembre 2014. Mortalidad y Otros. Edición No. 36. Observatorio de la Violencia. UNICEF 1990. Urban example prospective for the future: water supply and sanitation to urban marginal areas of Tegucigalpa, Honduras. Urban example prospective for the future: water supply and sanitation to urban marginal areas of Tegucigalpa, Honduras. UNICEF. VAN VEENHUIZEN, R. 2006. 1. Introduction, Cities Farming for the Future. Cities farming for the future: Urban agriculture for green and productive cities, IDRC. WATSON, V. 2009. ‘The planned city sweeps the poor away…’: Urban planning and 21st century urbanisation. Progress in planning, 72, 151‐193. WEKERLE, G. R. 2004. Food justice movements policy, planning, and networks. Journal of Planning Education and Research, 23, 378‐386. ZELAYA Y FERRERA. 2012. La Reforma Liberal [Online]. Available: http://historiadehondurasenlinea.blogspot.nl/2012/06/la‐reforma‐liberal.html [Accessed September 15, 2015].

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Magda Rich, Andre Viljoen, Karl Rich, “The ‘Healing City’ – social and therapeutic horticulture as a new dimension of urban agriculture?”, th In: Localizing urban food strategies. Farming cities and performing rurality. 7 International Aesop Sustainable Food Planning Conference Proceedings, Torino, 7‐9 October 2015, edited by Giuseppe Cinà and Egidio Dansero, Torino, Politecnico di Torino, 2015, pp 22‐35. ISBN 978‐88‐8202‐060‐6

THE ‘HEALING CITY’ – SOCIAL AND THERAPEUTIC HORTICULTURE AS A NEW DIMENSION OF URBAN AGRICULTURE? Magda Rich1, Andre Viljoen2, Karl M. Rich3

Keywords: urban agriculture, social and therapeutic horticulture, urban planning, CPUL, group model building Abstract: The healing effects of nature and natural environments have been known for centuries. Recent studies suggest that the incorporation of horticulture into therapeutic activities benefits people with diverse social and health problems. This knowledge has engendered the development of a large number of facilities offering horticulture‐based therapeutic activities, mostly in rural areas in Western Europe and the US. However, as a significant majority of their potential beneficiaries live in urban environments, the rural location of these facilities might significantly lower their accessibility for certain disadvantaged groups. Developing a network of public areas used for urban agriculture for therapeutic purposes could thus be an important policy strategy that combines the accessibility to city‐based services with the health benefits of nature‐based therapeutic activities and social and environmental benefits of urban agriculture. In developed countries where populations are rapidly ageing and policies ensuring the provision of affordable good quality healthcare will be increasingly needed, horticulture‐based therapeutic activities might offer an interesting alternative. This paper discusses the possibilities of practicing therapeutic horticultural activities as a new dimension of urban agriculture. It raises questions to be addressed in order to develop strategies that would successfully integrate therapeutic horticulture activities in urban planning using the concept of Continuous Productive Urban Landscapes. The paper further highlights the use of participatory systems methods of group model building as a means of collecting data and developing decision tools with diverse sets of stakeholders to successfully implement such policies in practice.

Introduction

In recent years, cities around the world have witnessed a growing number of urban‐based initiatives that reflect the demands, needs, and values of current urban dwellers (such as access to affordable healthy food, a need for enjoyable healthy leisure activities and social contacts, or a desire to re‐ connect with nature and the basic process of growing one’s own food) through urban agriculture (UA). Even though various UA initiatives address different goals and are established to pursue different purposes, they face common complications and challenges arising from their location in urban areas. Concomitant with the rising numbers of UA initiatives in urban areas, a significant number of facilities providing horticulture‐based therapies have been established in recent years in rural areas and urban fringes, mostly in Western Europe and the US. Therapeutic activities offered at these establishments belong to what is termed ‘green care’, a group of therapeutic practices using activities such as horticulture or taking care of animals, and conducted in natural or farm settings to 1

Magda Rich (University of Brighton), magda.rich86@gmail.com Andre Viljoen (University of Brighton), A.Viljoen@brighton.ac.uk 3 Karl M. Rich (Lab 863 Ltd), karl@lab863.com 2

Magda Rich, Andre Viljoen, Karl Rich, “The ‘Healing City’ – social and therapeutic horticulture as a new dimension of urban agriculture?”

improve the health and well‐being of people with a wide range of health and social problems (Hine et al., 2008). However, while opportunities to participate in such activities are mostly located in rural areas, a significant majority of their potential beneficiaries live in urban environments where formal healthcare and other services are more accessible. The distance between urban areas and rural care farms could potentially limit the access of certain disadvantaged groups to partake in nature‐ and horticulture‐based therapies to improve their quality of life. Developing a network of public areas in urban settings that could be used for UA for therapeutic purposes could thus be an important policy strategy that combines the accessibility to city‐based services, the benefits of nature‐based therapeutic activities, and other benefits of UA such as social and environmental ones (Viljoen et al., 2005). In developed countries where populations are rapidly ageing and policies ensuring the provision of affordable good quality healthcare will be increasingly needed, horticulture‐based therapeutic activities might offer a useful alternative. In this paper, we aim to identify and address some of the common problems faced by initiatives that provide nature‐ and horticulture‐based therapies by introducing the idea of incorporating horticulture‐based therapies into UA and urban planning. We conducted case studies of four UA initiatives, each of which differed in terms of the degree of horticulture‐based therapeutic activities on offer and the diversity of beneficiary groups. The case studies were conducted using semi‐ structured interviews with managers or therapists. Three case studies were located in the US and one in the Czech republic. We suggest that the integration of horticulture‐based therapies into the concept of Continuous Productive Urban Landscapes (CPULs) could create a potential win‐win policy situation that would benefit a wide array of stakeholders. To successfully implement such policies in practice, we propose using appropriate participatory systems methods of group model building as a means of collecting data and developing decision tools with diverse sets of stakeholders (Rich, Rich, and Hamza 2015). The paper is organized as follows. First, we provide background information and a summary of the state‐of‐the art of research on horticulture‐based therapies. We then summarize our findings from the four case studies and provide arguments supporting the integration of horticulture‐based therapies in UA and urban planning. In the following section, we suggest the spatial integration of areas used for therapeutic purposes in urban environments through their incorporation into the CPUL concept and explain appropriate participatory systems methods that could be used as a tool for developing and implementing such policies. In the last section, we summarize our paper and draw conclusions. 2.

State of the art of green care and horticulture‐based therapies

2.1

Definition of green care

The healing effects of nature and interaction with natural elements and the environment have been known for centuries. Recognition on a formal clinical level first occurred in the 19th century when psychiatrists in the UK and the US observed the positive influence of farming and gardening activities on their patients. Mental health asylums thus often included farms or gardens where patients could improve their health and wellbeing through manual labour (Relf, 2006; Sempik and Aldridge, 2006).

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Magda Rich, Andre Viljoen, Karl Rich, “The ‘Healing City’ – social and therapeutic horticulture as a new dimension of urban agriculture?”

However, during the 20th century, following the technical and scientific progress in agriculture and medicine, nature‐ and farm‐based rehabilitation programs were gradually replaced by pharmacological treatments (Relf, 2006). Scientific interest in the therapeutic effects of active interaction with natural elements re‐emerged in the 1990s, followed by the rise in the number of facilities established to offer these kinds of services. However, even though both the body of research and the number of such facilities have been growing steadily, no unified classification of these therapies has been developed. One of the most widely‐used classifications of nature‐ and horticulture‐based therapies uses the term ‘green care’ as an over‐arching term for an array of therapies such as social and therapeutic horticulture (STH), animal assisted interventions, care farming, or ecotherapy (Pretty, 2006; Hine et al., 2008). Bragg et al. (2014) later refined the green care definition as consisting of “a facilitated, regular and specific intervention, for a particular participant (or group of service users), rather than simply a ‘natural’ experience for the general public” (Bragg et al., 2014, p.1). In this paper, we focus on two of the most common green care practices – care farming and social and therapeutic horticulture, as their implementation in urban areas appears more feasible than other segments of green care. 2.2

Care farming

Care farming is defined as “the use of commercial farms and agricultural landscapes as a base for promoting mental and physical health, through normal farming activity” (Hine et al., 2008, p.6). Care farms target diverse groups of clients and patients with health problems (mental illnesses, addictions, intellectual disabilities), social problems (young offenders, long‐term unemployed), and older persons to whom they offer an informal and non‐institutionalized form of care (Hassink et al., 2012). The positive effects of care farming on human health and wellbeing have been demonstrated by a number of studies (Elings and Hassink, 2008; Hine et al., 2008; De Bruin, 2009) and include psychological benefits of increased self‐esteem and self‐respect; social benefits of improved social skills; and an improved physical state of the participants. Care farms have been established in rural areas, mostly in the US and Western Europe, in a grass‐ roots process primarily initiated by farmers interested in the diversification of their activities and sources of income (Hassink and van Dijk, 2006). The flagship countries in care farming in Europe are the Netherlands with more than 1000 care farms (Haubenhofer et al., 2010) and Norway with more than 500 care farms (Hassink and van Dijk, 2006). Other countries with significant numbers of care farms include Switzerland, Belgium, UK, Germany, Austria, Sweden, and Italy. The major differences between care farms in different countries are associated with the target groups of their clients/patients. While Norwegian care farms mostly target people with mental health problems, farms in Sweden and Switzerland focus on children with social problems, while care farms in the Netherlands and Italy serve a wide range of people with both health and social problems (Haubenhofer et al., 2010). 2.3

Social and therapeutic horticulture

There are many diverse ways in which horticultural activities are used for the therapeutic purpose of enhancing human health and wellbeing. While all these activities are often generally referred to as horticultural therapy, there are significant differences between these activities and require a more th

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Magda Rich, Andre Viljoen, Karl Rich, “The ‘Healing City’ – social and therapeutic horticulture as a new dimension of urban agriculture?”

precise classification. The American Horticultural Therapy Association lists four basic types of horticulture‐based activities and interventions: horticultural therapy; therapeutic horticulture; social horticulture; and vocational horticulture (AHTA, 2012). In our study, we focus on horticultural therapy and therapeutic horticulture. According to AHTA (2012, p.1), horticultural therapy is “the engagement of a client in horticultural activities by a trained therapist to achieve specific and documented treatment goals.” The same association gives us a definition of therapeutic horticulture as “a process that uses plants and plant‐ related activities through which participants strive to improve their wellbeing through active or passive involvement” (AHTA, 2012, p.1). In contrast with horticultural therapy, therapeutic horticulture focuses more on improving wellbeing more generally as it does not aim to achieve any specific treatment goals. However, the role of a trained specialist is a common feature of both therapeutic practices. Since we are analyzing these two practices together, we will use the umbrella term ‘social and therapeutic horticulture’ (STH) which is broadly used in the UK, one of the leading countries in the implementation of such therapeutic practices (Sempik et al., 2014). The literature based predominantly on research using questionnaires and observational methods indicates various positive effects of STH on mental and physical wellbeing as well as in the social interaction of participants. The major impact on mental health is in the form of reduced symptoms of depression and anxiety, and improved emotional wellbeing and self‐esteem (Chatworthy et al., 2013; Lee et al., 2008). Sempik (2010) stresses that the overall positive impacts of STH arise from enhancing the social functioning of participants, which can lead to an improved quality of life. Major groups of potential STH beneficiaries include people with mental or physical illnesses and disabilities, learning disabilities, older people, offenders, and people with a history of drug or alcohol addiction (Aldridge and Sempik, 2002). The country with the best‐documented implementation of STH is the UK. According to a survey carried out by Sempik (2010), there are more than 800 active projects of diverse scales and forms providing STH services in a diverse set of environments including urban areas. There is no common concept or platform that these projects follow, but they all belong to a network began by charity called Thrive that enables them to share useful information. However, as most of these initiatives are related to facilities such as hospitals or schools, there is no evidence that STH gardens and practices could be incorporated into urban public areas and urban planning in general. 2.4

Common features, problems, challenges

Care faming and social and therapeutic horticulture share a number of common features as they are both based on an active interaction with natural elements and they also target similar groups of clients/patients. As a result, they face multiple common challenges and difficulties. One of these challenges lies in their location. Specialized services targeting potential clients of STH and care farming facilities are typically concentrated in cities. This means that a significant number of people in need of their services are located in urban areas. Since care farming and STH facilities are typically established in rural and peri‐urban areas, they might be difficult to reach for some disadvantaged groups who are unable to travel out of the city in order to participate in such activities. Developing urban areas dedicated to STH and care farming thus might be a means to provide benefits to the city and its inhabitants on multiple levels.

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Magda Rich, Andre Viljoen, Karl Rich, “The ‘Healing City’ – social and therapeutic horticulture as a new dimension of urban agriculture?”

A substantial part of the positive impacts of STH and care farming in an urban environment correspond with the positive impacts of UA in general. These include, inter alia, ecological benefits such as improved water retention, localized food‐production and elimination of food miles, improvement of neglected or otherwise unused urban sites, potential economic advantages of saving money by growing one’s own food, and the social benefits associated with supporting communities and social contacts in general. However, the social aspect of UA takes greater importance in the case of STH and care farming. People in need of these therapies generally suffer from problems that can potentially isolate them from the rest of the society. Thus, providing such groups with the opportunity to participate in activities that provide contact with other people, whether by direct cooperation or simply by sharing space, can have strong positive effects and greatly help in social inclusion. In addition, practising STH and care farming in urban environments could represent an alternative means of providing cost‐effective healthcare. A survey conducted in the UK by Sempik et al. in 2004 compared the costs of day care for multiple client groups at facilities providing STH and day care at conventional facilities run by the NHS. The survey revealed only a fractional difference between these costs, as the price for a full day of care at an STH facility averaged at 53.68 GBP, compared to 54 GBP paid by clients at NHS‐run facilities (Sempik et al., 2004). The results of this study suggest that STH‐oriented day care can be provided at a similar cost of conventional day care. However, considering all the other intangible benefits of STH (i.e. ecological, social, etc.), the overall value provided by STH could be significantly higher than the value created by conventional facilities. At present, there are a number of projects providing STH in an urban environment, such as Kokoza in Prague, Czech Republic, or Digging for Dementia in Salford, UK. These projects have been typically started through a grassroots process at an individual level, without or with only limited support from formal planning or healthcare authorities. In the absence of policies that could support such projects, they operate as stand‐alone initiatives, typically dependent on charities, grants, and private donors as sources of funding. Creating a system that can integrate these initiatives both spatially into an urban fabric and its network of public spaces, and formally into urban planning policies could leverage the full potential of STH in an urban environment and strengthen its overall resilience. 3.

Existing STH and care farming initiatives in urban settings: four case studies

3.1

Case studies

3.1.1 Overview and methodology While there is a significant and growing body of literature on care farming, the literature on STH practices has been more limited. However, in both cases research has mainly focused on the effects of therapies provided for clients/patients, the types of clients these facilities serve, or the state of the art of these therapeutic practices in different countries. Studies depicting practical information (i.e. concrete therapeutic practices and their demands for space, material and staff, every‐day organization, and management) that could be used by policy makers and planners have been largely neglected. In addition, the existing body of research that focuses on these therapeutic practices has only focused on a limited number of countries, mostly in Western Europe.

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Magda Rich, Andre Viljoen, Karl Rich, “The ‘Healing City’ – social and therapeutic horticulture as a new dimension of urban agriculture?”

In order to obtain insights into more practical issues associated with care farming and STH, we conducted four case study visits of facilities providing these services in urban settings. An overview of basic information about the case studies is provided below in Table 1. Two of these were urban farms located in the USA, while the other two were community gardens, one located in the USA and the other in the Czech Republic: ‐ Growing Power Community Food Center and Urban Farm, Milwaukee, USA (urban farm) ‐ Growing Solutions Farm, Chicago, USA (urban farm) ‐ City Slicker Farms, West Oakland, USA (community garden) ‐ Kokoza, Prague, Czech Republic (community garden) The case study of Growing Power Urban Farm was conducted through participation in a public tour of the facility, while the other three case studies were conducted as semi‐structured interviews with managers and/or therapists directly involved in STH activities. Table 1. Description of the case study facilities

Total area (acres)

Client groups

Produce

Livestock

Other services

Source of income / funding

Growing 2 Power Urban Farm

Youth

Vegetables, herbs Goats, hens, Training in turkeys, fish sustainable agricultural practices, education, vermicompost production

Income from own commercial activities

Growing Solutions Farm

1.2

Young people with autism spectrum

Vegetables, fruits, None herbs

None

Grants; donations

City Slicker Farms

Children with autism spectrum, people recovering from trauma

Vegetables

Services of starting a garden for individuals and organizations, conventional community garden services

Grants and donations from government, individuals, corporate and local business; in‐ kind donations; income from own commercial activities

Kokoza

1.2

Conventional community garden services; Services of starting a garden; workshops

Local employment bureau; EU funds focused on employment of disadvantaged people; income from own commercial activities

Chickens

Adults with Vegetable, herbs, None psychotic flowers illnesses (schizophrenia)

3.1.2 Growing Power Urban Farm, Milwaukee, USA Growing Power Urban Farm was founded by Will Allen in 1993 and became a flagship facility of the Growing Power organization that now manages more than 20 locations in the city of Milwaukee with 4

Total area of three sites belonging to City Slicker Farms Kokoza runs two community gardens, however, in our case study we only involved the community garden where STH is conducted. 5

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Magda Rich, Andre Viljoen, Karl Rich, “The ‘Healing City’ – social and therapeutic horticulture as a new dimension of urban agriculture?”

farm sizes ranging from 0.25 to 34 acres. Growing Power also runs more than ten other UA sites in Chicago and Madison. From its inception, Growing Power focused on community engagement and training, with a special emphasis on urban youth. It cooperates with public schools by setting up their productive school gardens and provides training on sustainable food production to students. For many years, the organization was dependent on funding through grants. However, in the last two years, it has managed to fully sustain its operation without the need for external grants. Growing Power Urban Farm houses a highly diverse set of agricultural production activities, including horticulture, aquaponics, vermiculture, and vermicompost production, and a small section of animal husbandry. Horticultural production of vegetables and herbs, and aquaponic production of fish take place in greenhouses where the interior is organized in a vertical production system to maximize the space inside the greenhouses. Most of the other types of production are located outdoors. As soil in urban areas can be of variable quality and with a danger of environmental contamination, significant efforts have been made at Growing Power Urban Farm to produce high quality compost that is both used internally and sold to customers. Growing Power Urban Farm has succeeded in developing a portfolio of a large variety of products for sale. The main segment of its marketed production is in fresh produce, fish, and vermicompost. These products are sold both in an unsubsidized market in shops and to restaurants, and as subsidized products to poorer households as a means of providing affordable healthy food. In addition, Growing Power offers a variety of training courses and services for those interested in starting a productive garden. 3.1.3 Growing Solutions Farm, Chicago, USA Growing Solutions Farm was established by the Julie and Michael Tracy Family Foundation, which supports young people with autism spectrum. It is located in Chicago on a site belonging to the Illinois Medical District that was made available through a long‐term lease. The total area of the farm is 1.2 acres which houses raised beds and smaller containers with a total growing area of 6000 ft2. The farm employs two full‐time gardeners who are joined from Monday to Friday by up to 30 young people with autism spectrum accompanied by volunteers and caregivers for about two hours. As the produce is only grown in outdoor raised beds and containers, the production period when the farm can operate is from April to the end of October (i.e., until Halloween). However, this period is likely to be extended and the production capacity increased in the future as a new hoop house is being constructed at the moment. The farm produces more than 20 kinds of fruits, vegetables, and herbs. Half of the products grown at the farm are sold to restaurants and the remainder is donated to food pantries. Income from these sales does not cover the running costs of the urban farm, which it is vitally dependent on external funding in the form of grants and donations. 3.1.4 City Slicker Farms, West Oakland, USA City Slicker Farms was established in 2001 and currently manages three community gardens with a total area of three acres. The sites where the community gardens are located belong to a private owner, the municipality, and a local school district, respectively, who all made them available for the

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Magda Rich, Andre Viljoen, Karl Rich, “The ‘Healing City’ – social and therapeutic horticulture as a new dimension of urban agriculture?”

purposes of community gardening. City Slicker Farms runs two programs: a farm program and a garden program. The farm program consists of managing the three community gardens mentioned beforehand. They are organized partly as conventional community gardens where people rent a raised bed to grow food individually, and partly as collective gardens where volunteers work together to grow food. Products from the collective parts of the gardens are sold at weekly farm stands. These farm stands maintain a policy of people only paying as much as they can, as one of the major goals of the organization is to provide affordable healthy food to the local community in areas where supermarkets or other sources of healthy food are scarce. The garden program includes services for starting backyard productive gardens for individual clients as well as for organizations, institutions, and companies. So far, City Slicker Farms have started about 300 gardens through this program. A substantial part of the clients of the garden program are the elderly who constitute about 30% of its clientele, including 15 elderly care homes. As the manager of City Slicker Farms noted, one of the main reasons why the elderly are interested in having a productive garden is that they usually have gardening experience or memories related to horticulture. City Slicker Farms does not run any special STH program. However, their community gardens are regularly visited by students with autism spectrum who participate through working in the collective parts of the gardens. In addition, people recovering from trauma are among the community gardening participants, although there is not a special program for them and the garden managers do not have any special education in providing STH. 3.1.5 Kokoza, Prague, Czech Republic Kokoza is an organization that aims to promote ecological practices such as composting and UA, social inclusion, and training of disadvantaged people. Since 2013, they have run a vocational training program for people with psychotic illnesses, mainly schizophrenia, during which their clients are trained in gardening. This program is conducted at a community garden run by Kokoza and which consists of three parts. Similar to City Slicker Farms, a part (about one third) of the garden is used as a conventional community garden with raised beds rented by individuals. Another third is run as a collective garden were people work together. In this case, the collective part is used for therapeutic purposes. The rest of the space is a common area used for socializing and other activities. The therapeutic program is co‐financed by EU funds supporting the employment of disadvantaged people and by a local employment authority. It is designed as a work training for people with psychotic illness, especially for those who have been unemployed for a longer period of time. Each participant is required to fulfil 300 hours of work in the garden while the intensity with which this amount of work is completed depends on the abilities of each participant. The produce that is grown at the garden mainly includes vegetables and herbs. Products are not sold and are instead available for participants or other users of the garden. People who rent raised beds in the community part of the garden are mostly seniors, young people, and women on maternity leave. Both the therapeutic program and the community garden services currently operate at full capacity and there are waiting lists of people who would like to participate. Other services offered by

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Magda Rich, Andre Viljoen, Karl Rich, “The ‘Healing City’ – social and therapeutic horticulture as a new dimension of urban agriculture?”

Kokoza include workshops focused on composting and other ecological UA practices, and starting a garden for individuals who would like to begin to grow their food. 3.2

Levels of STH services and their correlation with funding sources

The level of STH implementation provided at the case study facilities differs greatly. While Growing Power focuses on services with local youth which have more of a social character rather than a therapeutic one, Growing Solutions Farm focuses solely on therapeutic activities and does not include any other services. Kokoza and City Slicker Farms are somewhere between these two extremes as their activities combine community gardening with different levels of STH. As mentioned above, about one third of the space in the community garden run by Kokoza is used for STH while in case of City Slicker Farms there is no space dedicated solely to STH but students with autism regularly visit the collectively maintained gardens. An interesting comparison emerges when we consider the levels of STH activities provided at these facilities and their sources of funding. While Growing Power Urban Farm is highly production‐ oriented and has managed to be independent of any external funding sources and fully self‐ sufficient, it appears that the more therapy‐oriented an initiative is, the higher level of external funding is needed. Figure 1 shows a schematic diagram of this comparison. The question is whether it would be possible to pick the best‐working elements and practices from existing projects and combine them in a way that would enable such initiatives to provide intense STH therapies while being financially self‐sustainable with no or very limited dependence on external funding.

Figure 1. Correlation between the level of STH services and independence from external funding. Magda Rich.

3.3

Site location and connection of the case study facilities with their environment

All case study facilities are located in urban areas with a different urban density. Table 2 shows the ownership situation of these sites. As we can see in the table, only Growing Power Urban Farm is

7 International Aesop Sustainable Food Planning Conference Proceedings, Torino, 7‐9 October 2015

Magda Rich, Andre Viljoen, Karl Rich, “The ‘Healing City’ – social and therapeutic horticulture as a new dimension of urban agriculture?”

located on a site that belongs to the project itself. This situation increases its resilience and independence from other entities such as the public authorities. Other case study projects operate on sites that are leased from others. Even though such leases are long‐term, this situation depends on many aspects such as local politics that puts these facilities in a more vulnerable long‐term position. The public sites that are used for STH purposes by the case study projects are mostly unused open spaces such as areas between a parking lot and a road or an unused park/garden belonging to the building of a city district town hall (table 2). While the sites of all the case study facilities are clearly marked and fenced, this physical disconnection is partly reconciled by their attempts to connect with their surroundings on a social level by being open for the public in several ways. This can take the form of public tours, an opportunity to volunteer and participate in their activities, or simply by allowing people to spend time and take a walk around the facility. Table 2. Land ownership characteristics of the case study facilities

Growing Power Urban Growing Farm Farm

Site is a property of the Yes farm/garden

Site is provided to the Not Applicable farm/garden (by who)

Yes (Illinois District)

Solutions City Slicker Farms No

Kokoza No

Yes Yes Medical (private owner, the city, (city district – the 6 garden is adjacent local school district) to the city district townhall)

One of the objectives of our study was to identify ways in which local planning authorities could support the case study project. Growing Power is located in a city where the social and environmental benefits of UA initiatives are appreciated by the mayor who thus acts supportively to facilitate more projects of this kind (Viljoen and Bohn, 2014). Growing Power Urban Farm thus reportedly has not experienced any complications from the formal planning authority and did not suggest any need for more formal support. However, in the other three cases, the interviewees stated a need of more land with appropriate technical infrastructure such as water supply and fencing. These projects operate on very tight budgets so any additional expense they need to make means a complication. In general, it is possible to say that our case studies mostly confirmed the information obtained from the literature on STH and care farming. They were all initiated from a bottom‐up process with a very diverse (yet usually fairly limited) level of formal support. Growing Power Urban Farm is unique as after more than ten years when external funding was necessary, it is now capable of generating enough income to sustain its operation and growth. It is apparent that while the other projects mostly focus on the input side in the sense of activities provided, Growing Power focuses just as much if not more on agricultural output and productivity which is reflected by the high level of diversification of their products and activities. Such a strategy makes the project more resilient as it is capable of adjusting to changes and not dependent on unreliable sources of funding. 6

City Slicker Farms operate on three sites in total. th

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Magda Rich, Andre Viljoen, Karl Rich, “The ‘Healing City’ – social and therapeutic horticulture as a new dimension of urban agriculture?”

Spatial integration of STH and care farming in urban areas: Continuous Productive Urban Landscape (CPUL)

4.1

CPUL introduction

The Continuous Productive Urban Landscape concept was first introduced by Bohn and Viljoen more than 10 years ago in 2004, as a result of the authors’ extensive work and research on urban agriculture (Viljoen and Bohn, 2014; Viljoen and Bohn, 2009). It represents a strategy combining diverse types of UA practices and public spaces into one integrated system on a citywide scale. While the places where UA is practiced are typically scattered and function individually, in a CPUL concept they become interconnected with other green open spaces to create a continuous network of public spaces serving multiple purposes, inter alia, production of food, leisure, and circulation of people (Bohn and Viljoen, 2005). The basic elements of CPUL networks are “urban agriculture, outdoor spaces for people (leisure and commercial), natural habitats, ecological corridors and circulation routes for non‐vehicular traffic” (Bohn and Viljoen, 2011, pp. 150). CPUL thus can be explained as a continuous network of interconnected green spaces running through a city and connecting urban areas to the surrounding landscape. The continuity of CPULs is a crucial feature as it enhances its positive ecological impact by becoming a natural bio‐corridor, as well as creating a pleasant passage for urban dwellers. Since it runs through and connects different parts and districts of the city, it has the capacity to connect a very diverse set of stakeholders with a wide range of needs and demands, some of which can be addressed by one of the many forms of UA. 4.2

Integration of STH and care farming into CPULs

Given the great diversity of spaces belonging to CPULs, this concept appears to be a natural way to spatially integrate areas for therapeutic purposes into a network of public spaces at the scale of a whole city. Such integration could lead into the incorporation on other levels as well, such as in the form of information and material exchange. In such an integrated network, some common projects and strategies (e.g. waste management strategy, composting strategy, etc.) could be developed which would be impossible to realize by individual initiatives for reasons such as lack of financial resources. Within a CPUL framework, these could be implemented to enhance the productivity and efficiency of all partners involved. In addition, just as inclusive school education has been recognized as beneficial for all parties involved, both the literature and our case studies suggest that inclusive urban planning might be an objective worth following. As a therapist from Kokoza pointed out, working in the community garden not only helps people with mental health problems learn how to cope with other people in an every day environment but also enables other city dwellers to meet and communicate with people with such problems and remove certain social barriers. As part of a CPUL, such a community garden would be integrated into a network of green corridors especially designated for non‐vehicular circulation and potentially used by people from broader surroundings. Activities conducted and organized in the community garden thus could reach a further circle of people. An example of using circulation pathways to efficiently extend its reach and involvement of people in an UA project is Spiel/Feld Marzahn in Berlin (Viljoen and Bohn, 2014). In this project, an unused brownfield surrounded by large blocks of flats was turned into an urban garden, while carefully respecting and sustaining existing pathways. In this way, people can keep using the same circulation pathways as they are used to, while the surroundings are improving. As the project aimed to include th

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Magda Rich, Andre Viljoen, Karl Rich, “The ‘Healing City’ – social and therapeutic horticulture as a new dimension of urban agriculture?”

the community to the highest possible extent, existing pathways were used from the beginning as a communication tool for sharing ideas and information (e.g. design plans were displayed along the pathways before they were publicly discussed at the site). In this way, it was possible to reach not only residents living in immediate surroundings of the site but anyone using the pathways in question. 5.

Formal integration of STH and care farming in urban planning: the role of participatory methods and GMB

An important constraint in the development of UA‐friendly policies is the dissonance between urban planners and planning authorities that are in charge of planning activities, and those that initiate UA activities on the ground. While the number of UA initiatives has grown substantially in the past few decades, planners have only realized the importance of UA and food planning during the past fifteen years (Lovell, 2010; Morgan, 2015) . This delay has led to a situation whereby UA initiatives have appeared and worked in spite of the lack of support and assistance of planning authorities. In order to integrate spaces for therapeutic purposes, as well as to support UA in general, it will be important to reconcile the top‐down approach of urban planners with the bottom‐up character of UA initiatives to identify common goals and develop efficient policies to reach these goals. Rich, Rich, and Hamza (2015) recently highlighted the role that system dynamics modelling could play to support the development of UA. System dynamics models are dynamic models (qualitative or quantitative) of complex systems that allow the simulation of alternative policy and planning interventions to assess their impact over time and among different stakeholders. An important component in such modelling efforts is a participatory process known as group model‐building (GMB) that can be used to conceptualize and parameterize such planning models through participatory means. Jac Vennix, one of the leading experts on GMB defines it as “a system dynamics model‐building process in which a client group is deeply involved in the process of model construction” (Vennix, 1999, pp. 1). Vennix suggests that GMB is a suitable method in “situations in which there are large differences of opinion on the problem or even on the question of whether there is a problem” (Vennix, 1999, pp. 2). In the context of integrating UA and STH, where stakeholders come from diverse backgrounds (planning, health, agriculture, community work) and perceptions about space and location mediate different views, a GMB process would provide stakeholders a platform to discuss issues, set goals, and develop strategies together which could play a critical role in a successful implementation of such policies. It would further provide a process through which planning models could be developed for long‐term resource allocation purposes that has been validated through participatory means. The GMB process is based on a cyclical repetition of group model‐building sessions during which divergent thinking is induced in brainstorming exercises. This is followed by facilitated discussions encouraging convergent thinking and defining outcomes (Vennix, 1999). The GMB process for implementing UA and STH could consist of two stages: preliminary sessions to identify goals, means, and stakeholders; and main policy development/oriented sessions of stakeholders identified earlier. Fig. 2 shows a diagram of such a process. In each stage, there would be several iterations of interaction, depending on how many cycles are needed to reach a mutually desired output.

7 International Aesop Sustainable Food Planning Conference Proceedings, Torino, 7‐9 October 2015

Magda Rich, Andre Viljoen, Karl Rich, “The ‘Healing City’ – social and therapeutic horticulture as a new dimension of urban agriculture?”

Figure 2. Stages of the GMB process. Magda Rich.

A crucial issue to consider before initiating a GMB process would be defining roles of the different stakeholders. Even if the initial impulse (and most likely funding) comes from a municipality or its planning department, they should not direct or manage the GMB process but rather participate as stakeholders, as a GMB facilitator should be a strictly neutral third party to the subject of discussion (Vennix, 1999). 6.

Conclusions

In this paper, we have introduced STH as a potential new dimension of UA. We have highlighted some of the problems in the implementation of STH from the literature and addressed these in the analysis of four case studies of STH facilities found in urban areas. We propose the spatial integration of STH into an urban fabric through the CPUL concept and its formal integration into urban planning policies through GMB processes. By integrating STH in CPULs, areas suitable for STH could potentially reach more people, and enhance information exchange and cooperation with other CPUL components. Similarly, as STH and UA are both processes that involve a diverse set of stakeholders, their successful implementation requires a wide range of participation in the process. GMB has potential in this vein. In particular, GMB provides stakeholders with the means to jointly develop platforms for evaluating alternative strategies and adjusting them as situations evolve. Such an approach would thus not be imposed on stakeholders from above but rather “owned” by them. Such flexible participatory approaches could significantly enhance the potential of successful STH and UA implementation and lead to better urban and food planning in general. 7.

References

Aldridge, J. and Sempik, J., 2002. Social and therapeutic horticulture: evidence and messages from research. Thrive (in association with the Cebtre for Child and Family Research): Reading. American Horticultural Therapy Association, 2012. Definitions and positions. Final HT Position Paper. Bohn, K. and Viljoen, A., 2005. More space with less space: An urban design strategy. In Viljoen, A., Bohn, K. and Howe, J., eds.: CPULs: Continuous Productive Urban Landscapes. Architectural Press Oxford, pp.15‐17. Bohn, K. and Viljoen, A., 2011. The edible city: Envisioning the continuous productive urban landscape (CPUL). FIELD, 4(1), pp.149‐161. Bragg, R., Egginton‐Metters, I., Elsey, H. and Wood, C., 2014. Care farming: Defining the ‘offer’ in England. Natural England Commissioned Reports, Number 155.

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Magda Rich, Andre Viljoen, Karl Rich, “The ‘Healing City’ – social and therapeutic horticulture as a new dimension of urban agriculture?”

Bruin, S.R.D., Oosting, S.J., Kuin, Y., Hoefnagels, E.C., Blauw, Y.H., Groot, L.C.D. and Schols, J.M., 2009. Green care farms promote activity among elderly people with dementia. Journal of Housing for the Elderly, 23(4), pp.368‐389. Chatworthy, J., Hinds, J. and Camic, P.M., 2013. Gardening as a mental health intervention: a review. Mental Health Review Journal, 18(4), pp.214‐225. Elings, M. and Hassink, J., 2008. Green care farms, a safe community between illness or addiction and the wider society. Journal of therapeutic communities, 29(3), pp.310‐322. Hassink, J. and van Dijk, M., 2006. Farming for Health across Europe: comparison between countries, and recommendations for a research and policy agenda. In: Hassink, J. and van Dijk, M. eds. Farming for health. Springer Netherlands, pp.345‐357. Hassink, J., Hulsink, W. and Grin, J., 2012. Care farms in the Netherlands: An underexplored example of multifunctional agriculture – Toward an empirically grounded, organization‐theory‐based typology. Rural Sociology, 77(4), pp.569‐600. Haubenhofer, D.K., Elings, M., Hassink, J. and Hine, R.E., 2010. The development of green care in western European countries. EXPLORE: the Journal of Science and Healing, 6(2), pp.106‐111. Hine, R., Peacock, J., Pretty, J., 2008. Care farming in the UK: Evidence and Opportunities. Report for the National Care Farming Initiative (UK). University of Essex. Hine, R., Peacock, J., Pretty, J., 2008. Care farming in the UK: contexts, benefits and links with therapeutic communities. Journal of therapeutic communities, 29(3), pp.245‐260. Lee S., Kim, M.S. and Suh, J.K., 2008. Effects of horticultural therapy of self‐esteem and depression of battered women at a shelter in Korea. Acta Horticulturae, 790, pp.139–142. Lovell, S.T., 2010. Multifunctional urban agriculture for sustainable land use planning in the United States. Sustainability, 2(8), pp.2499‐2522. Morgan, K., 2015. Nourishing the city: The rise of the urban food question in the Global North. Urban Studies, 52(8), pp;1379‐1394. Pretty, J., 2006. From Green Exercise to Green Care: A New Opportunity for Farming in the UK? Colchester:University of Essex. Rich, K.M., Rich, M. and Hamza, K., 2015. From response to resilience: the role of system dynamics approaches in analysing and developing value chains from urban and peri‐urban agriculture. Sempik, J., Aldridge, J. and Finnis, L., 2004. Social and therapeutic horticulture: the state of practice in the UK. Leicestershire: Centre for Child and Family Research, Loughborough University. Sempik, J., 2010. Green care and mental health: gardening and farming as health and social care. Mental Health and Social Inclusion, 14(3), pp.15‐22. Sempik, J., Rickhuss, C. and Beeston, A., 2014. The effects of social and therapeutic horticulture on aspects of social behaviour. The British Journal of Occupational Therapy, 77(6), pp.313‐319. Vennix, J.A.M., 1999. Group model‐building: tackling messy problems. System Dynamics Review, 15 (4), pp. 379‐401. Viljoen, A. and Bohn, K., 2009. Continuous productive urban landscape (CPUL): Essential infrastructure and edible ornament. Open house international, 34 (2), pp.50‐60. Viljoen, A. and Bohn, K., eds., 2014. Second nature urban agriculture. Routledge.

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Mario Artuso, “Urban agriculture, food production and city planning in a medium sized city of Turin metropolitan area: a preliminary note th which compares geography and local policies”, In: Localizing urban food strategies. Farming cities and performing rurality. 7 International Aesop Sustainable Food Planning Conference Proceedings, Torino, 7‐9 October 2015, edited by Giuseppe Cinà and Egidio Dansero, Torino, Politecnico di Torino, 2015, pp 36‐41. ISBN 978‐88‐8202‐060‐6

URBAN AGRICULTURE, FOOD PRODUCTION AND CITY PLANNING IN A MEDIUM SIZED CITY OF TURIN METROPOLITAN AREA: A PRELIMINARY NOTE WHICH COMPARES GEOGRAPHY AND LOCAL POLICIES Mario Artuso 1

Keyword: urban agriculture, food supply, local development, planning, institutions Abstract: This research is stated on a main question: do urban and periurban agriculture be considered a valuable source for food supply, environmental, economic and social development in a medium sized city? This question has been addressed considering urban agriculture management in the planning policies of Nichelino, a 48.000 inhabitants city in the Turin Metropolitan area. The results addressed the issue of urban and periurban agriculture considering their spatial distribution and relationships with citizens and users in their environmental, economic and social implications.

Nichelino urban area, framework overview.

Nichelino is a 48,000 inhabitants city (2011 census) spread over an area of 20.6 square kilometers south of the Turin metropolitan area.

Figure 1. Torino and his metropolitan area . Source : web torinostrategica http://www.torinostrategica.it/territori/

The proximity to the factory called "Mirafiori" one of the main industrial areas of production of FIAT, is one of the reasons why the city has undergone a rapid process of urbanization between 1961 (population 10,000 inhabitants) and 1971 (40,000) up to the 48.000 inhabitants today. 1

Mario Artuso, Politecnico di Torino, mario.artuso@polito.it

Mario Artuso, “Urban agriculture, food production and city planning in a medium sized city of Turin metropolitan area: a preliminary note which compares geography and local policies”

The city has a high density residential housing area, a more spread rural area and a large park around one of the main Savoy residences: the Castello di Stupinigi that is a national historical heritage and a local landscape landmark. The urban area, for mostly flat, is crossed in the north by the river Sangone and, inside its borders, by the railroad network and the Turin highway ring road. The city has experienced over the past ten years the economic crisis due to the industry lack of production and job, as evidenced by the data of the population employed in the industrial sector that fall down from 9.207 employees (19% of employed population) in 2001 to 5.950 employees (12 % of employed population) to date. A similar pattern occurs if we consider commercial and service sector employees that fell from 11.131 (2001) to 7.500 to date. If we consider the agricultural sector, however, the pattern remains stable and occupies only 1.3% of the population. This is a low figure when compared with the large extension of agricultural area in total 95.5% of the city surface and fully exploited2. In the following paragraphs we try to understand how it is organized the rural area within the city, its resources and potential of economic, environmental and social opportunities, considering the role of urban and regional planning.

The Green city

Urban geography consists of a high residential density area that comes close to the river and the regional park. This geographical framework affected local urban policies regarding the green city. Contextually to the Nichelino’s case study, green city is used here to show urban, peri‐urban agriculture , agriculture inside the park, agriculture outside the urbanized area. It may be helpful to clarify meanings and content of each of these categories. Urban agriculture is here stated as the presence of gardens areas inside the residential urban area. These gardens, located along the river at the north of the city (Area C in Figure 2) are nevertheless an integral part of urban planning being regulated by the appropriate authorizations allowed by the municipality to the citizens users. The peri‐urban agriculture, instead, refers to areas in which there are forms of agricultural production spread on more extensive land, whether they are localized within the city or at the edge of it (Area B in Figure 2). These areas can be both private and public property, with a food production large enough to be marketed. Agriculture inside the park, refers to farms located into the park (Area A in Figure 2). Agriculture external to the urbanized area refers to farms in the city administrative boundaries but within the predominantly rural landscape. If we consider the geographical distribution of these three forms of agriculture it comes out a well defined pattern and specific urban policies. The Urban agriculture consists mainly of urban gardens whose surfaces have been identified in the Urban Plan mainly along the coastal strip of the river Sangone. This choice is based on both the availability of open spaces in this area (which over the years have not been built for geomorphologic reasons), the proximity to the river and the ease of access for users as very close to the urbanized area. These areas have surfaces of an average about 4000 square meters. and granted by the city to individuals with specific public tenders. It is appropriate to point out one of this area particularly important both for its size, with its 30.000 square meters it is much more extensive than average, but also because – as a private property ‐ it markets its products by selling them directly to consumers. The peri‐urban agriculture is instead located in the south eastern end of the city where there are private activities of agricultural production. 2

Data refers to national census of 2001 and 2011 and to the updates of the Italian Institute of Statistics (ISTAT). Source : www.istat.it th

7 International Aesop Sustainable Food Planning Conference Proceedings, Torino, 7‐9 October 2015

Mario Artuso, “Urban agriculture, food production and city planning in a medium sized city of Turin metropolitan area: a preliminary note which compares geography and local policies”

Figure 2. Nichelino urban area and its rural surfaces . Source : City of Nichelino, data processed by the author

The Agriculture inside the Stupinigi Park, refers to historical farms located within the Park of Stupinigi, which are more than 60 distributed among the three cities that are covered by the area of the Park3. The city of Nichelino has 10 of these farms which 4 are particularly significant due to their spatial extension, and others are located close to the historical building. We are in the presence of farms with surfaces rather extended from 30 to 160 hectares. The farms in the Park and in the areas closest to the city are largely cereal culture with two exceptions: a livestock enterprise that for several years has initiated direct sales system of the product (and therefore direct link production consumption within ); and a farm that for many years has started commercial and tourist hospitality with differentiated production of honey corn etc. 3.

Local policies for urban and peri‐urban agriculture

The local urban policies identify three main topics: 1. Farms and resources of the Stupinigi Park. 2. Peri Urban Agriculture. It considers the farms located in south east of the populated area for the production of fruit and vegetable 3. Urban agriculture located along the river Sangone. The complex of Stupinigi is considered in relation to its historical, cultural and artistic features. Planning policies promoting accessibility, through the improvement of internal routes to the park, the restoration of trails and bike paths and the support of tourist attractions that can become a potential reference also to enhance existing rural activities. The weak point of this operation is that Stupinigi is out of the main tourist circuits. A policy to address this deficiency considers Stupinigi in network with the Venaria complex (another important 3

Besides the city of Nichelino, the Stupinigi park extends also over the boundaries of the cities of Orbassano (23.000 inhabitants) and Candiolo (5.600 inhabitants). th

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Mario Artuso, “Urban agriculture, food production and city planning in a medium sized city of Turin metropolitan area: a preliminary note which compares geography and local policies”

former Royal residence and historical heritage in the Torino metropolitan area) that, newly refurbished, has become an important tourist attraction. This policy, however, needs two local planning operations, the support to the system of territorial links (especially transports) between the two tourist centers and the building of an adequate logistics area that has been identified in a former industrial area located at the beginning of the Stupinigi park. The urban policies for the peri‐urban agriculture aims to safeguard the production areas and to enhance green areas along the ring road. These policies are in synergy with the Torino metropolitan master plan. Meaningful is the focus on productive areas inside the city where are supported local direct selling activities (in Italy called Km0) with a growing focus on biological agriculture Urban agriculture is supported by allocating to citizens areas including basic services mainly along the axis of the river, having an important social function but especially an economic role for food supply at the household level. These arguments highlights how urban and periurban agriculture policies promoting environmental, social and, also, economic benefits, as it should be considered not only – as we stated – the household benefits of urban gardens, but it should be emphasized as most businesses farms located in the South East produces and sells directly agricultural products with consequents benefits for the local economy . We have to consider the danger of food contamination due to proximity with urban areas. This is often one of the main opposition to urban agriculture that needs to be properly addressed with appropriate measures of monitoring by the public health authorities. 4.

Conclusions

What relationships bind the case of Nichelino with the two initial questions of these notes: how the urban and suburban agriculture can be considered a source of agricultural supply for the city and how do they influences the local economy. Results show that the preservation of these soils used for rural activities it is important not only for environmental reasons ‐ as appropriately underlined by the provincial and regional plans (and also in the Italian scientifically debate about urban agriculture) ‐ but as they encourage significant business operations in terms of agricultural production, socio‐environmental items and local economy. What the urban master plan (in Italian Piano regolatore generale comunale) can do to enhance these resources? At present the master plan, as well as conceived today and reported only to the city boundaries, does not seem to have great leeway. It would be rather useful to consider the issue of rural development as a structural element of the area in order to enhance the economic potential with an intermunicipal structural planning. For example a plan that includes more cities in a single structural plan for large areas might be the tool to enhance the urban transport systems and the regional connections in order to network among themselves the various Savoy residences and harness their potential, as for instance, the potential due to the rural farms inside the parks. In the case of touristic and cultural issues as said would be interesting to strengthen the network and related services between tourist areas and, therefore, promoting the attractiveness of rural potential through cultural rather than market‐oriented policies with the so‐called Slow Food network that for a few years has been getting good results as a tourist attraction. This topic can be traced back to the recent reform of urban and regional planning, considering the inclusion of the agricultural issue between the structural parameters of a possible structural plan of the metropolitan area. The problem is therefore more topical than ever and can not be managed only in terms of protecting the rural landscape, but also, and perhaps above all, to improve the rural

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Mario Artuso, “Urban agriculture, food production and city planning in a medium sized city of Turin metropolitan area: a preliminary note which compares geography and local policies”

heritage located in the interstices and margins of the city, as in the case of the city of Nichelino. The objective of a structural design for large areas goes however beyond the single issue of urbanism and directly calls into question the role of institutions and relationships between regional institutions and municipalities. It is undoubtedly a key issue that, in addition to plans, programs require effective implementation strategies in which urban and periurban agriculture can be part of meaningful planning policy program supported by technical planning tools appropriates to carry out the provisions of the strategic plan for the metropolitan area. A further consideration concerns the possibility of converting into rural areas the brownfields and the former public spaces no longer in use. Nichelino, as most of cities of Turin metropolitan area, has several abandoned industrial areas. One in particular is a major problem both for its large size and for its proximity to the urbanized area. In this regard there are two difficulties. The first consist in verifying the status of land after that the area will be reclaimed, because industries may have polluted areas where they stood and, consequently, this areas needs priority actions for soils recovery. The second difficulty is related to the economic interests of privates subjects who will inevitably be involved in the area reclaimed activities. However, other areas, although smaller, can be detected by the city and turned into rural areas, or in areas of service for support to activities related to the rural sector (markets etc). Similar reasoning is valid for any public areas that are no longer used and can be transformed into urban and rural areas. In these instances it becomes significant the role of the municipal development plan and of the possible relationships between public and private entities considering urban agriculture (and services associated such as local markets etc) among the possible land use destination for soils that are released following the sale and end of productive assets rather then of public services areas no longer in use. 5.

References

AA.VV.,2009, Per un'altra campagna. Riflessioni e proposte sull’agricoltura periurbana, Bologna, Maggioli editore Bit Edoardo, 2014, Come costruire la città verde, dalla riqualificazione edilizia all’urban farming, Napoli, Simone editore Bocchi Stefano, 2009, Per una nuova reciprocità citta/campagna, in AA.VV.,2009, Per un'altra campagna. Riflessioni e proposte sull’agricoltura periurbana, Bologna, Maggioli editore, pagg.: 35‐43. Boughton, J.M., 2002. The Bretton Woods proposal: an indepth look. Political Science Quarterly, 42(6), pp.564‐78. Città di Nichelino, 2014, Piano regolatore generale comunale, norme tecniche di attuazione, Ufficio Urbanistica, Nichelino Città di Nichelino, 2014, Master plan, rapporto ambientale, Available at: < http://www.regione.piemonte.it/ambiente/valutazioni_ambientali/dwd/MasterplanNichelino/Sintesi_non_ Tecnica.pdf> [Accessed 2 September2015]. <http://www.regione.piemonte.it/ambiente/valutazioni_ambientali/dwd/MasterplanNichelino/Rapporto_ Ambientale.pdf > [Accessed 2 September 2015]. Città metropolitana di Torino, 2015, Comune di Nichelino, schede comunali, Available at : <http://www.cittametropolitana.torino.it/cms/risorse/territorio/dwd/urbanistica/schede_comunali/1164.p df>[Accessed 2 September 2015]. Girardet Herbert, 2008, Cities, people, planet, urban development and climate change, Chester, UK, John Wiley and son’s International Transport Forum, 2010. Transport Outlook 2010: The potential for innovation. [online] Available at: <http://www.internationaltransportforum.org/Pub/pdf/10Outlook.pdf> Istituto nazionale di statistica (ISTAT), 2015, Censimento nazionale sull’agricoltura, Available at : < http://dati‐ censimentoagricoltura.istat.it/?lang=it>[Accessed 2 September 2015].

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Mario Artuso, “Urban agriculture, food production and city planning in a medium sized city of Turin metropolitan area: a preliminary note which compares geography and local policies”

Mazzocchi Chiara, 2009, Rischio di perdita del suolo: il ruolo dell’agricoltura urbana, in AA.VV.,2009, Per un'altra campagna. Riflessioni e proposte sull’agricoltura periurbana, Bologna, Maggioli editore, pagg.: 77‐ 81 Olivari Stefano, 2015, Nichelino fertile, Available at : http://www.stefanoolivari.it/NICHELINO‐FERTILE [Accessed 2 September 2015]. Pareglio Stefano, 2009, L’insufficienza del piano. Ovvero: governare il territorio agricolo tra forza e limiti del piano urbanistico, in AA.VV.,2009, Per un'altra campagna. Riflessioni e proposte sull’agricoltura periurbana, Bologna, Maggioli editore, pagg.:87‐94 Sala Giovanni, 2009, Agricoltura, tassello vitale nella strategia pianificatoria del milanese , in AA.VV.,2009, Per un'altra campagna. Riflessioni e proposte sull’agricoltura periurbana, Bologna, Maggioli editore, pagg.: 105‐ 110. Silverman, D.F. and Propp, K.K. eds, 1990. The active interview. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage. Samson, C., 1970. Problems of information studies in history. In: S. Stone, ed. Humanities information research. Sheffield: CRUS, pp. 44‐68. Torino Internazionale, 2015, Torino metropoli 2025: il piano strategico dell’area metropolitana di Torino, Available at: < www.torinostrategica.it/wp‐content/uploads/2015/04/Torino_Metropoli_2025.pdf > [Accessed 2 September 2015].

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Christoph Kasper, Juliane Brandt, Katharina Lindschulte, Undine Giseke, “Food as an infrastructure in urbanizing regions”, In: Localizing th urban food strategies. Farming cities and performing rurality. 7 International Aesop Sustainable Food Planning Conference Proceedings, Torino, 7‐9 October 2015, edited by Giuseppe Cinà and Egidio Dansero, Torino, Politecnico di Torino, 2015, pp 42‐56. ISBN 978‐88‐8202‐060‐6

FOOD AS AN INFRASTRUCTURE IN URBANIZING REGIONS Christoph Kasper1, Juliane Brandt1, Katharina Lindschulte1, Undine Giseke1 Keywords: urban food systems, urban agriculture, food infrastructure, urban rural spheres, urban metabolism, spatialization Abstract: This paper focuses on urban food systems, examining spatial structures and potentials of food in the city as part of the urban metabolism as well as part of an urban infrastructure. The article assesses linkages and interactions between urban food system components in order to foster integrated, multi‐dimensional food planning approaches for a better management of urbanizing regions. The first part of the paper poses the following questions: How to describe an urban (contextualised) food system? What are its components and what role does urban agriculture play? These issues require a theoretical and methodological discussion. At the same time there is a need to generate contextualised and site specific knowledge on the spatial dimension of urban food systems, as well on systemic relations between the identified components. Taking the spatial dimension – as a significant part of planning – into consideration, geographies of urban food systems will be identified, described and analysed. Beside the above mentioned theoretical approach, this paper expands in a second part on concrete cases of urbanizing regions in the context of two research projects. Selected findings and results of the inter‐ and transdisciplinary research project “Urban Agriculture Casablanca” (2005‐2014) led to a definition of urban agriculture and the knowledge generation on urban agriculture´s (UA) contribution to the urban food system of the urbanizing region Greater Casablanca. The paper further examines the components of urban food systems using the example of Kigali (Rwanda) and Da Nang (Vietnam), which are case cities of the trans‐sectoral research project “Rapid Planning” (2012‐2019). In conclusion, the paper offers a contribution to a more holistic understanding of urban food systems as well as related theoretical and methodological approaches by linking relevant contemporary debates on urban food systems and infrastructures. 1.

Introduction

Urban growth centres face particular challenges in urban infrastructure development, both with regard to creating new and adjusting existing infrastructures to changed conditions. In contrast, urban growth centres with their high concentration of people, knowledge, resources, political power and built environment allow for identifying beneficial interfaces and creating synergies between the spatial distribution of resources (water, waste, energy and food), their flows and actors. A systemic approach is required to target the complex issues of urban growth centres towards developing new and interactive infrastructures that respond to the needs of a changing urban system. Food and the city is an increasing issue especially in urbanizing regions. Not only a rising number of research activities, but also several international initiatives and policies are dealing with the topic of urban growth with regard to food planning. A very first step is to understand and describe urban food systems (UFS) in an integrated, trans‐sectoral way in order to overcome traditional sectoral 1

Technische Universität Berlin, Chair of Landscape Architecture . Open Space Planning christoph.kasper@tu‐berlin.de, juliane.brandt@tu‐berlin.de, lindschulte@tu‐berlin.de, undine.giseke@tu‐berlin.de

Christoph Kasper, Juliane Brandt, Katharina Lindschulte, Undine Giseke, “Food as an infrastructure in urbanizing regions”

approaches. Applying a systemic view and considering the region as a demarcated area supports this step. Regional food production and access to food are dimensions to be as well analysed as part of the UFS. This is a challenging task due to the need to develop a general method to investigate the different components of an urban regional food system in their multiple dimensions (economic, social, cultural, ecological and/or spatial) without neglecting the context specific variations. This paper offers a methodological approach for understanding, describing and modelling an urban food system through the use of spatialization. The description of the UFS in its spatial manifestation offers a new perspective to methodologically assess urban food systems in relation to spatial development and urban growth. The spatial conceptualisation of the UFS and its components (from production to reuse) serves to understand and assess processes, actors, scales and flows within UFS. The systemic view of food serves as a lens to analyse food as part of the urban metabolism with flows between components and interfaces with other relevant thematic fields of urban planning in growth centres. The spatialization of the UFS enables to: ‐ structure and localize resource flows within an urban system and make linkages and interfaces visible, ‐ address and localize actors and stakeholders' roles within the food system, ‐ identify and generate possible synergies and interlinkages between related sectors, ‐ address the administrative and governance needs of territorial urban planning and discuss the question of appropriate scale for food system components in the context of urban growth centres. 2.

An approach to describe the urban food system

Urban Agriculture (UA) as part of the Urban Food System (UFS) Within our research, urban agriculture served as a starting point towards understanding and analyzing the urban food system. The 9‐year inter‐ and transdisciplinary research project “Urban Agriculture as an Integrated Factor of Climate‐Optimized Urban Development, Casablanca/Morocco (UAC)” (2005‐2014, funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research) focused on conceptualizing and operationalizing urban agriculture as part of the UFS. Urban Agriculture is defined as comprising primary or secondary agriculture. In this definition primary agriculture refers to land uses that are primarily focusing on the activity of agriculture whereas secondary agriculture comprises all land uses that integrate agricultural activities as an add‐on to their primary land use including vertical farming, roof‐top gardens on residential or commercial buildings or window sill and house gardens (Giseke et al., 2015, pp.34). The urban region of Greater Casablanca was used as reference location to investigate and test linkages between agriculture and the urban sphere in form of pilot projects. These linkages served as lenses to understand the spatial manifestation of urban agriculture as part of the UFS. Four pilot projects focused on different synergies between agriculture and urban processes with regard to industry, informal settlements, tourism and health. For instance, the pilot project “Urban Agriculture and healthy food production” used the location of an educational farm at the western periphery of Casablanca to establish a linkage to the core city through a delivery system of food baskets to urban dwellers. These food baskets were supplied by a cooperative of 14 farmers working in close vicinity of the educational farm, using it as a platform for networking and training in agro‐ ecological farming. The multi‐facetted processes of urban‐rural linkages within the demarcated areas

7 International Aesop Sustainable Food Planning Conference Proceedings, Torino, 7‐9 October 2015

Christoph Kasper, Juliane Brandt, Katharina Lindschulte, Undine Giseke, “Food as an infrastructure in urbanizing regions”

of the pilot projects presented a first step towards understanding and investigating the systemic and spatial relations between the components of the food system within the urban system. The spatialized Urban Food System Using the interaction of rural and urban spheres as a starting point, the UAC approach to the urban food system is based on the understanding of food systems in their complexity of interrelated process components and social, political, economic and natural context (Giseke et al 2015, Nourishlife.org 2012). The UAC project used a revised systemic approach that was broadened to the food system components and spatialized within the context of Casablanca. In the UAC action‐ research approach, spatialization was an inherent part of the pilot projects, serving to generate knowledge about the implications of urban agriculture to the "life‐world" (Giseke et al., 2015, p.40‐ 49). The analysis of the pilot projects, being part of the urban food system, enabled a greater embedding of the knowledge generated. Six food system components, partly including the spatial manifestation (production; processing; distribution; access/acquisition; consumption / food culture; input‐/output processes and resource flows) (Giseke et al. 2015, pp. 396‐407) were identified. These component followed the process chain from the production place at the educational farm, the packing in food baskets by the cooperative farmers, the distribution through the delivery system from the farm to the selling point in the core city, serving as an access point for consumption in the households. In addition the educational farm offers composting facilities. Food in the city as part of the urban metabolism With regards to rapid urban growth and spatial fragmentation, the UAC project was based on a systemic approach towards the integration of urban agriculture as an integrated factor of urban development. This was reflected in the research design and methodologies of the transdisciplinary UAC project, which viewed urban agriculture as a transversal topic dealing with governance, agriculture, climate change and urban development and focused on interfaces between sectors and (im‐)material flows of people, information/knowledge, goods and money within the urban system. The approach towards the city as an urban metabolism was, among others, translated into the developing of sub concepts. These concepts form a bridge for transformation through operationalizing urban agriculture (action plan) and analyzing it as part of the urban metabolism with interfaces to other sectors, spheres, structural levels and scales. The project developed five sub concepts addressing relations between: ‐ UA and regional food production (1), targeting UAs contribution to the city´s food supply, ‐ UA and beautiful, productive and recreational spaces (2), targeting the development of a city‐ regional green and open space system ‐ UA and resource‐efficient urban rural cycles (3), targeting water as key resource for UA within the urban system in order to establish resource‐efficient cycles, ‐ UA and climate regulative services (4),targeting the role of UA in light of climate variations and climate change, ‐ UA and rurban living spaces (5),targeting the integration of the inhabitants, their practices and relations to UA on the interface between the urban and the rural sphere (Kasper et al., 2015, pp.330‐345)

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Christoph Kasper, Juliane Brandt, Katharina Lindschulte, Undine Giseke, “Food as an infrastructure in urbanizing regions”

BOX. THE RAPID PLANNING PROJECT While the findings and results of the UAC project have been published in a project publication written in a transdisciplinary process (Giseke et al., 2015), the systemic approach towards food in urbanizing regions is currently being further developed by TU Berlin – Chair of Landscape Architecture . Open Space Planning within the research project “Rapid Planning ‐ Sustainable infrastructure, environmental and resource management for highly dynamic metropolises” (2014‐2019). “The Rapid Planning (RP) Project is an action oriented research project that has been developed under the umbrella of the Future Megacities Research Program of the German Federal Ministry for Education and Research (BMBF)” (Rapid Planning Consortium, 2015, p.6).This research project follows a transsectoral approach integrating energy, water, waste and urban agriculture/food into a nexus and investigates synergies between these sectors in a metabolistic understanding of the urban system. “The objective of the Rapid Planning project is to develop and test a rapid trans‐sectoral urban infrastructure planning methodology, with the focus on supply and disposal infrastructure. […] This has to be developed for specific contexts and urban patterns” (Rapid Planning Consortium, 2015, p. 10). The approaches, methods and solutions towards trans‐sectoral urban planning are being tested in the three case cities Da Nang/Vietnam, Kigali/Rwanda, Assiut/Egypt, Frankfurt/Germany is used as a reference city.

Figure 1.The Rapid Planning Consortium.

The research work is based on practical experiences in the case cities and in cooperation with 12 German research institutions, local stakeholders in city administration, regional governments, universities and other partners in the three cities as well as UN‐Habitat as a partner from a trans‐ national organization.

7 International Aesop Sustainable Food Planning Conference Proceedings, Torino, 7‐9 October 2015

Christoph Kasper, Juliane Brandt, Katharina Lindschulte, Undine Giseke, “Food as an infrastructure in urbanizing regions”

Figure 2. The Rapid Planning case cities: Da Nang / Vietnam, Kigali / Rwanda and Assiut / Egypt.

2.1

The components of the urban food system and their spatialisation

As mentioned above, this paper introduces a systemic approach for the description of an UFS within a demarcated area (Giseke et al., 2015), a hypothetical urban growth centre, based on the findings and experience of the two above described inter‐ and transdisciplinary research projects. There are various approaches to UFS from different perspectives, such as an agro‐economic or nutritional perspective, which will not be the focus here. We refer to a systemic reflection, focussing on the localization and spatialisation of existing components (Stierrand, 2008, Pinstrup‐Anderson, 2012) developed within the UAC Project (cf. Giseke et al., 2015, pp. 396‐407). The systemic approach indicates the cross‐scale consideration of links, exchange processes and urban metabolic flows within the urban food system with reference to its components. Given to the

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Christoph Kasper, Juliane Brandt, Katharina Lindschulte, Undine Giseke, “Food as an infrastructure in urbanizing regions”

multidimensionality of the UFS a variety of (im‐)material urban‐rural linkages and interactions should be taken into consideration, such as "ecological interactions (energy, water, waste, other resources, pollution), social interactions (people, information, innovation, practices, ideas)and economic interactions (material, commodities capital, production, goods) (Kasper et al., 2015, p. 191)". The integrative UAC approach is adapted within the context of the RP project applying a stronger focus on interactions and flows between different infrastructure sectors. With regard to the examination of the four sectors (see bottom) we distinguish five spatialized components of the UFS, namely production, processing, distribution, access/consumption and reuse (see chapter 2.2). As another key component resource flows are investigated that span across scales and integrate multifaceted structures of practices, techniques, values, norms and systems (Giseke et al., 2015, p. 397). Assuming the urban food system is a spatialized system with related food geographies (Pothukuchi and Kaufman, 1999, Wiskerke and Viljoen, 2012), requires first the definition of a demarcated area and the system boundaries. Consequently, some urban food system components as well as sub‐ components of the urban system are situated outside the system boundaries (like large scale mono‐ culture production sites). Starting from the understanding of urban food systems as a food supply system (cf. Stierrand, 2008) or as part of the supply and disposal infrastructure food is further conceptualised as an interactive infrastructure. The following section briefly presents the five spatialized UFS components. Apart from labour, food production requires active input of different resources, leading to their transformation into agricultural products. Production mainly takes place in the areas previously described or perceived as rural, but can also take place within the system boundaries of the UFS. Here, urban agricultural activities have a particular role as part of food production that takes place in close interaction with the urban system. A farmer who produces food within an urban region for export is an urban farmer that practices urban agriculture with a low degree of interaction. In contrast, both the local commercialization of his products and the integration of his production within urban resource flows like water and waste reuse can increase the degree of interaction with the urban system. The production of food through urban agriculture enables other input possibilities where inputs are partially outputs from other urban processes (e.g. use of reused urban waste water for urban agriculture, cf. nourishlife 2012). Processing describes the transformation process of agricultural products, comprising methods of preservation, industrial food processing and food preparation (cf. Moubarac et al., 2014). Food processing is neither bound to the place of production nor to the place of consumption. Taking the system boundaries into consideration, places of processing are highly dependent on the mode of agricultural production and products. With regard to health related food planning aspects, we differentiate between food industry for highly processed food and locally refined products coming from urban agricultural activities within city‐regional economies. Distribution describes the process of transport of raw and processed food products and organic waste between the places of food production, processing, sale, consumption, disposal and reuse respectively. It describes not only the process of transport and arrival of agricultural products to the access points for consumption; it also marks the connection between industry, farmers and consumers on household level and commercial consumption in restaurants or canteens. Therefore, distribution can be viewed both as flow and as spatial manifestations. In a spatial manner, the component distribution can use a service of other spatial infrastructures (e.g. the transport roads) or has own specific spatial typologies (e.g. distribution hubs).

7 International Aesop Sustainable Food Planning Conference Proceedings, Torino, 7‐9 October 2015

Christoph Kasper, Juliane Brandt, Katharina Lindschulte, Undine Giseke, “Food as an infrastructure in urbanizing regions”

Food access and acquisition spans from small scale typologies such as mobile street vendors to large scale typologies such as megastores. It comprises public, commercial and private acquisition places. Consumption includes the preparation of food, food culture aspects and the transformation into organic waste. Notably the food access component of the UFS is highly visible in the urban system and many different forms/typologies exist. Consumption itself is mainly taking place on household level and bound to the same actors. Therefore – from the spatialized viewpoint – access and consumption are part of only one component of the UFS. Organic waste, including food waste is either disposed or reused by transforming it into a resource for further use in agricultural production. Spatially, this component can take place on different levels, ranging from collecting systems on household level up to large dumping sites. 2.2

Understanding food as an infrastructure

The Rapid Planning project focuses on the question how to provide urban systems with adequate infrastructure services. The project “seeks to develop a rapid trans‐sectoral urban planning methodology, specifically targeting supply and disposal infrastructure. The service sectors covered by the project include energy, water, […] waste and urban agriculture/food” (Rapid Planning Consortium 2015, p.6). The project gives the possibility to think and treat food as an equal and "new" infrastructure. Urban Agriculture as an urban infrastructure First integrated approaches dealing with these aspects were developed within the UAC research project, which conceptualizes urban agriculture as a productive green infrastructure within the urban region of Greater Casablanca. Nine spatial categories of urban‐rural morphologies were identified within the region with respect to scale and actor appropriate urban agriculture (Giseke et.al, 2015, pp. 316‐329). Furthermore, these concepts were operationalized through the common development of an action plan for the implementation of urban agriculture in the Greater Casablanca region, locating existing and planned activities beneficial to support the integration of urban and rural spheres (Giseke et al., 2015). The conceptualization of urban agriculture as a productive green infrastructure encompasses the different practices attributed to the urban food system components from food production to reuse of food waste. It is understood as a first step towards assessing the systemic inter‐connections of urban food system processes as part of the urban metabolism using urban agriculture as a lens. Food as an urban infrastructure The RP project attempts to qualitatively and quantitatively assess, structure and localize resource flows within the four mentioned infrastructure systems. In this approach the components of the urban food system are considered as an infrastructure with spatial manifestations of flows and knots in the form of material infrastructure, people (as actors), practices and process components. This approach is used to develop a framework to identify and investigate flows between urban food system components. The generated knowledge serves for a comprehensive view and understanding of the urban food system, its interfaces and the set screws that have the potential to transform the UFS. Through defining aggregated typologies of the UFS components, the Rapid Planning Project aims to pinpoint the spatial manifestation of these components from production to reuse. The typologies refer to extension and spatial context, scale, actors and economic level. This framework

7 International Aesop Sustainable Food Planning Conference Proceedings, Torino, 7‐9 October 2015

Christoph Kasper, Juliane Brandt, Katharina Lindschulte, Undine Giseke, “Food as an infrastructure in urbanizing regions”

will be tested and used to qualitatively and quantitatively assess the UFS as an infrastructure in the three case cities and to identify, localize and address the roles actors and stakeholders play. In a broader framework it also responds to administrative and governance needs of territorial urban planning that use spatialized approaches. Traditional definitions on infrastructure Traditionally, infrastructure is defined as the foundation of an economy, a prerequisite for the production, distribution and use of goods and services. In other words, infrastructure encompasses the entirety of physical, institutional and human facilities and institutions an economy relies on (Jochimsen, 1966). From a classical point of view, physical infrastructures include transport facilities, equipment of power generation and distribution, water supply, disposal (supply and disposal; waste water treatment plants) and news transmission ‐ as well as the facilities of education, culture, health and leisure, including public space such as parks and playgrounds (Jochimsen, 1966, Libbe et al., 2010). Characteristic features are the indivisibility of its facilities, its durability and being some kind of network (Frey 2005). According to the German Institute of Urban Affairs, infrastructure can be distinguished in network‐Infrastructure such as all sorts of pipes and mains for gas, water, electricity and transport infrastructure in terms of roads, canals and railways ‐ or point‐infrastructure, technical elements as electrical substations, wastewater treatments plants, or airports and train stations or social institutions such as schools, hospitals, public space etc. (Libbe et al. 2010). Until the 1980s, it was mainly the government’s duty to build and maintain infrastructure. Since then, notably the maintenance part has slowly shifted to the private sector, while the government ensures a fair access to infrastructure services for the public (Frey, 2005). Discourses about broadening the definition Due to globalization, process‐decoupling and bottom‐up approaches as well as dealing with generally decreasing resources, the definition of infrastructure has become more flexible. Particularly in professional circles of urban theories and landscape theories the comprehension of infrastructures has changed. Along with a new understanding of nature, infrastructures are addressed with a systemic approach of connecting relations between nature, infrastructure and urban space, which leads to multidimensional and transformative landscapes (Wieck, 2015). “Extending the view of interaction and exchange processes as cooperation with the natural sphere means assigning agency to nature as well as accepting its hybridization through technical infrastructure and social entities” (Giseke et al., 2015, p. 308). Rapid urbanization appears to necessitate a broadening of the idea of infrastructure. Perrotti (2015) argues, that basic urban services have to be re‐bundled and re‐designed as living landscapes, which adjust to transforming, urbanizing cities. Interestingly, she considers food cultivation along water resources, waste cycling, and energy generation as one of the major urban services. “These viewpoints focus on synergies and geographical, economic, and ecological interconnections between green, gray, and blue networks within metropolitan regions. Indeed, these synergies seem to better support fluid, dynamic patterns of urban growth (i.e., the flow of water, waste, energy, and food, which mostly transcend geopolitical borders) instead of reproducing or consolidating the vertical, centralized, and inflexible structure of modern `industrial´ cities.” (Perrotti, 2015, p.72) To put it simply, the broadening comprehension of infrastructure takes place on two levels. The so far immanent feature of being a structure made and managed by the government ‐ or influential companies ‐ is fading, while cooperation with urban‐social actors appear who maintain decentralized solar panels, constructed wetlands, backyard compost facilities and roof top gardens. Instead of

7 International Aesop Sustainable Food Planning Conference Proceedings, Torino, 7‐9 October 2015

Christoph Kasper, Juliane Brandt, Katharina Lindschulte, Undine Giseke, “Food as an infrastructure in urbanizing regions”

linear networks or points, grids or mini grids are frequently mentioned. On the other hand, infrastructures are no longer solely physical, spatial elements, but also exist as flows or processes. Multifunctional land use structures are upcoming elements in today’s cities that serve as infrastructures. Planners, sociologists and scientists have recently come up with a whole variety of new concepts and scopes for different infrastructure structures. There are soft infrastructures concerning civic activities (BIG et al., 2014), smart infrastructures that are interconnected and technology/software‐orientated (Bunschoten and Pahl‐Weber, 2013), green infrastructures that highlight capabilities, potentials and services of any kind of natural systems (Benedict and McMahon, 2006; Karhu, 2010; Lennon, 2014), blue and green infrastructure taking natural water cycles into account (Blue‐Green Cities Research Project, 2015) as well as productive green infrastructure highlighting urban agriculture as part of the supply system (Giseke et al., 2015) in an interactive way. 3.

From theory to practice and back

One important goal within the Rapid Planning research project is the design of a methodology towards the development and optimisation of resilient infrastructure systems for growing city regions, taking the site specific conditions into consideration. The innovation is not only to pay attention to the “traditional” infrastructure sectors, but also introducing food as an infrastructure. Here, it is the challenge to identify the site specific food system and to describe the four infrastructures in a comparable methodological way by using a systemic approach. The four infrastructures are captured as equally important infrastructures including different actors, physical facilities and metabolic flows. As an interim result, it can be stated that the four examined infrastructure sectors can be qualitatively and quantitatively assessed and surveyed in a comparable structure that includes the process components production/generation, distribution, access/consumption, and disposal/reuse. Trans‐sectoral interfaces are identified at an early stage in order to point out potential synergies and set screws to influence the urban system. As mentioned above the first step is the generation of knowledge concerning the spatialization of the food system. For that, the team of Technische Universität Berlin develops a methodology by using mapping sheets (field research) for the identification of typologies of existing UFS components. The following chapter 3.1 gives examples of the first findings. The second step is the knowledge generation and quantification of the (metabolistic) flows between the identified components. A series of trans‐sectoral interviews on household level (approx. 500 per case city) was conducted by the whole RP team to give answers on the demand side. In addition, specific studies will be prepared, e.g. what are the in‐ and outputs of food in wholesale markets or other food supplying components of the UFS, with the goal to generate further quantitative data on the side of the producers, processors, distributors and re‐users. By modelling material flows, synergies will be identified in a further step towards an optimised infrastructure system. This is only possible by working simultaneously in different scales within the system boundaries. A very important additional part of the research poses the question, how to link sectors and how to implement new trans‐sectoral solutions in the life‐world context? Chapter 3.2 gives an example by presenting the concept of the so called “entry projects” taking a community compost module in Da Nang/Vietnam as an example.

7 International Aesop Sustainable Food Planning Conference Proceedings, Torino, 7‐9 October 2015

Christoph Kasper, Juliane Brandt, Katharina Lindschulte, Undine Giseke, “Food as an infrastructure in urbanizing regions”

3.1

Identification of concrete and contextualised urban food system components

Within the Rapid Planning Project, the urban food system is treated like any other major infrastructure and can therefore be tracked down in its spatial manifestation with its components production, processing, distribution, access & consumption and reuse. TU Berlin is working on segmenting these components into spatial typologies that are accurate and suitable to describe the urban food system of the three case cities. The importance of the relations between these typologies and their inherent logic will vary by case cities. The typologies are distinguished by means of defined parameters, which are subjected to adaption as the final setting is work in progress. To give an idea for the component „production“, the parameters include location within the urban system, size, format and formality. An agricultural plot can for example be located in urban core areas, the urban fringe, in urban‐rural affected areas or rural core areas (Kasper et al. 2015 296‐297). The size can vary from huge fields larger than 5 ha for the production of cereals or medium to small urban plots around or less than 1 ha to micro productive elements that are not detached to the ground. The format can vary significantly depending on whether it is primary or secondary urban agriculture (Giseke et al., 2015, p.34) and whether its purpose is for subsistence or commercial. An additional parameter looks at the legal status and whether land use is formal (with permission) or whether it is undertaken informally, such as the temporary use of future building sites (without permission). As an example, the following figure shows the typology of “large scale primary urban agriculture” in three different locations within the production component of an UFS. This typology is attributed to the category primary agriculture for commercial purposes mostly with a legal status in mono‐culture production.

Figure 3. Three Examples of “large scale primary UA in rural core areas” in Kigali, Da Nang and Casablanca.

As a second example for a typology within the production component of the UFS the following figure is showing three sites of medium scale primary UA activities located in urban‐rural affected areas. These plots are integrated into the urban structure that produce mainly vegetables and fruit trees. The purpose can be both, for subsistence or sale, as well as the legal status.

Figure 4. Three Examples of “medium scale primary UA in urban‐rural affected areas” in Kigali, Da Nang and Casablanca.

7 International Aesop Sustainable Food Planning Conference Proceedings, Torino, 7‐9 October 2015

Christoph Kasper, Juliane Brandt, Katharina Lindschulte, Undine Giseke, “Food as an infrastructure in urbanizing regions”

The typologies and their inherent logic dependent on local cultural and environmental conditions are documented in each case city. There are not only differences between the case cities. The following figure gives an idea of the band of one specific typology, using Da Nang as an example. All three photographs assigning the same typology: a medium‐scale temporary and informal production. Here, the type of production is informal as it takes place on the plentitude of fallow land or temporarily non‐used land of future constructions sites that occur through rapid urbanization of Da Nang. Vegetable growing activities on temporary flooded riverbanks also belong to that typology, as Da Nang is located at the Hàn river delta. The locally popular morning glory is mainly produced at the riverbanks.

Figure 5. Three examples of “medium‐scale temporary and informal production” in Da Nang

The assessment of the spatial manifestation through typologies helps to understand the systemic nexus of the urban food system, to structure and classify different occurring spatial phenomena according to the food system process components and to identify corresponding scales and actors through aggregated information gathering. It also serves to identify interfaces with other urban metabolistic systems. This classification of the food infrastructure in typologies helps to show the spatial elements of the UFS in the different cities with broad enough clusters to present their similarities but that also allow for showing the differing compositions through typologies that refer to local specific contexts. As a further step linkages (resource flows) between typologies will be qualitatively and quantitatively assessed according to their specific importance in each case city in order to reveal a characteristic picture of the respective UFS with its potentials and challenges. 3.2

Entry Projects

The Rapid Planning project is an action‐research oriented project with the broader aim to develop resource efficient infrastructure management including food as an infrastructure. On the one hand the project generates knowledge on site specific conditions. On the other hand, the question arises how to fill the gap between planning and reality (implementation) and how to create synergies between different sectors and stakeholders. In the context of the Rapid Planning project we work with the concept of “entry projects”, which are defined as follows: “Entry projects”should: ‐ be spatially visible, tangible and to provide an experience, ‐ be a catalyst between the “real world” and the researcher, ‐ be stakeholder driven and problem oriented, address actual problems and focus on them, ‐ take up existing programs and activities (funding) ‐ use the door opener function to generate cooperation and communication, ‐ be different in the case cities but address all RP infrastructure sectors and be trans‐sectoral, ‐ generate knowledge and access to data for the RP methodology

7 International Aesop Sustainable Food Planning Conference Proceedings, Torino, 7‐9 October 2015

Christoph Kasper, Juliane Brandt, Katharina Lindschulte, Undine Giseke, “Food as an infrastructure in urbanizing regions”

‐ be transferrable, and ‐ have limited time frame (2 years) For a more in‐depth understanding, this article illustrates this concept by a concrete example. The selected showcase is situated in the Hoa Minh Ward in Da Nang/Vietnam, a densely populated quarter. The reduction of organic waste on the household level by activating the social capacity of a neighbourhood community and based on existing capital and resources without external funding was the focus of the “entry project”. The "entry project" thus creates knowledge about trans‐sectoral linkages and synergies (the interface of the sectors waste and food), about flows between urban food system components (reuse and production) as well as about the interactions between people, nature and the urban. Da Nang city generates about 674 tons of waste per day, with 93.5% coming from households, and on average organic waste accounts for more than 70% (Otoma et al., 2013, pp.187–194). In addition the “entry project” aimed at small scale income generation, compost production and the demonstration of possible further synergies, like small scale food production units.

Figure 6. Different steps of implementation of the entry project “community compost” in Da Nang, Hoa Minh Ward: 1. Discussion of the design and construction on site 2. Neighbourhood involvement during the construction phase (Storch, H., 2015) 3. Workshop and training on site (Storch, H., 2015)

The integration of public institutions on different levels (e.g. Peoples Committee, Da Nang Institute for Socio‐Economic Development, Department of Agriculture and Rural Development, Environmental Protection Agency, Urban Environment Company) and members of the community themselves was a crucial point. In the preparation phase a series of discussions with the main stakeholders took place during several networking missions and the core group of the community was identified. In the further process a cooperative group named “Cooperative group for Environment and Community” under Hoa Minh Ward was established. The identification of a site for implementation was organised entirely through the active members of the cooperative, which allowed the cooperative to rent a plot of vacant land from the Peoples Committee Hoa Minh Ward for the purpose of setting up a compost. The intervention of a low cost roofing of the site using local building materials, designed by TUB, was successfully realised with the help of teachers and students from Da Nang University of Architecture within a period of 5 days in July 2015. Subsequent a training workshop concerning composting techniques for the community members, farmers and involved local institutions was successfully organised. Up to this point the project was very successful. Though very intensive stakeholder involvement, especially in the neighbourhood, at this point the RP team decided to stop the entry project, due to arising fear and worries from few neighbours within the community related to expected negative health impacts of the composting process. In the sense of mutual learning and collaboration in transdisciplinary processes this is a brilliant example for facing and dealing with difficulties and challenges towards successful implementation. The presented project is one part of

7 International Aesop Sustainable Food Planning Conference Proceedings, Torino, 7‐9 October 2015

Christoph Kasper, Juliane Brandt, Katharina Lindschulte, Undine Giseke, “Food as an infrastructure in urbanizing regions”

developing a module catalogue for an actor generated blue green infrastructure. This experience will be used as a process to identify and initiate further necessary steps. The guidance of this process, the design and technical training was mainly done by a trans‐sectoral working group of the RP Consortium, in particular BTU Cottbus (Department of Environmental Planning and focal point Vietnam), AT Verband Stuttgart (RP project management and waste sector responsible), the local RP Office managed by UN Habitat and TU Berlin. 4.

Conclusion and outlook

The article provided a conceptual framework and methodological assessment for a spatialized urban food system and a theoretical linking of systemic approaches including urban metabolism and infrastructure discourses. A practical approach of bringing these discourses together and qualitatively and quantitatively investigating them was shown in the context of two long term research projects (Urban Agriculture Casablanca and Rapid Planning). This knowledge can serve to identify set screws and in a methodological approach to adapt or transform (parts of) the UFS in the long term towards better working food systems that are more integrated, interactive and resilient. With regard to further research it can be stated that the urban food system with its multiple trans‐ sectoral interfaces, different actors and practices, central and de‐central structures and transversal components offers an extra wide range of possible linkages in terms of urban metabolism. Food infrastructure as one way to understand the urban food system within the urban metabolism inherently deals with the complexity of urban growth centres. It can be assumed to play a key role in further developing urban infrastructure systems in the context of changing urban regions that face complex problems and require new scale‐appropriate and flexible infrastructures. Spatializing food infrastructure as a trans‐sectoral and interactive infrastructure has the potential to foster new ways of thinking towards methods and concepts. This kind of infrastructure is not necessarily technology‐ orientated but has a strong focus on (civil) actors and their social practices, trans‐sectoral planning and metabolistic flows and processes related to spatial entities. Interactive infrastructure indicates a general endeavour for networking and exchanging in different dimensions ‐ between people on a cultural and economic level, between physical infrastructure and social actors, between the urban and natural system and between other infrastructures ‐ actively enabling an urban metabolism by seeking for trans‐sectoral linkages. 5.

References

Benedict, M.A., McMahon, E.T., 2006. Green Infrastructure: Smart Conservation for the 21st Century, Sprawl Watch Cleearinghouse Monograph Series. The Conservation Fund, Washington. BIG (BjarkeIngels Group), One Architecture, Starr Whitehouse, 2014. The Big “U”. Rebuild by Design. Promoting Resilience Post‐Sandy through Innovative Planning, Design, & Programming. Blue‐Green Cities Research Project, 2015. What is a Blue‐Green City? Bunschoten, R., Pahl‐Weber, E., 2013. Smart City Dokumentation der Auftakttagung des TU Urban Lab. Berlin. Frey, R.L., 2005. Infrastruktur, in: Handwörterbuch Der Raumordnung. ARL Akademie für Raumforschung und Landesplanung, Hannover, pp. p.469–475. Giseke, U., Gerster‐Bentaya, M., Benabdenbi, F., Brand, C., Prystav, G., Helten, F., Derouiche, A., 2015, E3 Urban Agricultures Contribution to the urban food system. in: Giseke U. et.al. Urban Agriculture for Growing City Regions. Connecting Urban‐Rural Spheres in Casablanca, Routledge, Oxon, Abingdon, New York, pp.396‐407

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Christoph Kasper, Juliane Brandt, Katharina Lindschulte, Undine Giseke, “Food as an infrastructure in urbanizing regions”

Giseke, U., Gerster‐Bentaya, M., Helten, F., Kraume, M., Scherer, D., Spars, G., Adidi, A., Amraoui,F., Berdouz, S., Chlaida, M., Mansour, M., Mdafai, M., (eds), 2015, Urban Agriculture for Growing City Regions. Connecting Urban‐Rural Spheres in Casablanca, Routledge, Oxon, Abingdon, New York Giseke, U., Gerster‐Bentaya, M., Helten, F., Kraume, M., Scherer, D., Spars, G., Adidi, A., Amraoui,F., Berdouz, S., Chlaida, M., Mansour, M., Mdafai, M., 2015, A2 The UAC Research Approach – A2.1 Problems, questions and definitions in: Giseke U. et.al. Urban Agriculture for Growing City Regions. Connecting Urban‐Rural Spheres in Casablanca, Routledge, Oxon, Abingdon, New York, pp.28‐37 Giseke, U., Kasper C., Mansour M., Moustanidi Y., 2015. E1 Connecting Spheres. Urban Agriculture as a Strategy ‐ E1.4 Nine urban‐rural morphologies in: Giseke U. et.al. Urban Agriculture for Growing City Regions. Connecting Urban‐Rural Spheres in Casablanca, Routledge, Oxon, Abingdon, New York, pp.316‐329 Giseke, U., Wieck K., Kasper, C., 2015. E1 Connecting Spheres. Urban Agriculture as a Strategy ‐ E1.3 Connecting spheres. Stimulating interaction, creating synergies. in: Giseke U. et.al. Urban Agriculture for Growing City Regions. Connecting Urban‐Rural Spheres in Casablanca, Routledge, Oxon, Abingdon, New York, pp.307‐315 Giseke, U., Wieck, K., Jessen, B., Martin Han, S., Gerster Bentaya, M., Helten, F., 2015, A3 The Methodology – A3.2 The UAC project: doing transdisciplinarity. in: Giseke U. et.al. Urban Agriculture for Growing City Regions. Connecting Urban‐Rural Spheres in Casablanca, Routledge, Oxon, Abingdon, New York, pp.40‐49 Jochimsen, R., 1966. Theorie der Infrastruktur. Grundlagen der marktwirtschaftlichen Entwicklung. Tübingen. Karhu, J., 2010. Green Infrastructure Implementation, Proceedings of the European Commission Conference. Brüssel. Kasper, C., Giseke U., Brand C., Brandt J., Gerster‐Bentaya M., Helten F., Kraume M. Scherer D., Mansour M., Chlaida M. 2015. C4 Deepening the problem analysis – C4.1 Urban‐rural linkages and interacting spheres.in: Giseke U. et.al. Urban Agriculture for Growing City Regions. Connecting Urban‐Rural Spheres in Casablanca, Routledge, Oxon, Abingdon, New York, pp.180‐191 Kasper, C., Giseke U., Brand C., Brandt J., Gerster‐Bentaya M., Helten F., Kraume M. Scherer D., Mansour M., Chlaida M., 2015. E1 Connecting Spheres. Urban Agriculture as a Strategy – E1.5 Five integrative sub‐ concepts. in: Giseke U. et.al. Urban Agriculture for Growing City Regions. Connecting Urban‐Rural Spheres in Casablanca, Routledge, Oxon, Abingdon, New York, pp.330‐345 Kasper, C., Giseke, U., Spars, G., Heinze, M., Feiertag, P., Naismith, I.‐C., Berdouz, S., 2015. E1 Connecting Spheres. Urban Agriculture as a Strategy ‐ E1.2 A model approach to urbanizing regions and their rural. in: Giseke U. et.al. Urban Agriculture for Growing City Regions. Connecting Urban‐Rural Spheres in Casablanca, Routledge, Oxon, Abingdon, New York, pp.292‐303 Lennon, M., 2014. Green infrastructure and planning policy: a critical assessment. Local Environ. 1–24. doi:10.1080/13549839.2014.880411 Libbe, J., Köhler, H., Beckmann, K.J., 2010. Infrastruktur und Stadtentwicklung ‐ Technische und soziale Infrastrukturen ‐ Herausforderungen und Handlungsoptionen für Infrastruktur‐ und Stadtplanung. Deutsches Institut für Urbanistik. Moubarac, J.‐C., Parra, D. C., Cannon, G., Monteiro, C. A. (2014) ‘Food Classification Systems Based on Food Processing: Significance and Implications for Policies and Actions: A Systematic Literature Review and Assessment’, Springer, New York nourishlife (2012) ‘The Nourish Food System Map’, http://www.nourishlife.org/, accessed 15 March 2014 Otoma, S., Hoang, H., Hong, H., Miyazaki, I. and Diaz, R. (2013). A Survey on Municipal Solid Waste and Residents’ Awareness in Da Nang City, Vietnam. Journal of Material Cycles Waste Management, 15, 187‐ 194. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10163‐012‐0109‐2 Perrotti, D., 2015. Landscape as Energy Infrastructure Ecologic Approaches and Aesthetic Implications of Design, in: Revising Green Infrastructure. Pinstrup‐Andersen, P. (2012b) ‘The Food System and Its Interaction with Human Health and Nutrition’, in S. Fan and R. Pandya‐Lorch, Rajul (eds) Reshaping agriculture for nutrition and health, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), pp.21–28 Pothukuchi, K., and J. Kaufman (1999) ‘Placing the food system on the planning agenda: The role of municipal institutions’, Agriculture and Human Values, vol 16, pp.213–24

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Rapid Planning Consortium, 2015, Rapid Planning – Sustainable Infrastructure Environmental and Resource Management for Highly Dynamic Metropolisis, available at: http://rapid‐planning.net/brochure.html, accessed 15 September 2015 Stierand, P. (2008) Stadt und Lebensmittel. Die Bedeutung des städtischen Ernährungssystems für die Stadtentwicklung, PhDthesis, Technische Universität Dortmund, Dortmund Wieck, K., 2015. Die Interaktivität von Raum informeller Siedlungen. unpublished doctoral dissertation, TU Berlin. Wiskerke, J.S.C. and Viljoen, A. (2012) ‘Sustainable urban food provisioning: challenges for scientists, policymakers, planners and designers’, in A. Viljoen and S.C. Wiskerke (eds) Sustainable Food Planning. Evolving theory and practice, Wageningen Academic‐Publishers, Wageningen, pp.19–35

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Giuseppe Cinà, “Somewhere the city slows down and the country comes back. Figures of a starting change of course in many Italian urban th fringes”, In: Localizing urban food strategies. Farming cities and performing rurality. 7 International Aesop Sustainable Food Planning Conference Proceedings, Torino, 7‐9 October 2015, edited by Giuseppe Cinà and Egidio Dansero, Torino, Politecnico di Torino, 2015, pp 57‐ 66. ISBN 978‐88‐8202‐060‐6

SOMEWHERE THE CITY SLOWS DOWN AND THE COUNTRY COMES BACK. FEATURES OF A STARTING CHANGE OF COURSE IN MANY ITALIAN URBAN FRINGES Giuseppe Cinà1

Keywords: Peri‐urban agricultural areas, sustainable food planning, multifunctional agriculture, relegation of buildable area Abstract: This paper addresses an important topic within the process of reviewing the town planning approach into the Italian urban fringes: the relegation or retrocession of areas planned to be urbanized in areas for farming activity. The relevance of this topic consists in facing two of the main problems of rural peri‐urban areas, namely the scarcity and the fragmentation of agricultural land, caused by the urban‐sprawl policies occurred during the so called "the glorious thirty”, when these areas were conceived as a reserve for new urbanization. Nowadays this status is more and more questioned, according to the contradictory pathways of urban transition and the new priorities postulated by the sustainable planning. Following this trend this paper intends to argue to which extent a return to farming in peri‐urban areas can be helped out by an overall review of their land use. To this end, the paper presents the results of a survey conducted on a sample of 30 municipalities of small, medium and large scale, located in many Italian Regions, that are implementing planning operations in order to convert some peripheral areas from urban to agricultural uses. Referring to this sample the paper discusses the impact of the transition in place and the conditions under which it may be effective. It follows that the present process of re‐zoning buildable areas into farming areas, although still limited to local experiences and policies, is a large‐scaled phenomenon that deserves a major attention from the public planning agencies at urban and regional level. In fact, at these levels more important results might be achieved by reviewing some regulatory and technical tools of urban planning till now not enough exploited. In conclusion, the paper highlights how an 'other' urban planning is possible, indeed it is already being implemented, and provides some points of reference for the work that remains to be done.

In agriculture and food planning many things have changed in the last twenty years and a heightened awareness of the importance of food quality has revealed a phenomenon that seems to mark a turning point or at least a shift towards a Sustainable Food Planning (SFP). This phenomenon, being itself the result of a high innovation at the conceptual, scientific and cultural levels, and able to change many habits of thinking and acting for the food, is impeded by a strongly limiting obstacle: the powerful prevalence of buildable land values on agricultural land values and the consequent preference to plan as developable large peri‐urban agriculture areas (PAA). As known, this phenomenon is related to the planning policies of the 'glorious thirty years' of urban sprawl, which relegated the PAA to the role of reserve for new urbanization. Since then it has been put in place an building production system that has no longer been able to restrain his race. Only the last economic recession, still in progress, and not a change of policy choices in the frame of a more sustainable development, has produced and is still producing a tangible containment of city growth.

1 Giuseppe Cinà, Politecnico di Torino, giuseppe.cina@polito.it

Giuseppe Cinà, “Somewhere the city slows down and the country comes back. Figures of a starting change of course in many Italian urban fringes”

Despite for decades "The unbearable weight of the building rights supply" (Mazza, 1994) was considered among the major causes of the weakness of urban policies, still today this unbearable weight hampers every possible perspective of sustainable development, including that based on PAA. It is worth mentioning that the above phenomenon is not the expression of a prevailing economic determinism, but rather the result of the concatenation of a number of factors, one of which consists of the long‐standing separation between the operational field of the planning discipline and the agricultural world. 1.

The planning discipline from urban to food system

The city planning was born as a discipline pointed towards the organization of the urban growth (Cerda, 1867; Unwin, 1909; CIAM, 1933‐1941). As such it developed a vision of the agricultural land not as a problem to deal with but rather as a resource to be exploited. Yet, very soon the dizzying development of the city will raise the question of a proper use of PAA in order to reduce its negative effects. For that reason some proposals that put the rural territory in a different vision of development came to light, from the Garden city by Howard (1902) to the bio‐region by Geddes (1915, 1925) until the various forms of sustainable development occurred after the 1970s. As well known all these proposals except some landscape aspects of the City garden remained marginal. As a consequence, still in 2000, it is possible to assert that "Most planning literature [including physical planning and urban design, land use, real estate development, public infrastructure, environmental planning, urban transportation, historic preservation, AN], ignores food issues” (Pothukuchi, Kaufman, 2000); on the other hand there are those who claim that "much of the urban studies literature is symptomatically silent about the physical‐environmental foundations on which the urbanization process rests" (Heynen, Kaika, Swyngedouw, 2006). Although this lateness of urban planning is far from being overcome, today we are witnessing the maturation of many experiences that are facing a 'food equation' that has now become a global problem (Morgan, Sonnino, 2010), especially with "The rise of the urban food question in the Global North" (Morgan, 2009). As a result, an extensive system of networks, associations, research centers and training institutes, technical and regulatory instruments has developed, whence the following lines of development are emerging among others: The formulation of analysis and development strategies at global scale (Smit, Nasr, 1992; UNDP, 1996); The acknowledgement of the role of spatial planning in food planning (Morgan, 2009); The implementation of urban policies through planning processes (Toronto: Blay‐Palmer, 2009; London: Reynolds, 2009); The formulation of guidelines (APA, 2007); The proposal of innovative practices with a technological approach, from aquaponic food system to the e‐farming (Jenkins, Keeffe, Hall, 2014); The attempt to built new agro‐cities, such as Almere Oosterwold, where the challenging objectives (to provide 50% of urban / agricultural areas) is associated with a bottom‐up implementation model (Jansma et al., 2013); The development of non‐profit international networks for consulting and action research specialized in City Region Food Strategies, such as RUAF foundation (http://www.ruaf.org); The development of high education and research centers specialized on the issues of food planning, mainly related to agronomic and economic disciplines, such as Wageningen University (http://www.wageningenur.nl) and the Institute of High Education Montpellier th

7 International Aesop Sustainable Food Planning Conference Proceedings, Torino, 7‐9 October 2015

Giuseppe Cinà, “Somewhere the city slows down and the country comes back. Figures of a starting change of course in many Italian urban fringes”

SupAgro (http://www.supagro.fr). Furthermore, within this list an important place must be given to the development of policies for the management of land use and landholding system, based on specific instruments integrating urban planning projects and eco‐agronomic planning. In this field the French experience proves to be among the most advanced, including the issues of agricultural function in both local and regional planning tools, like the Plan Local d'Urbanisme and the Schéma de Cohérence Territorial (Jarrige et al., 2013). 2.

The hesitant and yet significant return of agriculture in Italian urban fringes

Besides the evolution of the food planning, mostly referring to the global North, also in Italy are underway tangible advances in terms of urban, social, economic and agronomic studies, but the current policies remain still set back in terms of land use planning and governance. In fact, the long‐standing separation between urban planning and agricultural policies, present at the various levels of local government as well as in education and research, remains untouched. To explain this phenomenon it deserves to be recalled that in Italy the classification of agricultural areas in the city planning has suffered since the 1950s from the setting of Law 1150/42, which assigned to the city plan the task of "zoning the territory" (Art. 7) mainly within the framework of the housing needs, shifting the emphasis from areas earmarked for other functions. This division remained in DM. 1444/68 on urban standards (areas for public facilities supply) and until the 1980s (apart from the Piedmont Regional Law 56/77, art. 25). Only later, the planning was gradually leaving the mere bounds of urban growth. Since the early 1980s, when the environmental policies and the landscape protection gradually matured, for almost thirty years a growing interest in sustainable planning developed, and yet without affecting the issues of agriculture, still remaining a reserve for new urbanization; they remain apart a few exceptions, such as the Agricultural South Park of Milan. All this has meant that the agricultural land on the one hand has been crossed by forms of planning largely extraneous to it (urban, infrastructural, commercial, services, etc.) or mildly converging in terms of environmental and landscape planning; on the other hand has been supported by policies for farming development totally embedded in the corporate vision promoted by the CAP and the corresponding Regional plans of rural development. However, in the context of actual urban transition, which redefines the urban functions at all levels within new prospects for sustainable development, the role of PAA as a reserve for new urbanization is questioned from many points of view. In particular, a phenomenon is taking on great importance in the review of urban policies at municipal level with regard to peripheral areas: the relegation or retrocession of areas planned for new development into agricultural areas. It should be said that this phenomenon is due to the fact that these areas are subject to a taxation corresponding to their building potential (building rights) and not to the current use (unused or still agricultural). Therefore, since the housing market is stagnant and the prospects of urban development in the short‐term are lacking, the owners prefer to ask formally the relegation of their land from "building area" to "agricultural area" in order to pay lower taxes. So we are in front of a phenomenon not originated by bold urban policies but by the sum of particular interests; if we want to turn it in a meaningful device for the PAA development we must overcome its mere fiscal sphere and intercept its substantial relationships with the city planning policies. Its importance lies in the fact that it acts on the ground of two of the main problems of PAA: their scarcity and their fragmentation. So, working to reduce this scarcity and this fragmentation is the degree zero of each PAA policy.

7 International Aesop Sustainable Food Planning Conference Proceedings, Torino, 7‐9 October 2015

Giuseppe Cinà, “Somewhere the city slows down and the country comes back. Figures of a starting change of course in many Italian urban fringes”

Table 1. Planning tools and local authorities having provided a procedure of relegation Plans/tools

Municipalities

Content

1 ‐ Plans at the Municipal scale

PRG‐ General Regulatory Plans (in progress)

Spoleto

Prescriptive rules on the property rights and the land use

General or partial ‘Variants to PRG’ (in progress, adopted or approved)

Asti, Pinerolo, Rivalta di Torino, Balangero, San Mauro di Torino, Bardonecchia, Pessinetto, Chieri, Bellante, Fermignano, Mosciano, Pescara, Pollutri, Teramo, Torino, Velletri, Bellante, Gorgonzola, Avio, Frassilongo, Pomarolo, Ruffre' Mendola, Sover, Storo, Terragnolo

Specific ‘Variants to Prg’ (adopted or approved)

Chieti Reggio Emilia Senigallia

Programs and Detailed plans (in progress, adopted or approved)

Ravenna (POC‐ Operational municipal plan) San Benedetto del Tronto (PORU‐ Operational program for urban rehabilitation)

2 ‐ Large‐scale plans

Province of Teramo. Territorial Plan for Provincial Coordination. Variant to the Operational and technical reglementation (NtA).

Descriptive rules for the property rights and the land use

Some features of the relegation of buildable estates into agricultural areas In Italy the over‐sizing of urban growth, linked primarily to an overestimated population growth has been the perverse mechanism through which the practices of real estate speculation have been fuelled. However, we would make a mistake if we interpreted this phenomenon only under this connection, which shows political and entrepreneurial interests as directly tied through distorted and sometimes illegal modes to make planning. The construction sector in fact, while linked to big business and big political lobbies, ended up affecting a wide range of activities and social groups, with a huge impact in the production of work and wealth. Moreover, the excessive size of the buildable areas, while was producing a rise of land value, was also pushing for a general increase in financial assets, generating a corresponding growth of bank credit, trade and industrial revenues. This explains why the ‘brick industry’ it has been so successful. Today, with the repositioning of the real estate market on the basis of higher taxes and lower demand, the over‐sizing of building areas is called into question again. In Italy, the taxation of real estate, recently updated (D.lgs 201/2011) requires the payment of a tax in proportion to the value of real estate as established by the Municipal plan through the building rights, even if the building capacity has not been implemented. Therefore, the owners of buildable areas are required to pay high taxes even if the real market does not foster any implementation (Bisulli, 2013). Consequently many owners, whose buildable areas are not built up, ask the municipality to relegate them to agricultural areas in order to pay a much lower IMU (municipal tax); among these owners

7 International Aesop Sustainable Food Planning Conference Proceedings, Torino, 7‐9 October 2015

Giuseppe Cinà, “Somewhere the city slows down and the country comes back. Figures of a starting change of course in many Italian urban fringes”

only a few, encouraged by new production opportunities, combine the convenience of paying less IMU with the start of a new farming activity or the consolidation of an existing one. The consequences of the relegation are therefore of two types: (i) areas that remain unused; (ii) areas that become or remain agricultural areas and evolve in terms of farm production. The latter is still marginal in terms of quantity, but involves a growing number of municipalities and is expected to grow. So what is the real effect of transformations produced by the relegation, to which extent it is able to foster the development of the PAA within a framework of multi‐functionality? To answer this question, this study presents the results of a survey carried out on a sample of 30 municipalities of small, medium and large‐scale, distributed over 5 regions, that have implemented administrative and planning procedures to accomplish the transformation of some peripheral areas from urban to agricultural uses (Table 1). The goal of the survey was mainly meant to assess the extent of the phenomenon and its capacity to affect on a review of urban policies in favor of PAA; in particular the capacity to identify some qualitative and quantitative aspects, useful to address this review. The results of the analysis can be summarized as follows: The relegations are validated only within the municipal urban plans, the only tools entitled to define the land use and the building rights of each property; besides, they may be addressed by planning tools at higher scale, such as the provincial plans; The processing of planning tools including the relegations are dependent on the political conditions that make the related procedures more or less demanding from the political point of view; The relegations can be introduced through different types of planning tools at the municipal level: (i) a General regulatory plan (Prg), (ii) a general or partial modification to Prg, (iii) a specific modification to Prg (Table 1); Requests of relegations may concern areas for residential, industrial or service uses; apart the taxation, the reasons for the request may be three: (i) to transfer the building rights in another urban areas and (ii) to start an agricultural activity or consolidate the existing one, (iii) to pay less taxes; The size of the areas affected by relegations is only in a few cases significant; In some cases, a requested relegation can change the setting of the surrounding urban context; for this reason it can be rejected or lead to a revision of scheduled planning measures; The relegations introduce a change in the Municipal budget, as they reduce the tax income; The phenomenon of over‐sizing the building areas, and the reduction that comes through the procedures of relegation, highlights the need for a harmonization of the municipal tax policy with the town planning instruments. The survey reveals the presence of a diverse set of procedures that testifies the different ways of approaching the problem of land use change. Moreover, it is worth mentioning on the one hand the absence of addresses at national scale, and on the other hand the presence of some common characters which give to this phenomenon a meaning to some extent generalizable. In fact, a partial re‐zoning of PAA is now underway at national scale, largely limited to administrative procedures of the land use 'maintenance' in the existing planning instruments. This process, when considered on the basis of individual proceedings, which lead to punctual changes, has a limited impact; on the contrary, if considered in its potentiality ‐ to process the individual transformations in an overall reframing of land uses ‐ it appears likely to favor important developments2. 2 The results of the analysis here presented are referable to a first screening of the phenomenon. However, a continuation of the work is underway in order to deepen the following aspects: the disciplinary context in which the practice of

7 International Aesop Sustainable Food Planning Conference Proceedings, Torino, 7‐9 October 2015

Giuseppe Cinà, “Somewhere the city slows down and the country comes back. Figures of a starting change of course in many Italian urban fringes”

Fig. 1 – Municipalities of Rivalta (top) and Pinerolo (below). Relegation of periurban areas from buidable (left, blue lines) to agricultural use (right, red lines). Source: G. Fiora, Città Metropolitana di Torino, Life SAM4CP, 2015

Synergies between reduction of land consumption and peri‐urban agriculture

The relegation of the building estates into agricultural areas and more generally the increase of agricultural uses in peri‐urban areas has a formidable supporter in the movement for the reduction of land consumption. This latter, originated from an instance primarily environmentalist, has an increasing recognition from the scientific, social and political point of views, as it is supported by a strong mobilization of the scientific community (Gardi, Dall'Olio, Salata, 2013; Munafò, Salvati, Zitti, 2013; Arcidiacono et alii, 2014; ISPRA, 2015) and by specific political orientations, at national and EU level (EEA, 2006; European Commission, 2012). Many disciplines have long been engaged on this front, from natural sciences to economic and agronomic sciences, just to mention the most relevant. Several initiatives to raise awareness and develop actions and proposals are in the field by the initiative of public authorities and the third sector. Numerous legal instruments, not only referring to the planning field, are already in force and others are on the way. Among them it is worth mentioning the Regional planning law of Tuscany which establishes that the rural land is a common good and, as such, it must be protected and preserved for its productive and ecological functions (Lr 65/2014, "Rules for the governance of the territory”, art. 3 and 5). Additionally, the advancements on eco‐system services assessment are the ram's head of research in view of the reduction of land consumption. In fact from this research is maturing a knowledge that allow us to more directly evaluate the costs and benefits associated with soil saving/consumption, so helping to take well‐founded decisions to properly identify the areas to be urbanized or preserved. However, it remains to be verified how much a better understanding of eco‐system services will be relegation take on relevance; its possible development; the measures adopted; the amount of the areas involved; the role of actors involved; the changes produced by taxation in the new landholding regime.

7 International Aesop Sustainable Food Planning Conference Proceedings, Torino, 7‐9 October 2015

Giuseppe Cinà, “Somewhere the city slows down and the country comes back. Figures of a starting change of course in many Italian urban fringes”

able to counter the system of interests related to the use and exploitation of the soil. In other words, to which extent it will be able to influence the battleground of the exploitation dynamics, considered that the lower income of agricultural areas usually can oppose only a weak resistance to hinder the advance of urban growth. In Italy still there is neither a national law3 nor specific regional laws limiting the land consumption4, yet many municipalities, through new urban schemes, are reconsidering their territorial policies under this point of view. The ways in which this approach is being experiencing are still controversial and include, among others, laws with effects at times contradictory with the reduction of urban growth, such as the Regional Law of Lombardy, and planning tools that adopt rough quantitative measures of containment posing no secondary problems of application, such as in the Regional Spatial Plan of the Piedmont5. The decision to adopt quantitative measures to limit to growth is in some way simplistic ‐ it's hard to put it into practice ‐ but it is appropriate from another point of view: in fact, although it does not solve the problem at least it introduces a first mode, of course to improve, to address it. In this direction a few small municipalities have come forward taking the "zero growth" as their political banner, as in the cases of Solza (BG), Camigliano (EC), Ronco Briantino (MI), Ozzero (MI), Pregnana Milanese ( MI). In the case of Cassinetta di Lugagnano (MI), also with the involvement of local community, the problem of how to compensate the reduction of tax income produced by the reduction of new buildings has been made clear to the resident community: reduced revenues entail a lower availability of funds to ensure the public services. To bypass this problem the Municipality chose to forgo the revenues generated by new construction taxes in favor of the landscape protection, considering that its economic added value could offset the lower tax revenues. However, the city planning for "zero growth" will not have an easy life, unless this objective will not be pursued within a project able to ensure the necessary measures to stand up to the challenges of the market. In this sense the consistency between the tax regime and the real estate market remains at the heart of the political debate, and on this ground economists still have much work to do. In conclusion the policies for the containment of land use trigger a dynamic parallel and in many ways in line with that of relegation: by focusing on land saving, they work in favor of the agriculture keeping. However, we can not think that the soil saved might be left only to leisure uses and other facilities under the public authority or the third sector. On the contrary, where sustained in order to operate in the market system by avoiding the conventional food production in favor of a sustainable one, the agricultural income might provide the economic conditions to contain the urban growth in a more durable condition. In many cases the suburbs of our cities show this relation clearly: where agriculture activities were weaker the urban sprawl had no obstacles, where they were stronger the city grew less untidily. 3

It is currently under discussion, and subject to much criticism, the DdL_2039 "Containment of land use and reuse of built soil", approved in 2015 by the Council of Ministers and the Parliamentary Commissions VIII and XIII. 4 In the field of regional legislation the following documents are being discussed: (i) Draft laws specially designed to complement the current legislation on territory government (in Tuscany, Lombardy, Veneto); (ii) Specific regulatory tools for the production of sectoral plans or programs oriented, even indirectly, to limit the land consumption (Puglia and Marche); (iii) Other proposals or specific draft laws for the reduction of land waste (Abruzzo, Campania, Basilicata, Calabria). 5 The Regional Law of Lombardy is the Lr 31/2014 "Measures for the reduction of land consumption and the rehabilitation of degraded soils”. The Regional Spatial Plan of the Piedmont is approved by DCR n. 122‐ 29783/2011. th

7 International Aesop Sustainable Food Planning Conference Proceedings, Torino, 7‐9 October 2015

Giuseppe Cinà, “Somewhere the city slows down and the country comes back. Figures of a starting change of course in many Italian urban fringes”

Table 2‐ Soil consumption in Italy. Trends between 1952 and 2012. Source: ISPRA 2014

Table 3 ‐ Housing crisis and land use. Building permits for residential dwellings 2005‐2012. Source: ISTAT 2014

Soil consumption in Italy In Italy from WWII to date the irreversibly urbanized territory has quadrupled and is estimated around 7.5% of total area (Table 2). Nearly 20% of the Italian coastline, over 500 km2, is now irrevocably lost. Also 34,000 ha in protected areas, 9% of flood‐risk zones and 5% of the banks of rivers and lakes have been consumed. Road infrastructures are a major cause of land degradation, which reached (in 2013) about 40% of the total area consumed. This explains why the growth of land consumption does not decrease even face to the substantial decline of building permits for residential uses in recent years (Table 3). Source: ISPRA (Institute for the Protection and Environmental Research), Report 2015 4.

From land use ‘maintenance‘ to a new urban project

The inherent multiplicity of the food system entails that the issues of food planning are addressed by multiple disciplinary approaches, with crossing policies and practices. In this new and busy research border the spatial planning is struggling to define its own function. Yet it is at the forefront of a number of issues in which the specificity of its tools, mainly analysis and design, has a pivotal role. Just think of the issues of multi‐functionality, the landholding regime, the accessibility, the land regrouping, and the possibility of partially considering the PAA as a public interest asset: these are issues that can not be left to the individual negotiations among owners, investors and public officials. On the contrary they must be addressed by planning tools and rehabilitation projects capable of harmonizing objectives and effectiveness, public action and private initiative, incentives and regulatory measures.

7 International Aesop Sustainable Food Planning Conference Proceedings, Torino, 7‐9 October 2015

Giuseppe Cinà, “Somewhere the city slows down and the country comes back. Figures of a starting change of course in many Italian urban fringes”

Well, the process of relegation in place, which is growing exponentially at national scale, can provide new opportunities to enrich in this sense the proactive and regulatory function of planning. It should however be taken into account that at present the role of local administrations is much more reactive than proactive, and piecemeal rather than comprehensive. In other words, in most cases local councils do not take on far‐reaching commitments; and so, without a strong involvement of local governments the phenomenon of relegation is likely to remain the action field of a few best practices without a significant influence on the urban growth containment and the related distortions on land uses. It is therefore necessary to change step. Every municipality should rethink its planning policy by activating the relegation to agricultural uses not as just a land use ‘maintenance’ of scattered lots, but from the perspective of a new urban and territorial project. Finally, a project able to establish influential choices on the land uses and to face the contradictions marking the discourse on agriculture and food, where alarming basic data (e.g. about a coming global food shortage) are opposed to positive counter‐indicators (e.g. about the growing number of young farmers in several countries); and where beside the success figures of the Milan Expo "Feed the Planet" (e.g. 18.4 million tickets sold), which location sacrificed 100 ha of mostly agricultural land, arises the suspicion of a planetary green‐washing operation. 5.

References

American Planning Association (2007). Policy Guide on Community and Regional Food Planning. https://www.planning.org/policy/guides/adopted/food.htm Arcidiacono, A., Di Simine, D., Oliva, F., Pileri, P., Ronchi, S. and Salata, S. (2014). Politiche, strumenti e leggi per il contenimento del consumo di suolo in Italia. Roma: INU Edizioni. Bisulli, M., (2003). Processi di pianificazione, conformazione della proprietà, valutazione: un modello per la stima a fini fiscali delle aree edificabili. Thesis, PhD School ‘Ingegneria gestionale ed estimo’, Università di Padova. Blay‐Palmer, A. (2009).The Canadian Pioneer: The Genesis of Urban Food Policy in Toronto. International Planning Studies Vol. 14, n. 4, 401‐416. Cerdà, I. (1867). Teoría General de la Urbanización (General Theory of Urbanization). Madrid: Imprenta Española. Congress Internationaux d'Architecture moderne (1933‐1941). The Athens Charter. The Library of the Graduate School of Design, Harvard University, 1946. European Environmental Agency (2006). Urban sprawl in Europe – the ignored challenge (Report no. 10), OPOCE, Copenhagen. European Commission (2012). Guidelines on best practices to limit, mitigate or compensate soil sealing. ISBN 978‐92‐79‐26210‐4. http://ec.europa.eu/environment/soil/pdf/guidelines/pub/soil_en.pdf Gardi, C., Dall'Olio, N. and Salata, S. (2013). L'insostenibile consumo di suolo. Monfalcone: Edicom Edizioni. Geddes, P. (1915). Cities in evolution. Londres: Williams and Norgate. Geddes P. (1925). The Valley Plan of Civilization. Survey, LIV. Heynen, N., Kaika, M. and Swyngedouw, E. (eds), (2006). In the Nature of Cities. Urban political ecology and the politics of urban metabolism. Routledge: London. ISBN‐13: 978‐0415368285 Howard, E. (1902). Garden cities of tomorrow. London: Swan Sonnenschein. ISPRA (2015). Il consumo di suolo in Italia, Rapporto 218. Edizione 2015. ISBN 978‐88‐448‐0703‐0 Jansma, J.E., Veen E.J., Dekking, A.G.J., Visser, A.J. (2013). Urban Agriculture: How to Create a Natural Connection between the Urban and Rural Environment in Almere Oosterwold (NL). Proceedings REAL CORP 2013 Tagungsband, 20‐23 May, Rome. ISBN: 978‐3‐9503110‐5‐1. Jarrige, F., Chery J.P., Buyck J., Gambier J.P. (2013). The Moltpellier agglomeration. New approaches for the territorial coordination in the periurban. In: Nilsson, K., Pauleit, S., Bell, S., Aalbers, C., & Nielsen, T. A. S.

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(eds.). Peri‐urban futures: Scenarios and models for land use change in Europe. Springer Science & Business Media, pp 241‐274. Jenkins, A., Keeffe, G., Hall, N. (2014). Planning Urban Food Production into Today's Cities. In: R. Roggema and G. Keeffe (eds), Finding Spaces for Productive Cities, Proceedings of 6th AESOP SFP conference. Kevin, M. (2015). Nourishing the city: The rise of the urban food question in the Global North. Urban Studies, Vol. 52(8) 1379–1394. DOI: 10.1177/0042098014534902 Mazza, L. (1994). L'insostenibile peso dell'offerta residua [The insupportable heaviness of residual supply]. Urbanistica n. 103, pp. 88‐91. Morgan, K. (2009). Feeding the City: The Challenge of Urban food planning. International Planning Studies (Special Issue), 14:4, 341‐348. DOI: 10.1080/13563471003642852 Morgan, K., Sonnino, R. (2010). The urban foodscape: world cities and the new food equation. Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy and Society, Vol. 3 Issue 2. Munafò, M., Salvati, L., Zitti, M. (2013). Estimating soil sealing rate at national level – Italy as case study. Ecological Indicators XXVI, pp.137‐140. Pothukuchi, K., Kaufman, L.J (2000). The Food System: A Stranger to the Planning Field. Journal of the American Planning Association, v. 66, no. 2, Spring. Smit, J., Nasr J. (1992). Urban Agriculture for Sustainable Cities: Using Waste and Idle Land and Water Bodies as Resources. Environment and Urbanization 4, n. 2¸ pp. 141‐151. Undp (1996). Urban Agriculture: Food, Jobs, and Sustainable Cities. Publication for Habitat II, Vol. 1. Reynolds, B. (2009). Feeding a World City: The London Food Strategy. International Planning Studies, 14:4, 417‐ 424. DOI: 10.1080/13563471003642910 Unwin, R. (1909). Town planning in practice; an introduction to the art of designing cities and suburbs. London: Adelphi Terrace.

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Megan Heckert, Joseph Schilling, Fanny Carlet, “Greening us legacy cities—a typology and research synthesis of local strategies for th eclaiming vacant land”, In: Localizing urban food strategies. Farming cities and performing rurality. 7 International Aesop Sustainable Food Planning Conference Proceedings, Torino, 7‐9 October 2015, edited by Giuseppe Cinà and Egidio Dansero, Torino, Politecnico di Torino, 2015, pp 67‐82. ISBN 978‐88‐8202‐060‐6

GREENING US LEGACY CITIES—A TYPOLOGY AND RESEARCH SYNTHESIS OF LOCAL STRATEGIES FOR RECLAIMING VACANT LAND Megan Heckert1, Joseph Schilling2, Fanny Carlet3

Keywords: urban greening, legacy cities, vacancy management Abstract: Dozens of older US industrial “legacy” cities are repurposing vacant lots into community gardens and urban farms, pocket parks, and green infrastructure projects as part of longer‐term strategies to address concentrations of neighborhood abandonment. Recent research documents that public, private and nonprofit entities are leading initiatives to green post‐industrial landscapes that can achieve a wide range of public goals while offering local governments and neighborhood residents potential health, economic, and social benefits. Part of the challenge for planners and policymakers is how to select the most appropriate urban greening strategies and implement them in an effective and equitable manner. For researchers, the challenge is reaching beyond individual disciplines and individual projects to better investigate and simultaneously assess numerous benefits of various greening strategies. In May 2015, the Metropolitan Institute’s Vacant Property Research Network4 concluded a yearlong inventory and synthesis of social science and public health research on the greening of vacant land from peer reviewed academic journals. It then developed web‐based policy brief to help make the research more accessible and digestible for practitioners and policymakers, so they can more readily identify strategies and extract insights from the growing field of urban greening research to support their local programs. The following paper offers a typology of urban greening strategies commonly used in legacy cities. It also highlights the academic research that explores the benefits from these strategies along with the planning and policy challenges that legacy cities typically confront when reforming existing plans, development processes, and zoning codes to promote urban agriculture and other green uses.

Introduction

Urban greening research follows the evolution of different planning and greening movements in response to a wide array of urban challenges. Many community greening programs to address blight began in the 1960s and 1970s as cities lost population to the suburbs, leaving empty spaces behind. Several of today’s most successful community greening programs were established in the 1970’s, including Green Guerillas in New York City, Tree People in Los Angeles, Philadelphia Green in Philadelphia, P‐Patch in Seattle, and many more (J. Blaine Bonham et al., 2002, Wiland and Bell, 2006, Schmelzkopf, 1995). Within the last five years, there has been mounting interest by policymakers about how urban greening strategies can address long‐term challenges from large inventories of vacant and abandoned properties often found in older industrial “legacy cities.” The so‐called legacy cities, or cities in transition, are older industrial cities that have experienced manufacturing decline and population loss over the past few decades, and have had a difficult time bouncing back (The American Assembly, 2011, Mallach and Brachman, 2013). High rates of vacancy created a series of problems including reduced tax base, reduced property values for remaining 1

M. Heckert, West Chester University, mheckert@wcupa.edu J. Schilling, Metropolitan Institute at Virginia Tech, jms33@vt.edu 3 F. Carlet, Sustainable Urban Solutions, LLC, fanny09@vt.edu 4 For more information visit http://vacantpropertyresearch.com/ 2

Megan Heckert, Joseph Schilling, Fanny Carlet, “Greening us legacy cities—a typology and research synthesis of local strategies for eclaiming vacant land”

homes and increased crime as well as giving the general appearance of neglect and disuse. In several older industrial cities such as Baltimore, Buffalo, Cleveland, Detroit and Youngstown, communities are creating networks of gardens and urban farms, pocket parks, and other green settings on vacant lots as a means of addressing their blighting influence. Building on the early research about property value increasing from basic greening of vacant land, researchers have renewed their examination of a wider array of urban greening interventions and treatments, attempting to explore the impacts of these various greening programs. Contemporary research on urban sustainability examines environmental, public health, and social benefits of greening, including the use of green infrastructure to address new storm water mandates, of expansion and maintenance of healthy tree canopies as part of urban forestry strategies, and the resurging urban agriculture movement, not to mention mitigating the effects of climate change. Much has been learned with each of these different urban greening policy waves about the impacts of greening and green spaces on surrounding communities. The wide range of program types has been both a boon and a challenge for researchers, as it provides both a lot of subjects to study and makes it quite hard to generalize from any single study. Most research in this domain focuses on a single program and the benefits or drawbacks of any one program may not be generalizable to all given inevitable differences in context and implementation. This research translation paper is designed to help practitioners, policymakers, and researchers better develop and use applied research to further urban greening initiatives. While its primary focus is on the greening efforts within the context of legacy cities, it also discusses relevant research from the broader field of urban greening, summarizing key findings and observation, and offering suggestions for further research in the field (see Appendix A). 2.

What is Urban Greening?

Practitioners and researchers use the term urban greening to refer to a wide range of projects – from minor and temporary landscaping improvements using plants to the development of large‐scale projects, permanent parks, and recreation areas. Greening, while often connected to environmental and sustainability initiatives, can loosely include the production, preservation and development of parks, public green spaces, gardens, natural habitats, greenways, etc. (De Sousa, 2014). More than individual sites or strategies, urban greening often encompasses a network of natural and engineering elements that work together in providing ecosystem services—which often means the socio‐economic, cultural, and environmental benefits that people derive from such natural systems (Eisenman, 2013). Within the context of regenerating older industrial legacy cities, urban greening takes on a special meaning, often referring to diverse treatments and interventions for reclaiming hundreds or thousands of vacant and abandoned properties (e.g., lots, homes, businesses, and industrial plants) left behind by decades of depopulation and decline (Schilling and Logan, 2008). Among the many potential interventions that meet the definition of urban greening, a number of strategies are commonly used to activate underutilized lots in urban settings (note these urban greening strategies are not necessarily mutually exclusive as particular projects or programs may involve one or more of these interventions): 1. Conversion of neglected urban parcels and public rights‐of‐way into parks, trails, and open space. The abundance of underutilized land offers great potential to create new permanent parks and green spaces. Particularly in densely populated cities or low‐income areas with scarce access to parkland, repurposing of small vacant lots to green space can provide important social and ecological benefits for urban residents.

7 International Aesop Sustainable Food Planning Conference Proceedings, Torino, 7‐9 October 2015

Megan Heckert, Joseph Schilling, Fanny Carlet, “Greening us legacy cities—a typology and research synthesis of local strategies for eclaiming vacant land”

Community gardening or greening (e.g., street landscaping, tree plantings, etc.). Community gardening has been often used as a strategy to address the abundance of vacant land within cities and to provide access to fresh produce to underserved urban residents. Vacant land/lot greening as neighborhood stabilization strategies. Basic cleaning and greening strategies applied to urban vacant lots, including removing debris and trash, overgrown vegetation, and planting grass and flowers to make the parcel green and beautiful, add beauty and amenities to the community, fight urban blight, and provide neighborhood stabilization. Temporary pop‐up interventions. Pop‐up gardens, parklets, guerilla interventions, “open streets” are forms of community‐focused tactical urbanism strategies that aim to activate vacant spaces, connect people and places, and transform the identity of the city. Many of these strategies have green elements or involve urban greening activities while others focus more on neighborhood revitalization, community engagement, and economic development. Business/Productive Harvesting, such as urban agriculture and urban forests. Larger parcels of vacant land can be put to use for developing commercial enterprises that grow fresh food to be sold to local restaurants, retailers or the general public. Urban agriculture is becoming a way to increase access to locally grown food and a mean to reconnect urban dwellers to the food system and to the different aspects of food productions. While some urban farms may focus on community development goals, such as community education, consumption or workforce training, others are created to improve food access in a particular neighborhood. Because food production and selling are almost always regulated activities, zoning laws dictate the environment for urban agriculture, and urban farms may require special land use, health, and business permits and licenses. Green infrastructure. The term green infrastructure refers to greening projects designed for the primary purpose of reducing stormwater runoff. There are many types of green infrastructure projects, ranging from simple contouring to redirect and hold the flow of stormwater to highly engineered rain gardens with complex infiltration or holding systems. The ultimate goal of these programs is improved water quality through reducing the frequency of combined sewer overflow events, during which stormwater overwhelms the sewer system leading to the discharge of raw sewage into waterways.

Each of these categories includes a range of primarily local programs and policies and diverse blends of urban greening strategies and treatments (in the traditional context of landscape architecture and urban ecology, treatment means the site‐specific design techniques and tools used to implement the broader urban greening policies, programs). With so many different types of urban greening interventions, what it means to be effective or successful varies among these different types of programs and policies. Local context and ecological conditions matter when reviewing research findings and determining how they may or may not apply to other places. 3.

Research Approach

This paper relies on a general scan of the academic literature primarily in the fields of planning, urban policy, public health, environmental/ecological studies, and landscape architecture. It is not an in‐depth literature review. We identified over 80 articles based on our own publications and dissertations, searches of academic databases, and contributions from colleagues and peer reviewers of this document. The majority of these sources were published in well respected and relevant, peer‐ reviewed journals, such as the American Planning Association, Planning Education Research, Landscape and Urban Planning, American Journal of Public Health, Environment and Behavior, etc.

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Megan Heckert, Joseph Schilling, Fanny Carlet, “Greening us legacy cities—a typology and research synthesis of local strategies for eclaiming vacant land”

Our research also includes several books and studies/reports by government agencies and nongovernmental organizations. Most of the existing urban greening research studies the impacts and influences of a particular urban greening strategy, intervention or specific treatment. Successful greening projects, whether temporary or permanent in nature, can bring underused land back into productive use and reduce or eliminate many undesirable community problems (e.g., crime, litter, junk, rodents, dangerous buildings, etc.) often associated with abundance of vacant lots. The research often focuses on one or more of benefits (environmental, social/health, and economic development). Research on economic benefits is perhaps more prevalent than the other two measures. Some researchers are now exploring how to document and measure multiple benefits from the same intervention or treatment. Scholars typically examine a particular program in a particular city or neighborhood and document the benefits using a variety of research methods, such as econometric analysis and environmental data from a sample of individual sites or projects. Most of the current research does not examine the impacts and influences of deploying multiple greening strategies over the course of time. What is critical for practitioners and policymakers is to recognize that research about one program intervention or policy may not directly translate to another intervention. Thus, practitioners should carefully understand the context of a particular study—the dynamics of a particular practice and how it compares with their local context, such environmental, political, legal, and social and community conditions. This research and policy paper bridges the traditional divide between research and practice by explaining the methods behind recent research along with the context and findings so that practitioners and community leaders can better understand what the research says, what the research does not say, and how it might be relevant to their respective vacant property initiatives. By understanding how current research may or may not apply to local efforts, we believe practitioners and policymakers will be better equipped to make better decisions, improve policy and program, implementation, and ultimately facilitate the regeneration of their communities. 4.

Research Findings

Most of the contemporary urban greening research can be classified according to the type of intervention/strategy, the benefit(s) it can or has provided, and the methods that researchers use to assess or document those benefits. Successful greening projects can return underutilized land back into productive use, generate a range of socio‐economic benefits, reduce or eliminate many undesirable externalities often associated vacant lots and contribute to broader neighborhood revitalization initiatives. In a special issue of Cities devoted to vacant land, guest editors Hamil Pearsall and Susan Lucas observed that urban greening efforts are transforming the traditional problems of vacant land into a wide range of positive opportunities for older industrial cities (Pearsall and Lucas, 2014). Below we organize the key research findings from our literature scan into three general categories of how urban greening affects communities: 1) community and economic development; 2) social and public health; and 3) environment and ecosystem. This framework offers a convenient way to organize the range of impacts and benefits that researchers have found from programs, projects, and policies designed to green vacant land.

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Megan Heckert, Joseph Schilling, Fanny Carlet, “Greening us legacy cities—a typology and research synthesis of local strategies for eclaiming vacant land”

4.1

Community and Economic Development

Because of decades of population loss, many older industrial legacy cities have thousands of vacant lots and abandoned buildings that drive down property values and serve as a major barrier for future reinvestment. With a substantial surplus of vacant and abandoned properties, US legacy cities, often through specialized land reutilization corporations, have launched extensive initiatives to demolish vacant homes as a planning strategy to rebalance dysfunctional real estate markets (Johnson et al., 2014). With continual population decline and thus weak demand for housing, urban greening emerged as a viable community and economic policy to propel the regeneration of legacy cities (Schilling and Logan, 2008). Researchers have been exploring the greening of postindustrial landscapes through the lens of brownfields redevelopment programs (De Sousa, 2014) and more recently through city wide regeneration initiatives such as Detroit Future City and Reimagining a More Sustainable Cleveland. Our European colleagues are also tracking urban greening strategies and the potential eco‐system services they can provide postindustrial shrinking cities with declining populations (Haase et al., 2014). One of the well‐established research areas is the economic impacts from the greening of vacant land, such as increases in property values, that can help stabilize dysfunctional real estate markets and serve as catalysts to attract residents and investment back into declining neighborhoods (Schilling and Logan, 2008). Beyond property values, more scholars are beginning to take a broader look at the social benefits from neighborhood greening efforts as well as jobs created or the value of food produced from urban agriculture. Within the community development literature, we also noted a trend with a handful of Community Development Corporations (CDCs) and Community Based Organizations (CBOs) shifting their programming from housing to include different dimensions of urban greening and sustainability (Schilling and Vasudevan, 2012). Below we summarize and synthesis several articles and studies about the community and economic development potential from the greening of vacant land. 4.1.1 Increases in Surrounding Property Values With respect to vacant lots and the management of urban vacant land, existing research demonstrates that even simple greening of vacant lots can increase surrounding property values. Much of the groundbreaking research on urban greening has been done in Philadelphia with a focus on the treatments and urban greening strategies pioneered by the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society (PHS). ‐ Three studies of the PHS LandCare program’s simple clean and green treatment—where they remove debris, plant grass and trees, and construct a split rail fence to prevent dumping— showed increases in property values located nearby the greened lots. One neighborhood study examined homes immediately adjacent to the green lot and found that they were worth 30% more than other homes in the same neighborhoods (Wachter, 2005). A subsequent city‐wide replication of the original study found adjacent property values increased 11% (Wachter and Gillen, 2006). The third study looked at price differences for properties within 500 feet of green lots before and after greening and compared these to changes in price for lots that were not greened. Results showed that values increased more rapidly for properties in the vicinity of the greened lots (Heckert and Mennis, 2012). ‐ In New York City they compared property values around vacant lots before and after they became community gardens and found a significant increases in property values within 1,000 feet of the garden with positive gains increasing over time (Voicu and Been, 2008). th

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Megan Heckert, Joseph Schilling, Fanny Carlet, “Greening us legacy cities—a typology and research synthesis of local strategies for eclaiming vacant land”

‐

A study of community gardens in St. Louis found that rents increased in close proximity to newly established community gardens more than they did in the larger surrounding communities, indicating a willingness to pay more to live near community gardens (Tranel and Handlin, 2006).

Two of these five studies further found that these impacts of greening vacant land are stronger in some neighborhoods than others, and that greening may have no impact on property values in some areas. ‐ One study of the Philadelphia LandCare program found that property values increased in distressed neighbourhoods more than they did in more stable real estate markets, but that the most distressed areas of the city did not see property value improvements as a result of greening. It further found that increases in property values also seemed to be contingent on the percentage of vacant land that had been greened, with higher rates of greening associated with increased property values (Heckert and Mennis, 2012). ‐ The study of community gardens in New York also found that neighborhood conditions influenced the effect of garden establishment, with gardens increasing property values in low‐ income but not high‐income areas. It further found that garden quality influenced the garden impact, with high quality gardens leading to higher property value increases (Voicu and Been, 2008). These findings are consistent with the general literature on parks and green spaces. Numerous studies have found that parks, trees, and vegetation are all associated with higher property values. However, though the “proximate principle” that parks increase property values in close proximity is widely accepted, other studies have shown that these impacts may vary based on both neighborhood and park characteristics, such as crime rates (in high crime areas, parks are associated with lower property values (Troy and Grove, 2008), park amenities and park maintenance levels (Troy and Grove, 2008, Crompton, 2001). 4.1.2 Supplements Food Security Initiatives Another new area of research examines the economic and community development potential from urban agriculture and other types of productive urban greening strategies. In recent years, urban agriculture has received increasing support as a strategy for food security and urban sustainability. Using vacant land as a resource for local production is expanding worldwide as a response to community food insecurity and urban food deserts (Colasanti et al., 2012, Gardiner et al., 2013). Many community gardeners see economic benefits to gardening in the food that is produced, either for their own consumption, sharing, or sale in local communities. Below we highlight some of the recent research about urban agriculture and community gardening from a broader sample of cities. ‐ An ethnographic study of gardens in New York City’s Loisada neighbourhood noted that many gardeners see economic resources as the primary motivation for growing food (Schmelzkopf, 1995). ‐ Estimates of the agricultural potential of Oakland, California’s vacant lots, open space, and underutilized parks found, in the most conservative scenario, that these sites could potentially contribute between 2.9 and 7.3% of current consumption of recommended vegetables, depending on production methods, or 0.6–1.5% of recommended consumption (McClintock et al., 2013).

7 International Aesop Sustainable Food Planning Conference Proceedings, Torino, 7‐9 October 2015

Megan Heckert, Joseph Schilling, Fanny Carlet, “Greening us legacy cities—a typology and research synthesis of local strategies for eclaiming vacant land”

‐

Early data suggest that in some markets urban specialty crop cultivation could yield 2‐7 kg/m2 depend on the type of crop and conditions (Beniston and Lal, 2012). A study of the Mantua neighbourhood in Philadelphia ‐‐using observations and interviews with gardeners‐‐ noted that gardeners tended to share their produce with neighbours and members of their churches (Hanna and Oh, 2000).

‐

4.2

Public and Social Health

Green space is widely regarded as a health‐promoting characteristic of residential environments, and has been linked to health benefits such as reduced stress, increased positive emotions, and increased physical activity (Tzoulas et al., 2007). The evidence, however, mainly concerns the short‐term restorative benefits of single experiences with nature, while consistent and objective measurement of both exposure to nature and long term health‐related outcomes remains elusive. Nonetheless, research findings bear potentially important implications for the future study of urban vacant lot greening as a tool to enhance health. With respect to individual health, long standing environmental psychology research suggests that green space availability can contribute significantly to the physical and psychological well‐being of individuals (Lafortezza et al., 2009). Most of this evidence concerns short‐term restorative health benefits from a particular place and surveys of participants from a single visit or experience with nature, as opposed to consistent and objective measures of both exposure and long‐term health related outcomes (e.g., working in a particular community garden over two years reduced certain health risks or risk factors, etc.). For example, a study of participants in one community gardening organization in Salt Lake City, Utah found that active men and women community gardeners’ s had lower BMIs than non‐participating neighbors, spouses and siblings. Women community gardeners had significantly lower BMIs compared to their sisters and men community gardeners compared to their brothers. Even though findings may not generalize to gardening organizations elsewhere, results of this study suggest that community gardens could be a neighborhood feature that promotes health (Zick et al., 2013). Passive experience of a green environment has been linked to a greater sense of safety and wellness, reduced stress, and diminished driving frustration (Ward Thompson et al., 2012, Cackowski and Nasar, 2003, Kuo et al., 1998b). Exercising while being directly exposed to nature has a positive effect on self‐esteem and mood (Pretty et al., 2005). Furthermore, living and playing in a green space can improve children school performance and lessen the symptoms of Attention Deficit and Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) (Taylor and Kuo, 2008, Wells, 2000). 4.2.1 Facilitates Social Interactions Several studies also document the role of greening projects in facilitating social interaction. The general idea is that green spaces can provide both physical space and a purpose for neighborhood cohesion and identity. A survey of community gardeners of four greening sites in Chicago found positive outcomes, a sense of ownership in the neighborhood and feelings of empowerment, but that social cohesion does not automatically happen at the community garden but organizers and participants must be mindful and active in creating the right atmosphere and activities that can support and nurture social cohesion. Methods of implementation and degree of participation of many diverse community members are part of the recipe for success. When residents felt involved and received support, they felt empowered and thus it enhanced a sense of community (Westphal, 2003). Of course, the social dynamics of greening can be complex and may lead to disagreements or resentments within communities. th

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Megan Heckert, Joseph Schilling, Fanny Carlet, “Greening us legacy cities—a typology and research synthesis of local strategies for eclaiming vacant land”

Another Chicago study found that residents living closer to common green spaces, in comparisons with those that do not, tended to enjoy and engage in more social activities, know their neighbors, etc. Common green spaces facilitate the development and preservation of social ties (Okvat and Zautra, 2011, Kuo et al., 1998a). 4.2.2 Supports Social Justice & Equity Environmental gentrification is the process of environmental quality renewal accompanying the influx of affluent people often displacing old time residents that find themselves priced out of their own neighborhoods as they become more sought‐after and valuable. An emerging view in the literature is that environmental improvements, such as vacant lots beautification and creation of community gardens, can become a catalyst for or contribute to gentrification of the neighborhoods they aim to revitalize. Most of the studies, however, have been conducted in areas with strong real estate markets. Research findings, in fact, appear to suggest that gentrification tends to happen in cities with tight housing markets and in a select number of neighborhoods. In legacy cities that have suffered from extensive housing vacancy and abandonment, the modest levels of community revitalization brought by environmental improvements do not lead to significant levels of displacement pressure. While some recent research also calls into question the potential negative impacts from urban greening related to social justice, affordable housing and gentrification, other research from legacy cities seems to support positive influences on social justice and social equity. A study of the Philadelphia LandCare program found that more than 45,000 people of diverse racial and ethnic backgrounds and 16,000 households in the city now have access to green space within a half mile of their residences (Heckert, 2013). Research on displacement and gentrification from high profile, large‐scale urban greening projects (such as the Highline in New York City) seem more prevalent in cities and neighborhoods already undergoing rapid growth and redevelopment. However, the lessons from these projects raise legitimate concerns about social justice if greening leads to neighborhood change that causes displacement of existing residents (Wolch et al., 2014). 4.2.3 Positive Impacts on Neighborhood Crime Another strand of the social/public health literature is urban greening’s positive impact on neighborhood crime. While greening vacant spaces cannot reduce crime per se, changing the physical appearance of a neighborhood can make it more difficult for people to conduct illegal activities, creating a neighborhood where people feel safer. This is consistent with social and psychological research on physical and social disorder under the rubric of the Broken Window Theory (Pitner et al., 2012). A study of the impacts of the PHS LandCare program in Philadelphia found that incidence of police‐ reported crimes decreased around greened lots when compared to areas surrounding vacant lots that had not been greened. Regression modeling showed that vacant lot greening was linked with consistent reductions in gun assaults across four sections city (Branas et al., 2011). Interviews to residents surrounding green and non‐green lots in Philadelphia found the residents felt safer after greening had occurred. The Philadelphia study is consistent with the literature that examples the relationship between vegetation and crime in inner city neighborhoods under the concept of Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design (CPTED). For example, crime rates for 98 apartment buildings with varying levels of nearby vegetation found that public housing buildings with high levels of vegetation has 48% fewer report property crimes and 56% fewer violent crimes than buildings with low levels of vegetation (Kuo et al., 1998b, Kuo and Sullivan, 2001). th

7 International Aesop Sustainable Food Planning Conference Proceedings, Torino, 7‐9 October 2015

Megan Heckert, Joseph Schilling, Fanny Carlet, “Greening us legacy cities—a typology and research synthesis of local strategies for eclaiming vacant land”

4.3

Environment & Ecosystem

The expanding field of urban greening continues to include new studies that document the environmental and ecosystem benefits of greening vacant land. Ecosystem services are direct and indirect benefits provided to humans by functioning ecological systems (Farber et al., 2006). These services encompass provisioning of food and water, as well as regulating climate, air and water quality, cultural services, such as recreation and aesthetic enjoyment, and supporting services, i.e. activities that contribute supporting ecosystems, such as pollination and soil formation (Costanza et al., 1997, de Groot et al., 2010). Stormwater management is one of a wide range of “ecosystem” services that vacant lot greening specifically can provide. In many “legacy” cities, green infrastructure is emerging as a viable strategy to address policy challenges associated with stormwater runoff and aging combined‐sewer systems (Shuster et al., 2014, Jaffe, 2010). Vacant lots can be transformed into lot‐scale rain gardens or aggregated into larger scale landscape features such as constructed wetlands providing stormwater mitigation and alleviating combined sewer overflows (Barkasi et al., 2012). A study of 52 vacant lots (former urban demolition sites) in Cleveland, OH demonstrated that properly designed and managed infiltration type green infrastructure on vacant lots can have sufficient capacity for detention of average annual rainfall volume (Shuster et al., 2014). Other potential environmental and ecosystem benefits include habitat for local wildlife and addressing aspects of climate change, such as mitigating urban heat island effects. Much of this research, however, does not take place only on vacant lots, but in a wide variety of urban settings. It is important to recognize and leverage these expanding areas of urban greening and urban sustainability research that could apply to the context of reclaiming vacant land in legacy cities. Underutilized urban land can be converted into vegetated open space that serve multiple functions and provide multiple ecosystem services; community gardens support biodiversity and habitat conservation and allow residents to cultivate for flowers, fruit, and vegetables (Gardiner et al., 2013). Functionality provided by green space in urban environments has becoming increasingly relevant in the context of planning for mitigation and adaptation to climate change. Conversion of underutilized vacant land into green infrastructure with combined social–ecological amenities could provide increased resilience to predicted near‐term effects of climate change, such mitigate urban heat island effects and provide biological benefits by the recycling of carbon to help reduce GHG emissions (Nowak et al., 2013, McPherson and Simpson, 2003, Lovell and Taylor, 2013). Urban forested areas contribute to carbon sequestration and storage and to air temperature reduction (Nowak et al., 2013, Haase et al., 2014). In addition, vegetation can be used to cost‐effectively remediate mildly contaminated brownfields sites. A whole body of literature exists on brownfields remediation techniques using plants (phytoremediation) and fungi (mycoremediation) to stabilize or reduce soil pollution (Wilschut et al., 2013, LaCroix, 2010). 4.4

Implementation Opportunities and Challenges

Within the fields of community development and urban regeneration, we also found research on emerging examples of pioneering community‐based organizations expanding their neighborhood stabilization and vacant property efforts to include a wide array of urban greening strategies. Community development corporations (CDCs) in the US have a long history of leading neighborhood revitalization projects, such as housing development and rehabilitation for low to moderate‐income residents, along with rebuilding the civic infrastructure and capacity of distressed communities. For many legacy city neighborhoods, it makes little sense to build or rehabilitate homes in light of weak demand and declining property values caused by on‐going population loss.

7 International Aesop Sustainable Food Planning Conference Proceedings, Torino, 7‐9 October 2015

Megan Heckert, Joseph Schilling, Fanny Carlet, “Greening us legacy cities—a typology and research synthesis of local strategies for eclaiming vacant land”

A new type of green CDC is emerging as new organizations such as the Youngstown Neighborhood Development Corporation (YNDC) or People United Sustainable Housing (PUSH) Buffalo deploy a variety of urban greening strategies to stabilize transitional and severely distressed neighborhoods. In many respects, these nonprofits, working in collaboration with the city government, are filling a critical void caused by a dwindling city revenues and capacity to intervene. They also have great potential to reverse the social dynamics of declining neighborhoods by rebuilding social capital that could be especially critical for the regeneration legacy cities and districts (Nassauer and Raskin, 2014). For example, a yearlong case study of Groundwork USA—a national network of 20 community‐based intermediaries or “trusts” examines how the Groundwork model integrates the physical restoration of brownfields, vacant lots, and polluted urban rivers with community renewal programs, such as training youth in urban natural resources stewardship (Schilling and Vasudevan, 2012). Acting as green intermediaries, the Groundwork Trust model offers researchers, policymakers, and practitioner’s new insight. Recent research further documents that formally chartered public gardens, as cultural institutions, are emerging as a nontraditional community development partner in providing resources for urban greening interventions, engagement, and education (Gough and Accordino, 2013). For example, the Cleveland Botanical Garden, thanks to research grant from the Great Lakes Protection Fund, is testing the green infrastructure capacity of different urban greening treatments in Cleveland and Milwaukee. Beyond these opportunities, researchers are also documenting the common policy challenges that prevent the scaling of urban greening initiatives, such as complex vacant land acquisition processes, out dated zoning regulations, and inadequate resources for long‐term ownership and maintenance (Courtney Kimmel et al., 2013, LaCroix, 2010). While more legacy cities have adopted special zoning ordinances and development regulations for urban agriculture, these new rules remain relatively untested and can create conflicts with remaining residents. Maintenance of vacant lots has also become a major public policy challenges for the expanding number of land bank authorities and land reutilization corporations in Michigan, New York, and Ohio. Demolition techniques (e.g., burying of foundations and debris) and common household strategies for mowing and gardening (e.g., use of chemicals) can pose unforeseen threats to the vacant lot’s ecosystem and perhaps negatively impact the health of local residents (Schilling and Vasudevan, 2012). Interventions on vacant lands are typically decided on a case by case basis, with specific greening strategies depending upon environmental and social characteristics of the community (Colbert et al., 2010). Given the contamination problems common in urban soils, for example, a soil quality assessment is necessary to optimize use for crop production and functional green space (Beniston and Lal, 2012). Because of the complexities associated with the greening of vacant, urban land, Nassauer and Raskin stress the necessity for transdisciplinary research about the planning and policy implications of transforming vacant land as “socio‐ecological systems” (Nassauer and Raskin, 2014). It is critical to recognize that research about one program intervention or policy in one community may not directly translate to another community or another type of urban greening strategy, as ecological and social outcomes of greening projects may vary greatly across neighborhoods and thus need to be managed through informed planning policies (Jenerette et al., 2011). Despite this limitation, the recent urban greening research, as described in the previous sections, documents that many of these strategies and techniques are working.

7 International Aesop Sustainable Food Planning Conference Proceedings, Torino, 7‐9 October 2015

Megan Heckert, Joseph Schilling, Fanny Carlet, “Greening us legacy cities—a typology and research synthesis of local strategies for eclaiming vacant land”

Conclusions

Urban greening bridges many divides. Fast growing cities and legacy cities are each adopting and adapting urban greening strategies and treatments as part of broader initiatives to create more sustainable, healthy and just communities. Legacy cities can deploy urban greening to reclaim vacant lots and abandoned properties that help stabilize declining neighborhoods and dysfunctional economic markets while many growing cities, especially those on the coasts, are beginning to view urban greening as a front line response to mitigate the impacts of a changing climate. Urban greening work and research also involves diverse fields (e.g., public health, planning, policy, design, engineering, etc.) and seems to span the divide of academic inquiry and practice. As a specialty field, urban greening now has a strong following among groups of local leaders, CBOs, NGOs, and academic institutions. Much of the research discussed in this paper documents what practitioners know first‐hand—that planning and implementation of urban greening projects is complex, difficult, and sometimes controversial; thus urban greening initiatives require the meaningful engagement from various levels of government, the private sector, and local NGOs. Ecological and social outcomes of greening projects may vary greatly across neighborhoods and thus should be managed through informed planning policies. Given the wide range of urban greening strategies and the complex and dynamic nature of implementing initiative for greening vacant land in urban areas (e.g., the community, political, strategic, and technical dimensions of urban greening initiatives, etc.), only truly holistic planning processes can help ensure that green reuse of urban vacant areas will happen in ways that are suitable and useful for the entire community. Any time researches and practitioners explore the landscape of such a complex and dynamic topic as urban greening our thoughts drift to posing outstanding questions to which existing research does not or has not yet given us clear answers. In some fields of inquiry, the gap is wide between intriguing intellectual questions and those issues that plague practitioners and policymakers. With respect to urban greening, its practical nature and emerging community of practice has a strong connection between academic inquiry and work on the ground. We have compiled a preliminary list of Future Research Topics that we believe would be relevant for practitioners and researchers to work together to answer (see Appendix A). Many of these ideas again are derived from our own research activities and publications along with a few contributions from our colleagues and peer reviewers. It is neither comprehensive nor complete, but this list could serve as the preliminary foray into developing a more robust urban greening in legacy cities research agenda. One major conclusion from our research is the promise of urban greening to deliver multiple benefits to communities from increasing property values and reducing stormwater runoff to facilitating social cohesion. Certainly some of the findings in this paper merely confirms what practitioners perhaps intuitively already know—the collaborative power of urban greening as diverse communities coalesce around its ethos and goals. In many respects this body of research provides an objective and reliable second opinion that practitioners and policymakers can point to when making the case for supporting or expanding urban greening initiatives in their communities. Despite the positive news from these studies, it becomes critical to ensure the reliability of the data, acknowledge the limitations of the research, and document the problems and potential negative impacts along with the benefits. In order to unleash the environmental, economic and social psychological benefits of greening urban spaces, practitioners and researchers will need to develop a common understanding about the research itself and find new partnerships for expanding the research on policy analysis and decision‐making. We believe this paper is one major step in that direction.

7 International Aesop Sustainable Food Planning Conference Proceedings, Torino, 7‐9 October 2015

Megan Heckert, Joseph Schilling, Fanny Carlet, “Greening us legacy cities—a typology and research synthesis of local strategies for eclaiming vacant land”

References

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Megan Heckert, Joseph Schilling, Fanny Carlet, “Greening us legacy cities—a typology and research synthesis of local strategies for eclaiming vacant land”

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Megan Heckert, Joseph Schilling, Fanny Carlet, “Greening us legacy cities—a typology and research synthesis of local strategies for eclaiming vacant land”

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Appendix A. What do we not know? What would we like to know more about? Implications for the Design and Development of Future Research Projects and Collaborations Below is a list of future research issues and questions that we believe would be relevant for practitioners and researchers to work together to answer. Many of these ideas again are derived from our own research activities and publications along with a few contributions from our colleagues and peer reviewers of this paper. It is neither comprehensive nor complete, but certainly this list could serve as the preliminary step into developing a more robust urban greening in legacy cities research agenda. ‐ Characteristics of Successful Urban Greening Projects and Programs: Few studies examine how neighborhood characteristics/dynamics affect results (in other words, do programs have the same effect in all places). ‐ What are the critical variables or ingredients to success, both from a technical sense and from a policy and planning perspective? ‐ What effect, if any do urban greening interventions have on the longer term trajectory of vacant land? Do they not only stabilize markets or neighborhoods, but do they contribute to the slowing of the vacant land inventory. ‐ Are lots that get interim vacant land management treatments (greened), more likely to be redeveloped or used for productive reuse (such as urban Ag or GI) compared with vacant lots that do not get greened? ‐ Green Jobs and Green Businesses: What kinds of jobs do urban greening initiatives generate? Are they worthwhile investments and can they be taken to scale? ‐ Land Banking and Urban Greening: How effective or productive are land bank urban greening strategies and interventions? Existing research on land banks tends to focus on the economic benefits from the acquisition and demolition of surplus housing and other types of vacant properties. As land banks, particularly in Michigan and Ohio, seem to be the primary legal entity involved in developing and

7 International Aesop Sustainable Food Planning Conference Proceedings, Torino, 7‐9 October 2015

Megan Heckert, Joseph Schilling, Fanny Carlet, “Greening us legacy cities—a typology and research synthesis of local strategies for eclaiming vacant land”

maintaining vacant lots in legacy cities, practitioners could benefit from new research that compares the environmental and social benefits derived from these land bank greening programs, especially the perplexing policy problem of how to finance and maintain increasing inventories of green vacant lots over time. Resources for Urban Greening and Green Infrastructure: Within the past several years the federal and state governments have created new avenues for local governments to access dollars for demolishing vacant homes caused by the mortgage foreclosure crisis. While some of these programs, such as the US Treasury’s Hardest Hit Funds, provide for post demolition greening and maintenance, they come with fairly prospective eligibility rules and at this point these funds are short term and temporary. In light of the scale of property abandonment, legacy cities certainly need more consistent and flexible resources for demolishing thousands of vacant properties. These resources must acknowledge that in many legacy cities demolition is a precondition to many urban greening strategies and treatment; however, many current demolition funds do not typically support the property maintenance responsibly or urban greening treatments/interventions. Thus, local governments, land banks, and green CBOs would benefit from new research on the funding challenges for converting, maintaining and monitoring vacant lots with green stabilization treatments; perhaps such research might help advocate for reallocating demolition resources to cover such property maintenance costs. Any new research should also explore ways of leveraging private‐sector financial resources and expertise to support a range of urban greening projects. Comparison and Suitability/Feasibility of Urban Greening Interventions across Different Cities: Urban greening research could create a framework for comparing different urban greening interventions and the inherent tradeoffs that could arise between multiple desired outcomes. From a planning perspective, the research might help communities better understand the goals, potential outcomes and benefits from various urban greening interventions. Not every vacant lot can become a revenue‐ and food‐generating urban farm, thus more research on the design and development of different types (a menu) of urban greening interventions could help communities more clearly articulate the goals/benefits of urban greening strategies at different scales (e.g., regional, city wide, neighborhood) and test the feasibility of such approaches. As part of the Reimagining a More Sustainable Cleveland, Kent State facilitated a working group that developed a preliminary decision tree to help guide city planners and neighborhood leaders in making informed decisions about the what type of urban greening treatment might be best suited for particular properties in particular neighborhood. By articulating the goals (short‐term stabilization vs. permanent installation) and benefits based on existing research, local governments and urban greening intermediaries could strategically leverage their resources and engage the community residents in a more thoughtful understanding about the potential benefits, tenure and placement of urban greening interventions in their community. ‐ In order to realize the true potential that urban greening can provide, especially to better document the environmental and social benefits, longer term research projects are necessary that can track results over time. ‐ Comparing similar urban greening programs and policies across cities would better facilitate and solidify a community of practice and facilitate the transfer of lessons learned across cities. Urban Agriculture Economic Costs and Benefits: what does the research show on the current and potential economic returns on investment in urban farms and urban forestry businesses as many current farms receive grants and other types of support from foundations and government along with in‐kind support from and community groups? Can Urban Agriculture become a productive and economically viable business? Can it help create private sector green jobs? How does Urban Agriculture contribute to the creation/development of jobs in associated regional or local businesses, such as restaurants and food service industries? Urban Greening Applied to Suburbia: What are lessons learned from urban greening models that could be applied or adapted successfully to more isolated, poverty‐stricken suburban neighborhoods? For example, urban greening organizations, such as Groundwork Trust USA are working on large scale vacancy and abandonment challenges in several suburban neighborhoods that are part of their network of 21 local trusts. Compared with their work in urban communities, they note the lack of a critical mass of people, neighborhoods engaged along with lower community awareness about the benefits of greening vacant

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Megan Heckert, Joseph Schilling, Fanny Carlet, “Greening us legacy cities—a typology and research synthesis of local strategies for eclaiming vacant land”

spaces; thus, these preliminary greening efforts seem somewhat isolated compared with the high‐impact, high visibility transformative projects they have managed in traditional urban neighborhoods. Community based organizations may need to approach urban greening in declining suburbs differently. Roles of CBOs and NGOs: New research should explore in more depth the pivotal roles that CBOs are playing in providing local governments and communities with supplemental capacity to organize and lead urban greening initiatives; perhaps develop a typology of CBO models to understand how they are funded, their technical expertise and their linkages to other policy dimensions of urban greening such as the potential for green jobs; use social network analysis to examine cross sector collaboration among institutions, foundations, and urban greening groups in a particular city or across cities.

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7 International Aesop Sustainable Food Planning Conference Proceedings, Torino, 7‐9 October 2015

Daniela Poli,“Sustainailble food, spatial planning and agro‐urban public space in bioregional city”, In: Localizing urban food strategies. th Farming cities and performing rurality. 7 International Aesop Sustainable Food Planning Conference Proceedings, Torino, 7‐9 October 2015, edited by Giuseppe Cinà and Egidio Dansero, Torino, Politecnico di Torino, 2015, pp 83‐97. ISBN 978‐88‐8202‐060‐6

SUSTAINABLE FOOD, SPATIAL PLANNING AND AGRO‐URBAN PUBLIC SPACE IN THE BIOREGIONAL CITY Daniela Poli1 Keywords: planning, multifunctional agriculture, river contracts, integrated project, agricultural park. Abstract: Although the recent settlement dynamics show urbanisation as a still ongoing process (OECD 2007), qualitative analyses point out resistance phenomena in rural areas (Barberis 2009) and the emergence of an intermediate ‘urban‐rural’ territory in which a large part of the population lives (Espon 2011). In the urban bioregion (Magnaghi 2014) such intermediate territory gets a new identity through the relationship and spatial design of the primary physical components of the ecosystem services, beginning with polyvalent ecological networks (Malcevschi 2010). Such networks may be‐ come the backbone of a ‘rururban public space’ defined in relation to flooding risks for river areas, soft mobility, historical buildings, proximity farming, agro‐forestry areas. This paper illustrates the case study, currently in progress, of the project for the Riverside agricultural park of Arno’s Left side, involving three municipalities in the Florentine plain through the support of Regione Toscana for the participatory processes (Regional Law no. 46/2013), and aimed at signing a ‘river contract’ for the construction of a riverside agricultural park. Its final goal is to define a strategic integrated scenario project aimed at encouraging and supporting multi‐functionality for agricultural areas through a mani‐ fold system (measures of the new CAP, management of hydro‐geological risks, tourism, etc.) apt to grant the farmers an active role in the restoration of territorial public space at the bioregional level. 1.

From periurban areas to the urban bioregion

The attention to the periurban, considerably amplified in the recent years (Bianchetti 2002; Brueg‐ mann 2005; Dal Pozzolo 2002; Gillmann 2002; Ingersoll 2004; Venier 2003), has produced so far no metaphors or actions apt to overcome the problems of the open territories located in the fringes of urban expansions, but has in a way dignified them, identifying in their own features (ambiguity, con‐ fusion, disorder) the peculiar code of contemporary living, caught between the persistent trends of urbanisation (OECD 2007) and increasing phenomena of 'rural resistance’, currently noticeable not only in qualitative terms (Barberis 2009; ESPON 2011). Today’s intermediate territories, placed "in between the cities" (Sieverts 1997), with shifting borders and fragile textures, has been built without a project, without any reference to the long‐lasting territorial rules, nay, ignoring them to embrace a settlement model which is directly hostile to local traditions, to contact sociability (Delbaere 2010) and which, most of all, keeps marginalising rural areas. Such intermediate territories are the canoni‐ cal environment for areas at severe risk from several points of view (food security, hydro‐geo‐ morphological safety, loss of cultural identity, loss of landscape values, etc.) that, however, offer a great regeneration potential due to their important endowment of agro‐forestry. In this country, about 10% of the population (about 6 million people) live in 29,500 sq. Km consid‐ ered at higher geological risk, while 1.2 million buildings are in danger for potential landslides and floods (CNG 2010). It is a situation out of control, caused by an urban‐centred development model, polarised in large metropolitan areas and which, in parallel, produced the mechanisation and indus‐ trialisation of plains and valleys (the so‐called 'green revolution') and the abandonment of rural con‐ 1

University of Florence, Department of Architecture, dpoli@unifi.it.

Daniela Poli,“Sustainailble food, spatial planning and agro‐urban public space in bioregional city”

texts, marginal and not easy to cultivate. A drop in the maintenance of the hydraulic lattice com‐ pletes the picture of the abandonment of rural areas, and motivates increasingly frequent and devas‐ tating flooding in many Italian regions, where an area of 24,358 sq. Km (8.1% of the national terri‐ tory) at high danger of flooding is home to about 2 million residents (ISPRA 2014), with the greatest risks obviously concentrated in urban and suburban areas due to the amount of buildings and people they contain. Such weaknesses cannot be overcome with just technical sector‐based actions, they require a wider bioregional approach aimed at reopening the structural relationships between territorial systems and at strengthening emotional and identity relationships with places (Iacoponi 2001; Thayer 2003; Calthorpe, Fulton 2001), while at the same time rediscovering the centrality of food. The urban bioregion is then the conceptual reference for an integrated territorial project enhancing all the different components ‐ economic (related to the territorial local system), political (self‐ government of life‐ and work‐places), agri‐environmental (territorial ecosystem) and related to living (functional life‐places of a set of cities, towns and villages) ‐ of a socio‐territorial system pointing to a balanced co‐evolution between human settlements and the environment and to territorial fairness (Magnaghi 2014; 2014ta). A sustainable planning of local food production has the potential to re‐ weave structural links between the different systems and to provide criteria for the spatial redevel‐ opment of people's life‐places, mainly of urban areas. To manage a project having the social compo‐ nent as the main reference point, planning contracts between public administrations and private individuals may be useful, as they seem to be best placed to define a strategic framework of shared rules between associations, citizens, stakeholders, with the objective of put in value the multiverse features of territorial heritage, founding nucleus of the identity code of a place‐aware living. 2.

Territorial public space in the urban bioregion

In the recent years, in urban environments, we have attended the birth of two archetypal figures: the rural city and the urban countryside, fruitfully meeting each other exactly in the fringe territories (Mougeot 2005; Donadieu 2006; 2011). Activating a new pact between town and countryside (Mag‐ naghi, Fanfani 2010) means returning a clear sense both to the city and the countryside, triggering a process aimed at a "re‐peasantization" (Ploeg 2009) of periurban countryside and at a ‘re‐cityzation’ of the urban edge territories (Poli 2014). Along this way, periurban areas lose their ambiguity and uncertainty to be put back into the countryside realm: a countryside which remains countryside, but which now carries out innovative, multifunctional and multidimensional services for the city while still keeping its rural role and functions (see Art. 4 of the Tuscan Regional Law 65/2014).2 The power‐ ful relationship between these two worlds lets us rethink the periurban as a public space at the terri‐ torial scale, where it becomes possible to design new views for revitalised urban edges. The switch from a periurban as a mere surface for urban development to an intermediate territory to live requires putting in value the ecosystem services that open territories offer to the public (Co‐ stanza et Al. 1997; MEA 2005),3 on which set new multidimensional standards for territorial govern‐ 2

Art. 4, paragraph 2: “Transformations involving commitment of underdeveloped land for settlement or infra‐ structure purposes are permitted only within the urbanised area as identified by the Structure Plan”. 3 The United Nations programme “Millennium Ecosystem Assessment” (2005) has systematically declined the roles of utility that ecosystems play for mankind, listing the goods and services they provide. Based on this definition, MEA has provided a classification dividing eco‐systemic functions into four main categories: Support‐ ing, Regulating, Provisioning, Cultural services. Supporting services sustain and allow all the others to be per‐ formed; among these: the formation of soil, the availability of mineral elements such as nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium which are essential for the growth and development of the organisms allowing and maintaining th

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Daniela Poli,“Sustainailble food, spatial planning and agro‐urban public space in bioregional city”

ment, following the direction of the "proximity farming green" scheme proposed by the regional Master plan of Ile de France, with 10 square meters per person of neighbourhood green in the heart of the agglomerations (SDRIF 2008). In this view, agro‐urban intermediate territories achieve a ‘public’ role through several aspects: ‐ the various activities related to the category of ecosystem services: risk reduction (landslides and floods); supply of food and biomass; biodiversity and landscape; cultural, sports and lei‐ sure functions; ‐ the presence of agricultures already multifunctional or in transition towards multi‐functionality (Deelstra et Al. 2001) producing public goods and services; ‐ the definition of fair proximity and network economies pointed at common goods; ‐ the care for territorial heritage and the active citizenship actions. 3.

Multi‐functional and contractual nature of the project “Farming with the Arno. Riverside agricultural park”

Fig. 1. Location of the project (yellow) with respect to other projects for the revitalisation of agro‐urban ter‐ ritories currently in progress.

The project "Farming with the Arno. Riverside agricultural park" is sponsored by the Metropolitan City of Florence (leading institution) together with the municipalities of Florence, Scandicci and La‐ stra a Signa and the Department of Architecture of the University of Florence (Research Unit “Project Urban Bioregion”).4 Operations started in 2009 with a Memorandum of Understanding (Butelli 2015) and currently rely on the support of the Authority for the guarantee and promotion of participation of the Regional Council of Tuscany (Regional Law 46/2013) co‐funded by the institutions involved.

habitat, reproduction, nutrition and regeneration. Their impacts on people’s life are often indirect or become visible over a very long time. Provisioning services are products directly supplied by ecosystems such as food, raw materials, biodiversity, fresh water. The ones belonging to the regulating system are the benefits obtained from the regulation of eco‐systemic processes ensuring habitability such as regulation of climate, water, ero‐ sion, soil, pollination, biodiversity. Cultural services are intangible and relate to the benefits that the population gets through cognitive development, reflection, recreation and aesthetic experiences. 4 See <http://www.dida.unifi.it/vp‐323‐probiur.html>. th

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Daniela Poli,“Sustainailble food, spatial planning and agro‐urban public space in bioregional city”

The duration of the project is planned for a period of nine months from April 2015 to January 2016.5 The area affected by the work falls within the periurban territory of Florence on the left bank of the Arno, a crucial area for the Metropolitan City. The work is aimed at designing in participatory form a strategic plan for local action, a pilot project of integrated and multi‐sector enhancement of the rural environment, from periurban fringes to waterways, pointed at regenerating territories in accordance with the European Convention on Landscape and with the Regional Landscape Plan recently ap‐ proved (from geology to ecology, food production, fruition). The project is now taking the road of combination between the contractual dimension of the river contract and the integrated planning of the multifunctional agricultural park through the develop‐ ment of a River Contract with the function of Riverside agricultural park. The actions related to river contracts (Bastiani 2011), at present appreciably widespread in Italy thanks also to the recent ac‐ knowledgement by the Ministry of Environment, 6 show the effectiveness of an agreement design put into practice through a dense participatory and negotiating path among the different actors, able to achieve the signing of an agreement with public administrations that producing public utility, by integrating social value, environmental sustainability and economic viability. 7

Fig. 2. The project area.

The project intends to build a public‐private governance both horizontal (among local actors) and vertical (between local actors, administrations and associations) with a wide range of funding institu‐ 5

Already in 2009, Regione Toscana, Province of Florence (leading institution) and the three municipalities in‐ volved, with the Faculties of Architecture and Agriculture, had signed a three‐year memorandum of under‐ standing for the development of periurban agriculture. The writer is the head scientist of the research. The working group includes Riccardo Bocci, Elisa Butelli, Elisa Caruso, Maddalena Rossi, Adalgisa Rubino, Alessandro Trivisonno, and is accompanied by a Multidisciplinary Scientific Committee of the University of Florence with city planners, agronomists, foresters, naturalists, economists coordinated by Alberto Magnaghi. 6 The Italian Ministry of Environment acknowledged River Contracts in the Art. 24bis of the Environmental Code (d.lgs 152/2006). 7 Referring to the European Convention on Landscape, river restoration is here understood in a very broad sense and provides for a multi‐sector approach interrelating several aspects (hydro‐geo‐morphological, eco‐ logical, settlement, rural, fruition, participatory, aesthetic, etc.) in order to design durable development scenar‐ ios. th

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Daniela Poli,“Sustainailble food, spatial planning and agro‐urban public space in bioregional city”

tions (municipalities, land reclamation consortia, basin authorities, etc.). The investigation on field and the meetings revealed a strong association and cultural vibrancy. 465 associations have been detected in the area (238 in Florence, 89 in Scandicci, 138 in Lastra a Signa); among these, 117 asso‐ ciations (65 in Florence, 18 in Scandicci, 34 Lastra a Signa) with purposes related to the project have been divided into 4 categories of reference (social, cultural, environmental, sports). Two main goals have been identified: ‐ imagining and designing through a participatory and shared approach, in a crucial area for the Metropolitan City, a strategic plan (Local Action Plan of the River Contract) aiming at the pro‐ motion of a key role for the various stakeholders involved (local associations, active citizenship, citizens, schools, farmers, convicts, etc.); ‐ making effective the system of governance of the Action Plan of the River Contract with func‐ tion of Riverside agricultural Park as an integrated tool for strategic planning and territorial programming in order to define procedures, rules, actors, actions, tools, the multi‐sector pro‐ jects and the related forms of financing to be taken within the range of the ordinary territorial planning tools. Organised in two levels of governance, the process consists in an extensive series of meetings and design workshops that employs preparatory works such as questionnaires, interviews, thematic sem‐ inars:8 ‐ first level: Area Table with institutions and associations representatives, attending the three municipalities; ‐ second level: local Tables and Workshops with residents and farmers.

The following meetings have been held: February 26, 1st meeting of the Multidisciplinary Scientific Committee at UniFi‐DiDA; May 5, first Area Table at the San Bartolo a Cintoia meeting place; June 4, meeting with the associations at the Vingone meeting place; June 18, meeting with the residents at Castello dell’Acciaiolo; June 30, meeting with farmers at the Ugnano meeting place; July 2, second meeting of the Multidisciplinary Scientific Committee at UniFi‐DiDA; July 18, meeting with the residents of Lastra a Signa at Villa La Guerrina. th

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Daniela Poli,“Sustainailble food, spatial planning and agro‐urban public space in bioregional city”

Fig. 3. Structure of the participatory process.

As well as by the institutional representatives of the project, the first Area Table was attended by many other actors deploying a potential network of supporters of the first action plan of the River Contract with function of Riverside Agricultural Park.9 The specificity of the project lays therefore in facilitating local planning with residents and farmers, but also in being able to avoid the widespread distrust of citizens and associations active towards the ‘rhetoric of participation’, unable to produce binding decisions for the public operator. The contract, signed between associations and institutions, is aimed at overcoming this frequent deadlock through an agreement committing to transpose all the decisions taken into the ordinary instruments of government of each public authority. Once signed, the River Contract ‐ acknowledged as a territorial government tool and included in the Environ‐ mental Code as well as in plans like the Water Management Plan and the Hydraulic Risk Manage‐ ment Plan ‐ requires the adjustment also of the governmental acts in force (Structural Plan, Town Planning Regulations, Sector Plans, sector EU/Region funding, etc.). 4.

The active role of farmers in managing and restoring territories

The participatory project aims at encouraging and supporting (through the measures of the new CAP,10 the agreements between public administrations and farmers, local incentives, etc.) multi‐ functionality for the agricultural areas of plains and hills, granting the residents and farmers an active role in feeding the city, reducing the ecological footprint, taking care of the river banks, promoting the development of biodiversity and the production of goods and services respond to an increasingly visible public demand for nature, leisure, health and sociability. Bringing the periurban back to the rural realm, then, means granting farmers (the present and the potential ones, who the project intends to reinstall) a key role in providing ecosystem services essen‐ tial to all citizens and in building, on this base, build new forms of sociality and local economies ori‐ ented towards local self‐sustainability. The project focuses on a new type, multi‐functional and landscape‐aware farms (Poli 2013), which are linked in network, make education, are open to direct harvesting and sales and part of the GPO (group purchase organisations) network, produce healthy food, build vegetables supply chains by marketing and processing products, supply canteens and so on; and which, along with the small and big heritage elements (abbeys, churches, palaces, ancient towns, etc.), play the role of keystones of the territorial public space and, for this reason, will be encouraged in restoring structures and tech‐ nological systems (greenhouses) as in sharing working tools in order to create a pleasant life envi‐ ronment enjoyable for tourists and locals, who will support and accompany the great transformation with voluntary activities and by creating civil and proximity economies (Bruni, Zamagni 2009). To achieve this result it is necessary to encourage, through various sources of funding (from the RDP measures,11 public canteens and activities for territorial safety, tourism, renewable energy, etc.), the multi‐functionality of both the agricultural areas, to allow farmers to supplement income with the many activities possible in densely populated areas, and the built spaces, which along this way can go back to being real life‐places for people, and not mere aggregates of functions.12 For example, the 9

Among others: the Basin Authority, the Water Resources Consortium, the Prison, the Agricultural School, na‐ tional associations like CAI (Italian alpine club), UISP (popular sports association), Legambiente and Italia Nostra (environmental associations), the Pro Loco’s, Slow Food, the Italian Centre for the River Redevelopment, to‐ gether with several local and national farmers, residents and citizens committees. 10 “Common Agricultural Policy” of the EU countries. 11 Rural Development Plans. 12 Just to mention a few activities: management of riverbank vegetation, access to the river and beaches, rental th

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Daniela Poli,“Sustainailble food, spatial planning and agro‐urban public space in bioregional city”

cycle and pedestrian paths crossing the park, thoroughly equipped with buffer strips, while serving for tourism and citizens’ health, at the same time become part of the ecological network in connec‐ tion to the ecological corridor of the Arno river, while mowing feeds the local energy network and mellifluous hedges serve for beekeeping. For the management of hedgerows farmers are subsidized by the RDP measures, while for the maintenance of trails specific contracts with public bodies seem recommended. In all the meetings held a clear concern has emerged about the high land consumption and the planned and expected steps of urbanisation (e.g. new hypermarkets, the completion of a technologi‐ cal incubator, scrapping areas, new road infrastructure, camps, saturated urban land), which averts land to agriculture and break the minor hydrographical network. 5.

Spatial translation of the participatory agro‐urban project

Starting with the research results already emerged within the memorandum of understanding signed with the municipalities in 2009 (Butelli 2015) some primary integrated goals have been identified and then verified during the meetings of the Area Table with associations and the Open Space Technol‐ ogy with residents and farmers: ‐ creating the Local Food System by building a system of local governance (Brunori et Al. 2007) with organisations, protection consortiums, GPOs, local governments and authorities, people, schools, associations, managers and officials of public and territorial services; ‐ encouraging new styles of life and consumption, the inclusion in agriculture of disadvantaged people (convicts, people with disabilities, etc.) strengthening the local market, short supply chains and fair and collaborative forms of civil economy (Bruni, Zamagni 2009) with the assur‐ ance of a fair income for farmers; ‐ identifying and equipping the agricultural park from the logistical point of view with new ser‐ vices useful to the activities related to multi‐functionality of agriculture (farmers' markets, park gates, service centres, signage, cycle and pedestrian paths, promotion of cultural heritage, etc.); ‐ supporting the green public procurement in agri‐food, first by connecting the food demand of public canteens (hospitals, schools, barracks, etc.) with the offer of local agricultural products; ‐ returning to cities and urban centres the river view through the reconstruction of urban fronts supported also by the mediation of periurban agriculture and the social and community activi‐ ties it plays; ‐ securing the streams and making them accessible through a recovery of morpho‐dynamics, a reduction of the banks slope, the shaping of the riverbed, the reconstitution of different depths; ‐ recovering and recycling for farming purposes the waste water from the San Colombano puri‐ fier through phyto‐remediation, and the ones from industries by building an industrial canal and establishing closed loops in permanent greenhouses; ‐ abandoning the 'rhetoric of participation' by identifying positive ways to make effective the actions chosen in the participatory process, supporting the project actions in progress and pro‐ viding in each municipality 'pilot projects' able to start by the end of the process; ‐ strengthening social and network activities already in progress in the territories of the future park to spread from below new awareness throughout the population.

of canoes, bicycles, horses, implementation and management of areas for fishing, of the cycle and pedestrian trails crossing and surrounding their possessions, canal cleaning, management of the multifunctional ecological network along the roads, home and tent hosting, education, floods control, social agriculture and so on. th

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The process allowed the emergence of a few lines of action that outline a significant reorganisation of the agro‐forestry and urban edge territories; I will point out three: 1. The multidimensionality of the Arno river, its tributaries and its multipurpose ecological networks; 2. New forms of community and multifunctional agriculture; 3. The restoration of edges and the creation of agro‐urban central‐ ities. 5.1

The multidimensionality of the Arno river, its tributaries and its multipurpose ecological networks

Representing the element of continuity across the three municipalities, the Arno has been identified in all the meetings as the main axis, the very core of the 'new public space at the territorial scale’ on which the new urban fronts will have a view. The old towns, once closely linked to the river, today turn away from it with marginal areas built with no attention to its presence. During the meetings, the river has been always perceived as the backbone of the redevelopment, a multifunctional eco‐ logical corridor from which the soft mobility paths will spring out to radiate throughout the region from the plain to the hills. This network will reclaim and revitalise the paths leading to the crossing point of the many 'ferries' once active on the river which, after the deletion without replacement of all the crossings, became blind roads stopping unnaturally in front of the ancient docks. It is also be‐ ing built a bike path along the river, from its source in the province of Arezzo to its mouth near Pisa via the Florence area, which will introduce to the metropolitan area a significant amount of cycle‐ tourists careful about landscape and environment. The territory will have to gear up to accommo‐ date these visitors, who may find great accommodations in rural hospitality that the park territories could offer. Companies play a key role for the activities they can play along the river in relation to recreation and tourism: hospitality, catering, direct sales, management of parking areas, rental of canoes or bicycles (possibly agreeing with other companies to allow pick and return at different points). The Arno has also many weaknesses from the ecological point of view, represented by the pollution of its surrounding areas, the presence of alien species floating on the river and destroy the native vegetation, by soil sealing (with buildings, road infrastructure, greenhouses, etc.) that threatens not only the functionality of the river but also the lives of people and the very economic activity. Given the significant presence of built‐up areas along the urban part of the river course, it is now accepted the impossibility of ‘securing’ its territories. The attention, even in the Flood Risk Management Plans (Basin Authority) are now facing especially the participatory management of risk, through the identi‐ fication of activities that can be carried out by farmers and regulated in the plans pertaining each jurisdiction. The Flood Risk Management Plan in the Middle Valdarno, e.g., introduces the notion of areas in river context, quite exceeding the purely hydraulic vision of adjacent lots and enhancing agricultural activities consistent with the context. “The areas in river context represent areas of par‐ ticular interest for the management of flood risks, the protection of the good regime of outflows, the safeguard of the environmental, cultural and landscape peculiarities associated with the hydraulic lattice” (art. 6, paragraph b). Significant are also memoranda of understanding between the bodies in charge for the maintenance of waterways and the agricultural professional organisations which as‐ sign to local farms a permanent role in monitoring their status. In this regard it is worth mentioning the successful pilot programme "Custodians of territories" in the Province of Lucca, similar to River Contracts in involving farmers in the monitoring and maintenance of the river Serchio and remuner‐ ates them for the provision of ecosystem services (Vanni et Al. 2013). Thanks to the opportunities offered by cooperation contracts with public administrations (Art. 14 of Decree 228/2001), the pro‐

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Daniela Poli,“Sustainailble food, spatial planning and agro‐urban public space in bioregional city”

ject has managed to keep a rural presidium in a marginal context focusing on hydro‐geological safety and the enlarged fruition of territories. 13 Also in our project the farms, and especially the ones directly facing the waterways, will play a key role in monitoring, in communicating with the local regulatory authorities, in carrying out, directly and in coordination, small maintenance works as mowing along the river, thus catching even the firewood. Of course, even the activities for the expansion of agriculture must be connected with the main goal of building an ecological corridor of regional importance, which means that the project will not entirely fill public lands with agriculture, leaving at least one hundred meters to riparian vegeta‐ tion, essential for the ecological rehabilitation of territories.

Fig. 4. Re‐designing networked functions for the waterfront farms represents a form of retro‐innovation.

Such contracts, regulated by the above mentioned Article, are already widely used in several national con‐ texts (e.g. in Jesi, see Belingardi 2013). th

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The main focus is then to reconcile general goals at the regional scale (ecological corridor) with local targets concerning production and fruition, through the definition of multipurpose ecological net‐ works (Malcevschi 2010): ‐ building a true and powerful ecological corridor at the regional scale, connected to the local ecological network through the combs of the tributaries, which is also a local reference for landscape and fruition, possibly preferring crops consistent with the effectiveness of the eco‐ logical network (food‐forestry, etc.); ‐ making the Arno the ecological backbone of the territory, with perpendicular ecological net‐ works crossing the plains and rejoining the Arno with the hills on the left and right bank, creat‐ ing ecological gaps in the continuum of buildings; ‐ defining cycle and pedestrian paths consistent with the ecological functions of the river; ‐ fostering an active role of agriculture in supporting the fruition of territories through sports, culture, tourism; making the farm a service centre for the users (stables, restaurants, bicycle and canoe rental, management of river access, small wharfs, crossings, etc.); ‐ managing the functionality of the embankments in line with the riverside gardens, the beaches that can be created on the natural bars, the boat quays, etc .; ‐ establishing the category of the 'farmers custodians of the river' assigning them the monitor‐ ing and maintenance of riparian vegetation, canals, the management of boats on the river, as of bicycles, crossings, places of rest. 5.2

New forms of community and multifunctional agriculture

This is a crucial topic for the project's success. The future agricultural park stretches both in a hilly area and in a plain. Types of farms are very different. In the hills there are small and large farms in a valuable landscape context, with crops dominated by vineyards and olive trees. There is a noticeable presence of farmhouses, stables and organic farms. Here the production of landscape is one of the distinctive features of farming activity, which brings of course an attention to the environment. Dra‐ matically different is the situation in the plain, hosting residual activities on the one hand, with small plots managed by hobbyists or elderly farmers, and on the other large production companies, mainly horticultural. In either case, there is little interest to multi‐functionality, due both to the lack of en‐ trepreneurship for the former and an attitude markedly oriented to production for the latter. An action taken is aimed at networking farmers in the area in order to activate the cooperation pos‐ sibilities in ambits ranging from the common management of farming machinery and technological infrastructure (especially greenhouses), the inter‐farm crop rotation in the transition to organic pro‐ duction, to the transfer of products for public canteens and so on. One of the main opportunities in this context is the strong presence of public canteens ‐ schools and other services such as prison, hospitals etc. ‐ calling for local and organic products. The meetings let emerge the demand for a re‐ organisation of canteens apt to return as much as possible to autonomous and integrated form fo‐ cused on the use local products mixed with the ones from the school gardens. This goal requires a coordination of local production, which seems not so easily achievable especially in plain areas, due to fragmentation and the lack of uniformity of enterprises. A crucial issue on which, conversely, the project is investing a lot of energy is directed to the social use of wastelands ‘awaiting urbanisation’, mainly located just in the plain areas. In Italy the Law 440/1978 "Rules for the use of uncultivated, abandoned or inadequately cultivated land" authorises the Regions to allocate abandoned land in usufruct to other subjects in order to protect territories against hydro‐geological instability. Moreover, Article 838 of the Civil Code provides for the auto‐ matic return to the collective ownership of "abandoned land". Regione Toscana has promoted a cen‐

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sus and established a Bank of the Land to provide for the allocation of wasteland. The municipalities, in agreement with the owners, can in fact enter the idle land in the Bank expecting to assign them in foster care to farmers through a call. The Metropolitan City of Florence has carried out a census of the uncultivated areas in the agricul‐ tural territories of the park falling in the three municipalities, census which the project has further refined. On about 5,500 hectares of agro‐forestry and in the face of about 3,650 hectares of UAA (Utilised Agricultural Area: arable 1181; olive grove 1743; vineyard 373; orchard 46; complex particle 327), about 250 are uncultivated and among them approximately 35 hectares are public property. Thus an important territorial capital emerges which can play a strategic role in the success of the project. The most of the properties consist in land without residence, outcome of de‐ruralisation, which has divided land from rural residence to place the latter on the housing market. The plain area abounds in disconnected land portions which are uncultivated or devoted to precarious farming, with no con‐ tract or assigned in loan for use at very short term. Although the recent urban development plans do not provide for new development in the plains, and the new Regional Law of territorial government (no. 65/2014) prohibits to build outside the urban areas, there is still a widespread expectation for being to put in value the land rent due to urbanisation. In situations like this a land consolidation is usually invoked in order to bring the broken land and boost the agricultural activity of farms. In this particular context, however, consolidating means en‐ couraging land grabbing by companies operating at the expense of access to land for new farmers. The project is thus experiencing the chance of a creative solution to the problem, defining with the concerned social players a new type of ‘patchy’ farm, with divided plots with an appropriate size that, although spaced, can be easily reached on foot or by bike. On these plots it should be possible to build modular buildings (equipment shelters, barns, chicken coops, etc.) located in their different portions and collectively managed as much as possible. The lack of residence in the farmland can be remedied through public investment in social housing for farmers in the new urban‐rural fronts, that the same Regional Law on territorial government asks to restore. For these new farms companies it is being studied a specific call allowing access to differ‐ ent categories of farmers (farms, new farmers, associations, non‐EU citizens, young people, etc.) with a specification requiring the performance of activities and public services related to the agricultural park, like supplying vegetables to public canteens, networking, recruitment of disadvantaged people (convicts, former drug addicts, refugees etc.), guaranteeing access to the paths crossing the farms for all users, willingness to do teaching, organic farming through the presence of buffer strips, care of trails, canals and ditches, etc.. The project also finds in the non‐EU population an opportunity to create supply chains for fresh or processed food that, passing through ethnic shops and restaurants, come directly from the field to the table (e.g. soybeans, soy milk, tofu, etc.). In parallel to the request for access to land by farmers (irrespective of age) there is a substantial de‐ mand of hobby agriculture coming from disparate categories not necessarily included in the elderly people, who still appear to be the main reference of the lending standards for social vegetable gar‐ dens. In the municipalities involved, moreover, just few are currently the public areas devoted to gardens, even if social demand is strong. As a proof of this interest, there are several private areas used as gardens (parcelled agricultural land rented or sold) and other public (and private) areas actu‐ ally occupied by gardens. The project intends to use part of the idle land to locate public horticultural spaces outsourced to disparate subjects (migrants, unemployed, young people, students, families, etc.) that can benefit of agriculture as a supplementary income, and to properly design those areas to develop new forms of contact sociality (Delbaere 2010). To give effect to this goal, the planning discipline should define new standards for urban agriculture.

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The substantial presence of wasteland and the obligation of putting them in culture represent a con‐ siderable opportunity that, when coupled with the preparation of the call for assignment and of a specific discipline, can make social planning effective again. The management of this important chal‐ lenge should use a strategic project integrated to the various forms of financing that can be acti‐ vated. In this context, in order to enable public planning apt to stimulate the agricultural park pro‐ ject, it is essential to play the game of idle plots, as they can become ‘multifunctional periurban model farms’ triggering emulation processes. This requires to: ‐ define the calls for the Bank of the Land so that all the categories of farmers are widely repre‐ sented; ‐ establish rules based on the delivery of those community ecosystem services apt to obtain direct and indirect funding; ‐ promote the temporary assignment of land for a time allowing new farmers to install and in‐ vest; ‐ provide agricultural units also patchy with new residences in the margin and a modular logis‐ tics; ‐ promote the landscape production of agriculture, in particular in peri‐monumental areas, apt to enhance and restore the local patrimonial elements (trees, rows, extension of the plots, etc.) to return landscape dignity to the periurban; ‐ promote the integration of agriculture and fruition, town and countryside by introducing a new civic use (the ‘fruitatico’) granting all users the right to walk, run, ride a bike or a horse in some paths within the farm. 5.3

The restoration of edges and the creation of agro‐urban centralities

The bioregional design of periurban territories is based on the reactivation of sociality and forms of local self‐government. Periurban territories are thought of as a large public space at the territorial scale, organised in activity nodes and connecting ecological networks which regenerated urban fronts overlook. A margin area is not just the separation line between internal and external, which can be identified by the term 'urban edge', but regards a more extensive range consisting both of the urbanised and the rural area (Resource Management Branch 2006; Ministry of Agriculture and Lands 2009). The fruition and economic proximity relationships are exactly what defines this amplitude, placed on the two sides of the edge. This is the everyday territory, identified by the time spent to walk or cycle a certain route. The line marking the border is often jagged, irregular, consisting of mixed fabrics of poor quality, often with no public space (Socco et Al. 2005; Maciocco, Pittaluga 2001; Palazzo, Treu 2006). The margin is the potential diaphragm where exchanges concentrate. In these areas to be regenerated, to be transformed into new fronts, the project intends to place new urban‐rural complex public spaces, new marketplaces, places for meeting and sociability revolv‐ ing around the food production and exchange. The OST with the farmers has shown the difficulty for many small producers to sell their products. Not only participation in markets, but also direct sale or harvesting in the field is sometimes too expensive. A small producer often works alone and when committed to selling he cannot cultivate at the same time. In most situations farmers have remarked the need to identify areas where producers can deliver their products while someone else takes care of the sale. This issue has immediately appeared as a keystone, a strategic opportunity to solve many social problems described by the residents, individually or in groups, in the meetings. Gradually, dur‐ ing the work, the space began to take on increasingly clear features. A composite space should not be confined to buying and selling, such as a store or a supermarket, but has to be a complex place

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where it is possible to perform many diverse functions, including purchase and sale; an outdoor area for the external market, but containing indoor spaces where to allocate activities related to new trades, the peasant school, the farmers' time bank (where one shares and exchanges farm work), with dining venues and short chain ethnic restaurants which use the products of the park and where also disadvantaged people work; an area jointly and self‐managed by the promoters which can also play the role of ‘park gate’, with information offices on the activities and the sightseeing opportuni‐ ties, which also offer directions for the accommodation in B&B, guest houses, farmhouses in the park. In such marketplaces or nearby even the farmers ‘custodians of the park’ could find an accom‐ modation to work in the recovered wastelands. Several actions are then necessary: ‐ identifying brownfield sites that could be used for the construction of agro‐urban public spaces located in the margin; ‐ designing, together with farmers and operators, their multifunctional definition; ‐ identifying new farmers from countries inside and outside EU to be installed in the wastelands; ‐ detailing a space project. 6.

Conclusion

The bioregional perspective allows to approach the transition of the periurban from a mere surface where to allocate housing, services and metropolitan functions to territorial public space redevel‐ oped and dense in life revolving around the production of food. Bringing the periurban to a new complex condition in the rural realm means recognising the regenerative centrality of agro‐urban contexts and encouraging a transition of agriculture towards a multi‐functionality able to make the most of its location near the urban. Multifunctional farms should become the new varied keystones of territorial public space, integrating the productive dimension through contractual tools of govern‐ ance that convey funding from different items of expenditure on the provision of ecosystem services (RDP, water safety, tourism, school , etc.). These actions will characterise the first action plan of the River Contract with function of Riverside Agricultural Park with a strategic plan that includes spatial guidelines for the municipal urban plans concerning: ‐ the boundaries of the urban buildings and the treatment of margins; ‐ the agricultural green standard for the suburbs; ‐ the soft infrastructure between the river and the hills; ‐ the gaps in the multifunctional corridors between the river and the hills; ‐ the river context and its particular planning properties; ‐ the design of the nodes and networks in the project (new urban centralities or agro‐urban centres, local markets, schools, prison, outskirts, multifunctional areas in the park); ‐ corridors, cycle paths, waterways, footpaths, bridleways. In its multi‐dimensionality and multi‐functionality, the farming activity can thus be put in condition, through a careful management of local heritages, to rehabilitate territories, build landscape, regen‐ erate the urban form integrating with other proximity activities (catering, food trade, social agricul‐ ture, tourism, sports, etc.), thus reversing a process of peripheralization which is still in progress.

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Poli, D., 2014. Per una ridefinizione dello spazio pubblico nel territorio intermedio della bioregione urbana. In: A. Magnaghi, ed. La regola e il progetto. Un approccio bioregionalista alla pianificazione territoriale. Firenze: Firenze University Press. Resource Management Branch, Ministry of Agriculture and Lands (British Columbia, 2006. Edge Planning Areas. Promoting compatibility along urban‐agricultural edges. British Columbia. SDRIF ‐ Schéma Directeur de la Région Ile‐de‐France, 2008 [online]. Available at : <http://www.durable.gouv.fr/le‐schema‐directeur‐de‐la‐region‐r1651.html> [Accessed September 2015]. Socco, C., Cavaliere, A., Guarini, M. and Montrucchio, A., 2005. La natura nella città. Il sistema del verde urbano e periurbano. Milano: Franco Angeli. Thayer, R.L. jr., 2003. Life Place: Bioregional Thought and Practice. Berkeley CA: University of California Press. Vanni, F., Rovai, M. and Brunori, G., 2013. Agricoltori come ‘custodi del territorio’: il caso della Valle del Serchio in Toscana. Scienze del Territorio, 1/2013, pp. 455‐462. Venier, M., 2003. Le périurbain à l’heure du crapaud buffle: tiers espace de la nature, nature du tiers espace. Revue du Géographie Alpine, 91 (4).

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Andre Viljoen, Katrin Bohn, “Pathways from Practice to Policy for Productive Urban Landscapes”, In: Localizing urban food strategies. th Farming cities and performing rurality. 7 International Aesop Sustainable Food Planning Conference Proceedings, Torino, 7‐9 October 2015, edited by Giuseppe Cinà and Egidio Dansero, Torino, Politecnico di Torino, 2015, pp 98‐106. ISBN 978‐88‐8202‐060‐6

PATHWAYS FROM PRACTICE TO POLICY FOR PRODUCTIVE URBAN LANDSCAPES Andre Viljoen1, Katrin Bohn2

Keywords: productive urban landscapes, policy, urban agriculture, urban planning, sustainable design Abstract: This paper aims to disseminate and outline primary research emerging from an international network supported by the UK Arts and Humanities Research Council. The paper is experimental in that its aim is to direct readers to the networks more extensive website found at: http://arts.brighton.ac.uk/projects/utppp The network is exploring how policy at various levels has impacted on the implementation of six European urban agriculture projects, led in main by architects, artists or researcher activists. From the perspective and experience of these practitioners, the network aims to identify future pathways towards policy that will support the implementation of urban agriculture (UA) within the context of a productive urban landscape infrastructure. The network has run a workshop in Amsterdam (Netherlands) and in Brighton (UK) plus a seminar in Sheffield (UK) to explore these questions amongst the network’s core group of nine partners as well as invited guests. An overarching question is if policy can be developed that becomes embedded as a norm, thus moving beyond the current reliance on interpretations by informed individuals of broad policies focused on sustainability, health, urban regeneration or community engagement? These questions will be contextualised in relation to urban agriculture policy innovations occurring in selected European cities.

Introduction

This paper follows on from the paper presented at last year’s 6th AESOP Sustainable Food Planning Conference held in Leeuwarden, the Netherlands. The paper presented in Leeuwarden (available at: http://arts.brighton.ac.uk/projects/utppp/draft‐papers‐and‐publications) provided an overview of the UK Arts and Humanities Research Council supported International Research network, titled, “Urban Transformations: Pathways from Practice to Policy for Productive Urban Landscapes”. The format of this paper is experimental in that it aims to direct readers to the Network’s website (http://arts.brighton.ac.uk/projects/utppp), where a more complete overview of primary research is being made available, including a series of live presentations made by network members, practitioners and those involved with policy development and implementation. It presents an overview of findings from two research led workshops and a seminar, exploring how policy at various levels has impacted on the implementation of six European urban agriculture projects, led in main by architects, artists or researcher activists. Drawing on and expanding the perspective and experience of these practitioners, the network aims to identify future research to facilitate policy that will support the evident emergence of a spectrum of urban agriculture (UA) practices. Furthermore it wishes to evaluate the possibilities for giving these practices policy and spatial coherence and within the context of a sustainable productive urban landscape infrastructure. 1

Andre Viljoen (University of Brighton), a.viljoen@brighton.ac.uk Katrin Bohn (Bohn&Viljoen Architects), mail@bohnandviljoen.co.uk

Andre Viljoen, Katrin Bohn, “Pathways from Practice to Policy for Productive Urban Landscapes”

The network has run a workshop in Amsterdam (Netherlands) and in Brighton (UK) plus a seminar in Sheffield (UK) to explore these questions amongst the network’s core group of nine partners as well as twenty eight invited guests. 2.

Practitioner workshop held in Amsterdam

2.1

Workshop Outline

Held during November 2014 and hosted by the Amsterdam Academy of Architecture, this workshop was designed as a forum for core participants to frame their understanding of the relationships between practice and policy. The first part of the workshop enabled participants to diagrammatise their experience and understanding of where policy aided, hindered or was lacking in relation to their practice and research. With input from ten invited practitioners and post graduate research students from Amsterdam participants reflected on and compared their varied experiences. 2.2

Workshop findings

An overriding conclusion from this workshop was that, at least within Europe, there is a lack of policy specifically targeting the implementation of productive urban landscapes, and that they are not commonly defined as a strategic goal within institutional or organizational policy. The network did not identify specific barriers put in place to prevent their implementation. It became evident that there is a complex array of policies at work that influence the realization of any one project. These policies may be those of a major organization, such as a municipal planning department or local policies with the organization that controls the land or budget related to a particular project. In addition to the various policies at play, it was found that projects are very often reliant on the interpretation of policy by gate keeper officials within city/municipal authorities or institutions. Urban regeneration, community building and empowerment, land use policy, public health or sustainable development strategies are often the overarching policy goals that make the case for implementing urban agriculture and more extensive productive landscape projects. In pursuing the network’s goal of utilizing arts and design methods to obtain insights into practice and policy relationships the network has begun to map different types of urban agriculture project and the types of policy associated with it. Tables 2 and 3, when read alongside each other, provide an overview of policy and practice. Readers are referred to the network website for a more detailed overview of each project. A primary question is if productive urban landscape policy can be developed to become embedded as a norm, thus moving beyond the current reliance of interpretations of broad policies by informed individuals focused on sustainability, health, urban regeneration or community engagement? Readers are referred to the paper being presented at this conference by Rich et. al., titled “The ‘Healing City’ – Social and Therapeutic Horticulture as a New Dimension of Urban Agriculture?” for an example of how evidence is being gathered and evaluated in ways that could provide an evidence base for future policy specifically related to productive urban landscapes from a health perspective.

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Table 1. Urban agriculture projects and the types of policy associated with them.

Table 2. Urban agriculture projects and the types of policy associated with them.

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Policy professionals workshop held in Brighton.

3.1

Workshop outline

This workshop was held in Brighton during March 2015 and was hosted by the University of Brighton’s School of Arts Design and Media, it focused on policy developed at the city planning level. It brought together network members who had led projects, policy implementers, project commissioners who had to interpret policy and academics with policy knowledge related to food or productive urban landscapes. A representative from Brighton and Hove City council’s sustainability team and from the UK’s leading NGO advancing more sustainable, equitable and resilient food systems, SUSTAIN (http://www.sustainweb.org/about/) also attended. 3.2

Workshop findings

This was a revealing and rich event for the network with some unexpected outcomes. We had speculated that those involved with policy at the level of city planning or food policy at a strategic level would be able to help define policy pathways that design led practitioners could pursue. During workshop it became clear that, at least within the UK context (but apparently across Europe), civil servants did not have the capacity to contribute to this detailed discussion because the “productive urban landscape” agenda was not a targeted policy objective. The workshop highlighted the exemplary work undertaken by SUSTAIN, in in exploring England’s National Planning Policy Framework in relation to the development of food growing as part of a healthy city strategy, but this did not identify a pathway by which practitioners could engage directly in policy development. The foregoing tended to confirm the network’s speculation that for productive urban landscapes, “practice is outstripping policy, but policy is being developed”. What is clear is that policy in relation to urban agriculture and productive landscapes is being developed as an ambition within open urban space planning, although with the exception of Paris, specific targets and pro‐active outreach programs remain to be developed. A number of urban planning policy related trends are becoming evident such as: ‐ Explicitly naming productive landscapes as a desired typology within open urban space planning for example in Almere, Berlin, Birmingham, and Detroit. Implicitly there are many examples such as in Sheffield, Lisbon and Leeds. ‐ Digital platforms for urban agriculture, mapping the location of fruit and vegetable growing sites within cities, generally using online interactive maps. These initiatives may be led by individuals within social enterprises (e.g. in Birmingham) or supported by city authorities (e.g. Amsterdam). ‐ The increasingly significant role of Food Policy Councils, although their remit is much wider than productive urban landscapes. ‐ The emergence of “constellations of agents” within cities. Major policy relevant actions in cities related to the network’s activities may be summarised as follows: th

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Berlin In 2012 Berlin’s Senate Department for Urban Development and the Environment have adopted a “Green Vision for Open Space Planning” with an urban landscape strategy named: “NATURAL. URBAN. PRODUCTIVE”. The concepts underpinning this strategy were prepared by two Landscape Architectural Practices supported by “think tanks”, and a draft was prepared for public commentary prior to adoption. The strategic objectives remain goals rather than legally binding commitments. The Green vision is underpinned by the notion of “urban cultured landscapes”, a concept well attuned to Berlin’s established inter‐cultural and community gardens movements. Amsterdam The City provides a digital platform for urban agriculture utilizing interactive mapping websites, and general information about community food growing activities. The city has an established and active constellation of partners, including organizations such as the Amsterdam Institute for Advanced Metropolitan Solutions, the Cities Foundation, URBANIAHOEVE, Farming the City, etc. “Living Labs” have been used by the city administration as “no cost” temporary demonstration project, with diverse aims: bio‐based circular economy / improved biodiversity / improved business environment /related to the cities sustainability policy. One of these has tested the production of flax within an industrial estate. Milwaukee Presents another constellation of agents – Will Allen – Growing Power / the legacy of the late Prof. Jerry Kaufman / IBM Smart Cities Award 2011 / Mayor Tom Barratt / Centre For Resilient Cities / Fondy Food Market / Growing Food and Justice for all. The city’s policy under Mayor Barratt tends towards an enabling and permissive planning policy approach for productive landscapes, removing barriers but not directly managing projects. It works on a win – win principle. Detroit Detroit’s problems arising from the loss of the automobile industry and population are well known. An extensive constellation of agents are active in the city including: The greening of Detroit / Detroit Black Community Food Security Network / Earth Works Farm / Wayne State University – SEED Wayne / Corporate interests / Hants Farms / SHAR Foundation / Eastern Market. Ambitious Co Design processes, multidisciplinary and multiagency, sponsored by the Detroit Economic Growth Association, resulted in the 2013 publication of the “ Detroit Future City Plan”, explicitly stating that Productive Landscapes should be utilized as the basis for a sustainable city, and th

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advocating a new land use type, innovative productive characterised as being networked / agricultural and recreational. The plan includes precisely demarcated areas for innovative productive landscapes within a coherent and comprehensive spatial plan. The Future City Plan is run by a team being set up as a not for profit organisation – and its remit is facilitation rather than implementation. Paris Jacque Oliver Bled, representing the Sustainable Development Strategy Division of the Agency for Urban Ecology, located within the Town Hall of Paris’s department responsible for the management of green spaces and environment, presented the city’s uniquely comprehensive plan for implementing urban agriculture. This urban agriculture plan is the result of Mayor Anne Hidalgo’s initiative to canvass public opinion regarding certain policy priorities. The policy being followed in relation to urban agriculture recognises three sectors of activity, economic, environmental and social and the value of the space in which these activities overlap, it furthermore it recognises how urban agriculture can contribute to urban planning and design. As far as we are aware the Paris urban agriculture initiative is the most comprehensive currently undertaken within Europe and North America, it is characterised by a comprehensive policy plan connecting local government agencies and representatives from, the business community, schools, property owners and associations. The entire network of actors is focused on the realization of deliverable projects appropriate to specific spaces. A programme of outreach activities including knowledge sharing and research into levels of productivity and urban pollution underpin an ambitious target to increases the current area of cultivation on roofs and walls from 0.56 ha (1.6 acres) to 33 ha (82 acres) by 2020. 4.

Policy pathway partners

Through a process of dissemination partners for advancing the network’s research agenda are being found, and an open invitation exists to increase the networks effectiveness in finding innovative pathways to policy. Fruitful dialogues are currently underway with the EU COST action on Allotment Gardens, within which the long history of allotments and community gardens in Europe is being discussed as part of an expanding spectrum of urban food growing practices that cover a range of scales and aims, together constituting, productive urban landscapes. Collaborations across this spectrum of practices have the potential to be mutually beneficial, while furthermore making the case that productive urban landscapes should be understood as an essential element of a sustainable urban infrastructure. This enquiry is undertaken in a spirt that acknowledges that in this highly dynamic situation there is much scope for optimism, but it is also the case that innovative urban agriculture projects and productive urban landscape initiatives are far from the norm. Emerging projects have much to learn from the allotment garden movement, with respect to building their own capacity and claiming their right to urban space. But working together urban agriculture and the allotment movement have the capacity to produce cities that are more resilient sustainable, equitable and enjoyable. th

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Another strand of investigation led by one of our network members who is also active in the EU COST action urban agriculture is exploring opportunities for collaborative work in advancing our related agendas. Alongside the dialogues referred to above, the network is exploring research opportunities working in Letchworth, the “original” garden city, sited north of London in North Hertfordshire. This strand of research will consider opportunities for action based research and possible prototyping of spatial interventions within Letchworth, working towards innovations within Howard’s and subsequent interpretations of the Garden City concept. Central to this future work will be the co‐designing of research agendas with the Letchworth Garden City Heritage Foundation and the newly founded International Garden Cities Institute. In developing future work several key grass roots / civic organisations have indicated their willingness to help shape and critique future research undertaken by the network, with the aim of maximising its potential relevance and impact. 5.

Policy users and developers seminar held in Sheffield

5.1

Seminar outline

This seminar, held during July 2015 and hosted by the University of Sheffield’s School of Architecture, brought together core participants from the network and the policy pathway partners identified in paragraph 4. The aim was to shape follow on activities to be undertaken by the network. 5.2

Seminar findings

A facilitated seminar explored the following two questions with a focus on helping to understand guest’s expertise and identify what research could usefully assist practitioners advance the case for urban agriculture. 1) Policy and urban agriculture: What are the policy areas most relevant to advancing UA within the UK? What would be needed to implement a “Paris like” policy, or do we need something else? How can polices like Brighton’s planning advisory note promoting urban agriculture be ensured to deliver more than token gestures? What are the shortcuts to policy? 2) How does urban agriculture contribute to a resilient and sustainable urban food system? What is its productive role? Where are the outlets for produce? Where is the space? What are the urban / rural connections? Can it become part of a waste collection system (urban composting)? At the time of writing the conclusions from the seminar have yet to be fully evaluated, but they will be developed within the formulation of two planned academic papers and the shaping of future research. Headline questions raised by the seminar include: Framing research into productive urban landscapes in the contexts of urbanization pressures. Building the evidence base for productive urban landscapes beneficial impacts and the challenges that they introduce to cities.

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Better understanding urban metabolisms and how productive landscapes contribute to the creation of closed loop metabolisms. Which are the receptive existing “policy drivers” relevant to productive urban landscapes?

Conclusions

A rich body of practice exists and policy is emerging in support of productive urban landscapes, but in general this remains aspirational rather than being embedded with binding targets and commitments. From the perspective of design led researchers and practitioners, building robust theoretical models as well as design strategies evaluated and tested against policy relevant criteria remain significant methods for opening up politicians and decision makers to the need for robust policy. In working towards these goals the following questions are important: In advancing the spectrum of practices that together constitute productive urban landscapes, will allotment holders, community gardeners and their associations benefit from joining forces with other urban food growers, including commercially driven urban food growers? Do we need a European wide working group for small scale agriculture? Who will collect the data to make the case for urban agriculture and productive urban landscapes? Who can? Can we? Who needs to listen (elected representatives?) and how do we get them to listen? 7.

References

This paper draws on primary findings of the UK Arts and Humanities Research Council supported Urban Transformations Network: Pathways from practice to policy, an international network of practitioners and academics exploring how policy impacts on the development of productive urban landscapes and how policy may be developed to support this development. For further information readers are directed to: http://arts.brighton.ac.uk/projects/utppp

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Jacques Abelman, “Cultivating the city: infrastructures of abundance in urban Brazil”, In: Localizing urban food strategies. Farming cities th and performing rurality. 7 International Aesop Sustainable Food Planning Conference Proceedings, Torino, 7‐9 October 2015, edited by Giuseppe Cinà and Egidio Dansero, Torino, Politecnico di Torino, 2015, pp 107‐117. ISBN 978‐88‐8202‐060‐6

CULTIVATING THE CITY: INFRASTRUCTURES OF ABUNDANCE IN URBAN BRAZIL Jacques Abelman 1

Keywords: landscape architecture, urban agriculture, multifunctional green infrastructure, landscape democracy, food systems Abstract: Urban agriculture, if it is to become integrated into the city, needs landscape architectural thinking in order to be woven into the larger urban fabric. Thinking at the scale of ecosystems running through a city creates a framework for spatial change; thinking in assemblages of stakeholders and actors creates a framework for social investment and development. These overlapping frameworks are informed and perhaps even defined by the emergent field of landscape democracy. Cultivating the City is a prospective design project seeking to embody landscape democratic principles. The intention is to reclaim the meaning of landscape as the relationship between people and place, both shaping each other. The design in question is a proposed network of urban agriculture typologies in Porto Alegre, Brazil. These hypothetical designs, emphasizing agroforestry with native species, serve as a basis for dialogue between potential stakeholders and as catalysts for future projects. This landscape architecture project sets out to be a mediator in processes of spatial evolution in order to envision just and sustainable urban landscapes.

The potential of green infrastructures in the context of rapid growth

Cities have the capability of providing something for everybody, only because, and only when, they are created by everybody. ― Jane Jacobs The economic boom in recent years in Brazil has brought with it a complex array of social and environmental challenges. Continued growth has added to the pressure on informal housing areas or favela neighbourhoods in urban areas. Although the general rate of favela formation has decreased in the last several years (IBGE, 2011) cities are increasingly stratified according to wealth. Currently over 50 million people still live in urban slums (Blanco,2008). Together these urban inhabitants would form the fifth largest state in Brazil (Carta Capital, 2013). Public space is a contested zone where the urban poor compete for resources and economic opportunity. On the level of health and prosperity, growing obesity in the general population has greatly increased while malnutrition continues among the poorest. In 1974, the obesity level was 2.8% in men and 8% in women over twenty, compared with 12.4% and 16.9% respectively in 2009. Obesity rates have grown far more quickly amongst people of lower incomes although since 2003 this trend has stabilized, with the difference in obesity rates between the wealthy and lower income currently quite narrow (Monteiro, Conde, and Popkin, 2007). The Brazilian Department of Health Analysis has projected that Brazil will match the United States' obesity levels by 2022 (Telegraph, 2010). As urban populations continue to expand, cities in Brazil must adapt to the spatial as well as the social needs of all their inhabitants in order to move towards just and sustainable urban models. New spatial practices must therefore be articulated to in order to offer successful strategies for attaining these goals. Urban agriculture is a practice which can potentially address urban spatial quality and access to food simultaneously. UA can create a secondary food network in the city, 1 Amsterdam Academy of Architecture, jacques.abelman@gmail.com

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simultaneously creating opportunities for livelihood and new economic activities (FAO, 2008). The Food and Agriculture Organization cites UA as an important factor in helping cities reach the Millennium Development Goals (FAO, 2010). At the same time, networks of food producing spaces can potentially increase the spatial quality of the city. Urban agriculture, if it is to become integrated into the city, needs landscape architectural thinking in order to be woven into the larger urban fabric. Thinking at the scale of ecosystems running through a city creates a framework for spatial change; thinking in assemblages of stakeholders and actors creates a framework for social investment and development. These overlapping frameworks are informed and perhaps even defined by the emergent field of landscape democracy. Landscape democracy understands landscape as an embodiment of differing forms of energy, labor, and organization. Landscape is also understood as a basic infrastructure of society.

Figure 1. An agroforestry "palette" of the native fruit species of Southern Brazil across a section of Porto Alegre. Image Jacques Abelman

Cultivating the City explores and reclaims the meaning of landscape as the relationship between people and place, both shaping each other. The project is based on a network of productive urban green spaces in the southern Brazilian capital of Porto Alegre in the state of Rio Grande do Sul. The plant species are selected from the hundreds of food bearing and medicinal tree, shrub, and plant varieties present in southern Brazil's Atlantic Forest ecosystem. Different typologies of plantings, based on orchard or forest patterns, compose a lace‐like network of productive and aesthetic green infrastructure in the urban fabric. Each typology is a scenario of different actors in a specific short‐ food production chain. These narratives, as explorations of potential stakeholders working together on specific sites, illustrate the larger strategy of a adding a productive and multifunctional green infrastructure to the city. 1.1

Observing places and practices

In order to propose a project built on people and place it is essential to study the city first‐hand. In March and April of 2013 I lived in and conducted site research in Porto Alegre. My research methodology in this context was to explore the city on foot, by public transport, by bike and by car, and to observe and engage in dialogue wherever and whenever possible. I immersed myself in the processes of the city and discovered relationships and tensions present in a variety of different sites. Over the course of my city explorations and while attending classes at the Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul (URFGS) in the Rural Sociology, Agronomy, and Urbanism departments, I met many engaging people who introduced me to their city. Through them, as well as people I encountered on the street, I discovered sites and observed practices that became the foundation of Cultivating the City.

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Figure 2. "Food Forest" agroforestry section with seven productive zones of indigenous species. Image: Jacques Abelman

Fieldwork: exploring three urban sites

2.1

Praça Bernardo Dreher

My hosts, the Endres family, are gaúchos2 with German and Portuguese origins. Oscar Endres ran a large market stall in the Mercado Central of Porto Alegre for over fifty years. He prides himself on knowing the origins and culture surrounding Brazilian food and its multitude of regional products, processes and recipes. Now retired, Oscar is an avid gardener. He and his family have lived in the Ipanema suburb of Porto Alegre since the late sixties, a middle class neighborhood far away from the bustle of downtown. Ipanema's tree lined streets frame well maintained homes with fences and gardens. Security is an issue here, as slums are not far away and break‐ins, sometimes at gunpoint or carjacking are not uncommon. Neighborhood security guards watch from the shelter of small sheds on street corners, surveiling passers‐by day and night through tidy lace curtains. At the end of the street, there is a small park, Praça Bernardo Dreher. The park has lawns, some swing sets, large trees, and a football terrain. I walk there with Oscar, who shows me with pride a leafy shoot protected by broom handles and pieces of wood. It is a goiaba3 tree that he has raised from seed in his own backyard and transplanted into the park. He treats it with care, and visits it regularly. Other residents have begun to do the same. A seed of pitanga4 or araça,5 for example, will quickly grow into a shrub, then a tree in the favorable sub‐tropical conditions. The trees yield abundant fruit and in this neighborhood the harvest is free for all who care to pick it. The municipal workers who come to mow 2

In Brazil, gaúcho is also the main gentilic of the people from the state of Rio Grande do Sul. Acca sellowiana 4 Eugenia uniflora 5 Psidium cattleianum 3

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the park lawns steer clear of the protected seedlings, and once they are established they seem to be absorbed into the design of the park. A dozen new fruit trees planted here over the years augment this neighborhood landscape. Small acts of guerilla gardening have become a shared neighborhood practice, bringing residents out to meet each other. Eyes and ears in the vicinity are on the trees, also creating a safe area for children to play. An atmosphere of unease sometimes reigns in the suburbs, as though danger or violence could erupt if the wrong conditions arise. My hosts' accounts of incidents of crime confirmed this. However, small children playing in the park with no parents to watch over them attests to the network of awareness around the Praça.

Figure 3. Site visit and interview at the Praça Bernardo Dreher reveal incipient urban agriculture practices. Photos: Jacques Abelman

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Figure 4. The social context of the park is an essential first step to supporting design and planning. Image: Jacques Abelman

2.2

Vila São José

"Spontaneous occupation" is the term used to qualify urban slums in Brazil. Cities are their own ecosystem; whatever niche that can support life is soon filled by an individual or family whose concern is food, shelter, and the business of survival. The pressure on empty urban land is great; spaces are quickly claimed by those arriving to the city who cannot afford conventional housing. However, over time favela areas can come to be thriving neighborhoods of ingenious architectures as residents climb the economic ladder out of poverty. Temporary shelters solidify into lower middle or middle class housing made of brick and masonry. I toured an area of spontaneous occupation with Pedro, a man responsible for the nearest posto de saude, or neighborhood health clinic. The favela niches in an empty band of land behind a row of wealthy villas with impenetrable razorwire and glass shard topped walls. Together we met many of the inhabitants, Pedro's clients, whom he knows closely after years of attending to their health needs. Tiny manicured gardens are attached to many houses, often with similar plantings of medicinal, culinary, and religious plants. For example, Espada de São Jorge, Sanseveria, is thought to protect houses from evil spirits.6 Mature fruit trees planted intentionally or as remnants of natural areas peppered the housing areas, and were carefully maintained as sources of extra food. In other favelas in peri‐urban areas on the outskirts of the city the favela housing transitions into farmland or natural areas or aggregates along infrastructures such as highways. Although there were no new trees planted in common areas in this favela, the residents 6 Espada de São Jorge (sword of Saint George) is also associated with the god Ogoun in Brazilian syncretic religions.

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rely on free sources of food such as fruit trees. Across the city the locations of mature fruit trees are known, for instance many of the trees of the university campus in the downtown area. 2.3

Praça dos Açorianos

Praça dos Açorianos is the heart of the central administrative district in downtown Porto Alegre. Most public transportation networks take passengers by this plaza, whose center features a monument to the first Azorean settlers of the city. The wide spaces of the pristine plaza are kept constantly clean by municipal workers. Their job is to remove any litter that accumulates there, on the lawns or beaten earth tracks and pavement. Public space is kept free of debris to the point of sterility. These spaces are free of bushes or clumps of weeds or anything that might possibly create shelter for humans or other creatures. Some people take to sleeping in relatively unpoliced areas. At night these spaces become dangerous. The noteworthy practice here, from a spatial point of view, is the manpower required in such a central, public space to keep not only humans but all extra vegetation out. In Portuguese, the word mata means forest. Mato is a closely related word meaning an uncultivated area covered in wild plants, but implies overgrowth and potential vermin. Thus spontaneous vegetative growth, even of useful plants which happens without human help in the sub‐ tropical climate, is something to be kept under tight control rather than to be encouraged. People as well as plants are carefully kept out of public space.

Top down meets bottom up: potential scenarios for networking urban agriculture

What the sites above share in common is intensive human use shaping urban space. The obvious problems in these sites belie their potential; the potential of nature as well as the human potential. If the relationship between people and place could be augmented, challenged, and reimagined, Cultivating the City could take shape. If we think of landscape democracy as an exploration of the relationship between people, place, and power, then we can begin to trace outlines for landscape democratic practices in the contexts described above. It is beyond the scope of the project to provide an accurate critique of Brazil's politics and socio‐ economic complexities in terms of urbanism. However; some landscape democratic practices can be traced in this context which lay the ground for further work. One key issue is how the economic disparity increasingly present in Brazilian society is creating more economically stratified spaces in the city. Who has access to public space? In the capitalist market system, those without the capacity to buy or sell, and those who are not owners, are quickly and literally pushed to the margins. Landscape democracy in this context means an emphasis on inclusivity and connection. Opportunities for the disadvantaged must be created in addition to designing new leisure and recreational spaces. Human power can be coupled with ecological power (rich biodiversity, rapid growth) to create a motor for new projects. The four examples that follow, based on the sites described above, illustrate new configurations that become elements in a city‐wide network.

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Figure 5. Short food supply chains illustrated above describe a broad range of food production‐distribution‐ consumption configurations, such as farmers’ markets, farm shops, collective farmers’ shops, and community‐supported agriculture, all dependent on the spatial and urban potential of the city. Image Jacques Abelman.

3.1

Praça Bernardo Dreher: suburban food forest park

Figure 6. A vision of the Praça as an intersection of recreational, community, and food production space. Image: Jacques Abelman

The Praça Bernardo Dreher is a good example of bottom‐up and top‐down meeting halfway. As the act of neighborhood guerilla fruit tree planting is integrated into the life of the park, social cohesion is increased. The results are accepted and even maintained by municipal workers. Augmenting this

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practice could mean providing seedlings for free to those who want to plant them; almost all native fruit trees and medicinal plants are available at the botanical garden or the municipal plant nursery. A landscape architect or planner's role could be to coordinate these plantings into better designs than haphazard planting. It would take a small number of interventions to achieve this; information could even be posted on site. The resulting food production could be distributed between neighbors, or simply left to those who need or want it. Harvest moments create occasions for people to meet each other around meals or celebrations. Fruit can also be gathered for sale in other areas, from a cart or a small stand, or even brought to the farmer's market. Processed fruits become fresh juices, preserves, and a variety of other products with potential small‐scale market value. 3.2

Vila São José: new partnerships for intensive production

Many residents in favelas have come to the city from rural areas to look for opportunity or are from families who left agricultural production to benefit from the economic possibilities of the city. Favelas are reservoirs of human labor and knowledge. The location of peri‐urban favelas next to agricultural or public land makes agricultural projects potentially possible. Public projects could be created with land belonging to the University in collaboration with experts from agronomy and horticulture. The city could encourage entrepreneurs to start peri‐urban agricultural projects by donating land, offering tax breaks, offering social support for worker training, etc. Here high intensity fruit production could create jobs as well as large quantities of fresh food to be brought to market in the normal distribution chains. Many of the native fruit varieties are not commercialized because they are either too labor intensive to pick, or too fragile to travel long distances. In a short food supply chain this problem is avoided. Fruits and berries could also be processed into a variety of products, from juices to cosmetics, to be sold locally.

Figure 7. A vision of a redeveloped peripheral urban space as a communal base for new economic and environmental projects. Image: Jacques Abelman

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3.3

Praça dos Açorianos: a flagship project for the heart of the city

Cidades sem fome,7 or Cities without Hunger, as well as the Zero Hunger Project (FAO, 2011) relate to a governmental program called the National Food and Nutritional Security Policy (Chmielewska &Souza, 2011) concerning projects to combat hunger in cities across Brazil. In Belo Horizonte, the capital of the state of Minas Gerais, several farmer's markets allowing direct sales were established, as well as public kitchens serving extremely low cost nutritional meals. Nutritious and affordable food is deemed a right for all. These policies changed the identity of the city. In Porto Alegre, large and empty urban plazas could serve as the sites for urban orchards whose beauty and productivity, seen by all, would become a new badge of identity. Rows of native fruit trees would increase the beauty and leisure value of areas that were previously lawn or concrete, creating a new form of urban park. Because the maintenance of the trees and the harvesting of the fruit is labor intensive, many new jobs could be created not requiring intensive training or education but instead relying on basic agricultural skills.

Figure 8. Praça dos Açorianos as a reimagined showcase of native food bearing botanicals celebrating urban agriculture and giving a new identity to Porto Alegre's urban core. Image: Jacques Abelman

3.4

Downtown destination: an ephemeral market at the heart of the network

Every Saturday a farmer's market takes place in the Parque de Redenção, the major urban park of Porto Alegre. The masses of people coming to attend the market every weekend suggest that the city could support another market. There is a strong interest in health and food in Brazil; organic food is a strongly growing market. The central urban plaza of the Praça dos Açorianos could support an ephemeral urban agriculture market‐ a farmer's market for all the food and herbs grown around the city. The new market would be a vital link in the organization of the various food production projects across the city. As a platform bringing together many of the actors in the larger project, the market would become an anchor point and destination in a network that emphasizes economic opportunity and inclusivity across the city, as well as improving the overall urban spatial quality.

7 http://cidadessemfome.org

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First conclusions

The practice of landscape architecture in this context moves from fieldwork and analysis to normative illustration of spatial change. The images and scenarios created through the design process are boundary objects, what Susan Star and James Griesemer (1989, pp. 387‐420) define as "entities that enhance the capacity of an idea, theory or practice to translate across culturally defined boundaries, for example, between communities of knowledge or practice." The intention of Cultivating the City is to frame the landscape architecture project as creative research endeavor that understands an urban context and makes a projection– through design– about best‐practice scenarios. Large scale urban and landscape analysis create a framework for establishing the structure and linkages of the network. The network relies and reacts to the ecological as well as human capacity found within it. The project works on not only one site's potential but on many sites' potential, and how these differing assemblages of site and actors could be linked together in one system. The principles of the emergent field of landscape democracy allow us to see urban space as a field of negotiation between people, places, and power. Within this field, finding the every day practices that link people and place make it possible to augment and connect these practices into a larger strategy. In this way the project has the potential to catalyze processes of urban evolution, with the landscape architect acting as a mediator. Based on dialogue, design, and the democratic ideal of inclusion, Cultivating the City works toward this vision for change as one piece of a complex process. 5.

Acknowledgements

This project was made possible by the generous contributions of the NH BOS Foundation for landscape architecture and the Amsterdam Academy of Architecture Internationalization fund. 6.

References

Blanco C., Jr. (2008) The Slums in Brazil. Brasilia: Brazilian Ministry of Cities Botkin, D. (1990). Discordant Harmonies: A New Ecology for the Twenty‐first Century. New York: Oxford University Press. The Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE). (2011) "6% da população brasileira vivia em favelas em 2010" Retreived from http://www.jcnet.com.br/Nacional/2011/12/ibge‐6‐da‐populacao‐brasileira‐ vivia‐em‐favelas‐em‐2010.html Carta Capital. (2013) Retrieved from http://www.cartacapital.com.br/sociedade/unidas‐favelas‐e‐ comunidades‐formariam‐o‐5o‐maior‐estado‐do‐pais/ Chmielewska, D., & Souza, D. (2011) 'The food security policy context in Brazil', Country Study No. 22. Brasilia: International Policy Centre for Inclusive Growth Egoz, S., Makhzoumi, J., and Pungetti, G. (2011) The Right to Landscape: Contesting Landscape and Human Rights. London: Ashgate Groundcondition. (2013) http://groundcondition.tumblr.com (Author's visual essay and record of fieldwork in Porto Alegre) Monteiro C.A., Conde W.L., Popkin B.M. (2007) Income‐specific trends in obesity in Brazil: 1975‐2003. American Journal of Public Health 97:1808–12 Cohen, B. (2006) Urbanization in developing countries: current trends, future projections, and key challenges for sustainability. Technology and Society 28:63–80 Davis, M. (2006). Planet of Slums. London: Verso Press.

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Deming, E., & Swaffield, S. (2011). Landscape Architecture Research. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley & Sons. Drescher, A.W. (2004) Food for the Cities: Urban Agriculture in Developing Countries. In: Junge‐Berberovic, R., J.B. Bächtiger & W.J. Simpson: Proceedings of the International Conference on Urban Horticulture, Acta Horticulae 63: 227–231 Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. (2005) Farming in urban areas can boost food security. FAO Newsroom. Retrieved from www.fao.org/newsroom/en/news/2005/102877/index.html Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. (2010) Food, agriculture and cities – Challenges of food and nutrition security, agriculture and ecosystem management in an urbanizing world. Rome: FAO Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. (2004) Globalization of food systems in developing countries: impact on food security and nutrition. Rome: FAO Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. (2011) The Fome Zero (Zero Hunger) Program: The Brazilian experience. Brasília: FAO Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. (2001) Aragrande M., Argenti O., Studying Food Supply and Distribution Systems to Cities in DevelopingCountries and Countries in Transition ‐ Methodological and Operational Guide. Rome: FAO FAO and World Bank. (2008) Urban Agriculture For Sustainable Poverty Alleviation and Food Security. Rome: FAO and World Bank Lyle, J. T. (1995). Design for Human Ecosystems. Washington D.C.: Island Press. McHarg, I. L. (1971). Design with Nature. Garden City: Doubleday/Natural History Press. Oudewater, N., de Vries, M., Renting, H., Dubbeling, M. (2013). Innovative experiences with short food supply chains in (peri‐) urban agriculture in the global South. Wageningen: Supurbfood Research Group. Orr, D. (2004). The Nature of Design, Ecology, Culture and Human Intention. New York, NY:Oxford University Press. Santandreu, A. and Merzthal, G. (2011) Agricultura Urbana e sua Integração em Programmeas e Políticas Públicas: A Experiência do Brasil. In: Fome Zero: Uma história brasileira, Vol III, MDS. Brasília: Banco do Brasil and FAO Star, S. and and Griesemer, J. (1989) Institutional Ecology, 'Translations' and Boundary Objects. Social Studies of Science 19 (3): 387–420 The Telegraph. (2010) Retreived from http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/ southamerica/brazil/8204625/Brazils‐obesity‐rate‐could‐match‐US‐by‐2022.html Veja São Paulo. (2010) Retreived from http://veja.abril.com.br/multimidia/ infograficos/ obesidade‐no‐brasil. Whiston Spirn, A. (2005) Restoring Mill Creek: landscape literacy, environmental justice and city planning and design. Landscape Research 30(3): 395–413 Zezza, A. and Tasciotti, L. (2010) Urban agriculture, poverty, and food security. Food Policy 35 (4): 265–273

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Susan Parham, “The productive periphery: food space and urbanism on the edge”, In: Localizing urban food strategies. Farming cities and th performing rurality. 7 International Aesop Sustainable Food Planning Conference Proceedings, Torino, 7‐9 October 2015, edited by Giuseppe Cinà and Egidio Dansero, Torino, Politecnico di Torino, 2015, pp 118‐130. ISBN 978‐88‐8202‐060‐6

THE PRODUCTIVE PERIPHERY: FOODSPACE AND URBANISM ON THE EDGE

Susan Parham1

Keywords: urbanism, periphery, foodspace, productive, edge Abstract: The paper focuses on the way that food interacts at two nested design and urbanism scales – the edge and the conurbation – with rapidly expanding urban settlements and the development of megalopoli. It asks if these urban forms are instrumental in undercutting productive urban food regions and sustainable food‐sheds, can they conversely be designed and planned in ways that contribute to more sustainable food‐centred urbanism? The paper draws on research in Food and Urbanism (Parham, Bloomsbury: 2015), to reflect on contemporary developments in relation to food on the urban edge and in burgeoning conurbations. It argues that there is significant scope to support ‘gastronomic landscapes’ (Hardy, 1993) in the face of a post‐productivist agricultural model and the presumption of primacy for urban development, with a range of design‐based tools including food‐ centred sprawl repair and retrofitting techniques now available for remaking edge and conurbation space. It concludes that there are increasing possibilities to integrate design for food as part of a more conscious approach to sustainable urbanism at a range of scales from the very local to the megalopolis. Recognising the role of spatial design to support productive peripheries, more food‐ centred conurbations and localised rural regions is one key to this transformation.

Introduction

The following paper is largely based on Food and Urbanism (Bloomsbury, 2015), which explores the interplay of food and city design and urbanism from the scale of the table to the agricultural region. Just as in last year’s Aesop conference paper I explored the notion of convivial green space in cities (Parham, 2014), this year the particular focus is on the interplay between food and space on the edge which for purposes of analysis I divide into two nested spatial scales: the productive periphery and the megalopolitan food realm. Space did not permit writing here about more traditional forms of suburbanization that preceded the conurbation nor the wider food region within which these scales sit, but both these scales (suburb and region) should be kept in mind as relevant to any interrogation of food at the contemporary urban edge. I suggest that urban peripheries, and the wider regions influenced by, or becoming urban settlements, are the loci for a series of food‐related, spatialized issues. Among others these include problems of urban sprawl, the presumption of primacy for urban development in the context of the changing nature of farming on urban edges with the advent of a post‐productivist agricultural model, the argued need to protect and localise food‐sheds, and the transforming practices of peripheral, conurbation and rural food consumption and gastronomic tourism. Conceptually, scale is important to this investigation. Not only is human scale central to thinking about food and cities in urbanist terms (Talen, Bohl and Hardy, 2008) but scale has been widely recognized as a central concept for understanding space in a number of disciplines and thematic areas with a bearing on food. Considerations of scale's implications are found within the design literature (Cullen, 1961: 144; Jabareen, 2006), in the geography of food (Valentine, 1998; Mandelblatt, 2012), and in synthesizing ideas about city design, planning and sustainability (Jenks 1

University of Hertfordshire, mailto:s.parham@herts.ac.uk

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and Dempsey, 2005). Responding to food and place issues means working at and across scales: 'each scale depends on the others and…only a whole systems approach, with each scale nesting into the other, can deliver the kind of transformation we now need to confront climate change' (Calthorpe, 2011: 3). I suggest that for the purposes of this paper’s explorations, scale acts as a useful construct for framing the analysis of food's interplay with urbanism, as it allows not only detailed examination of food ‘s spatial elements, but for themes that link different scales, or cut across them, to be teased out. The paper asks if urban forms and practices evolving at these two spatial scales are instrumental in undercutting productive urban food regions and sustainable food‐sheds, with negative implications for sustainability and conviviality, can they conversely be designed and planned in ways that contribute to more sustainable food‐centred urbanism in future? Metropolitan or peri‐urban planning and design arrangements for food have not necessarily kept up with rapid urbanism transformations in developing conurbations. While it is acknowledged that there have been useful developments in understanding and responding methodologically to the complex interplays between food and space at these scales, including the development of a number of technical tools for analysing aspects of change in food terms, these insights are not sufficient. Transformations in urban (and rural) space and in food systems themselves have profound implications for the design of what can be broadly delineated as ‘peripheral’ foodspace and these need to be properly understood. To respond to these analytic challenges the paper is structured around two scalar contexts I refer to here – peripheral and megalopolitan. It looks first at the way in which some cities and towns have maintained and strengthened the gastronomic landscape of their urban peripheries, and in so doing contemplates the complex, interrelated elements that support positive peri‐urban food design and planning. It contrasts success with other less desirable experience of edge food space, investigating whether an aspect of declining conviviality and sustainability is an urban failure to achieve a close knit physical, social and economic relationship to the surrounding productive land (Hough, 1984, 1990). Next, the paper explores food related urbanism implications of the so‐called 'megalopolitan' scale (Psomopoulos, 1987: 41) of urban expansion; considering some of their food related socio‐ spatial effects of new urban forms developing through megalopolis, including obesity, food deserts and obesogenic environments. Examples of land uses and practices related to food are drawn from a variety of locations, from apparently welcoming dystopia to an emphasis on more place‐specific, vernacular and traditional design solutions. Insights into transforming food space include those from urban design and urbanism which focus on retrofitting sprawl. In its concluding section, the paper briefly draws together the urbanist threads from these scales and suggests some potential ways forward to integrate food‐centred spatial and design and planning into broader food space strategies for more convivial and sustainable places. It argues that there is significant scope to support ‘gastronomic landscapes’ (Hardy, 1993, 1994) in the face of a post‐ productivist agricultural model and the presumption of primacy for urban development, with a range of design‐based tools including food‐centred sprawl repair and retrofitting techniques and other urbanism techniques now available for remaking edge and conurbation space. It demonstrates how these approaches are starting to be reflected in spatial planning and design practices, policies, services and research, and concludes that there are increasing possibilities to integrate design for food as part of a more conscious approach to sustainable urbanism at a range of scales from the very local to the regional. Recognizing the role of spatial design to support productive peripheries, more food‐centred conurbations and localized bioregions is one key to this transformation.

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Urbanism on the edge

The interaction between urban development and food on the periphery of cities is important because the nature of agricultural production, food distribution, retailing, consumption and waste arrangements on the edge of urban space over the long term represent critical gastronomic resources for cities and citizens (Parham, 1992, 1993). Yet transformations of peri‐urban space do not reflect a straightforward causative relationship between urban expansion and the decline of food space. Urban edge food resilience is the result of a complex interplay between critical shifts in the nature of urban expansion and also of changes that are internal to the evolution of productive landscapes. Much peri‐urban food practice can clearly be seen to operate within the modern food system whereby spatially expressed relationships are highly unequal (Freidberg, 2004) and predicated on a conventional, industrialised 'agro‐food complex' (Maye et al, 2007: 1). Yet there are urban edge food policy makers and producers, retailers, restaurateurs and consumers who are attempting to maintain more place‐based food strategies and practices, and some of the design and urbanism issues this struggle raises are touched on in this section. The city and its surrounding productive countryside have historically enjoyed a symbiotic relationship, which has been critical in shaping urban growth and development. Driven by poverty, the rural poor came to cities or towns, while urban wealth creation allowed town dwellers to buy country houses and land. Conversely, rural wealth has provided the basis for acquiring and expressing urban power. The spatial relationships created by this interplay have given rise to an extraordinarily diverse range of landscape circumstances at the urban edge, but a near constant has been the presence of food growing and other food‐related land uses. In fact, 'city' and 'wall' are interchangeable terms in some languages, with the circumspection of the urban edge and food spaces just beyond the walls offering principal characteristics of city form (Kostof, 1992: 11). The critical role of the urban edge for food production has given rise to sometimes unique land forms like Amiens’ hortinollages. Such edge spaces have also been places of pleasure, as in the historic form of the guinguette in France (Brennan, 1984) or England’s more upmarket pleasure gardens which spawned 'les Wauxhalls' in Europe (Conlin, 2008: 25). There have been notable attempts to bring cities and surrounding agricultural fringes into a kind of symbiosis, including Ebenezer Howard’s food related proposals for garden cities (1902; 9). Certain edge‐of‐town food growing forms have remained robust despite urban change round them (Marsh, 1998: 9; Laquian, 2005: 317) such as the green zones around French towns, which can be situated spatially and culturally somewhere between the big city allotment and the rural family's home garden (Jones, 1997: 65). In contemporary practice, however, evidence from a very wide variety of regions and city fringes demonstrates that a process of alienation from food productivity (and other kinds of traditional food space along the food chain) is a dominant spatial condition: small market gardens, orchards and viticultural areas are being destroyed or fragmented as peri‐urban land becomes more desirable for both formal and informal settlements of housing, large‐scale retailing, distribution and customer fulfillment centres, than for food and wine production, processing, food distribution, shops and markets (Parham, 1990, 1991, 1993b, Deelstra and Girardet, 2000; Aguilar, Adrián, Ward and Smith, 2003; Couch et al, 2007; Leontidou et al, 2007; Huang, Wang and Budd, 2009). Today, the urban edge remains a critical food space, but is hard to capture theoretically given the complex interweaving of town and country as a distinctive, contested space (Hidding et al, 2003; Boume, Bunce, Taylor, Luka and Maurer, 2003; Simon, McGregor and Thompson, 2006; Qviström,

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2007). Both the scale and changing spatial, social and economic nature of city edge urbanisation since the second half of the 20th century in particular has required new ways to conceptualise this space, some of which directly reference its heterogeneous food nature as a dynamic spatial 'jumble' of different kinds of land uses blurred into an unstable relation with one another (Audirac, 1999: 13; Lapping and Furuseth, 1999). Given the huge scale of such burgeoning zones globally; such as around megacities like Beijing, this has significant food implications (Zhao, 2010). The notion of the foodshed seems conceptually helpful in tracing food transformations in productive space wrought by suburbanisation in this fringe zone (Getz, 1991). Peters et al (2009: 2) define the foodshed as 'the geographic area from which a population derives its food supply' and can act as both a conceptual and methodological unit of analysis for understanding not only the way that food growing around an urban area is spatially organised but how it can be better aligned to needs for food resilience and conviviality (as per Kloppenburg et al, 1996: 33; Peters et al, 2005). Similarly, the framing design principles of the Transect allow peri‐urban areas to be conceptualized as part of a complex spatial design configuration of conditions that range from city to country, urban and semi‐ urban, through semi‐rural to rural, and suggest particular forms of urbanity with intensity generally decreasing with distance from the city centre (Duany, 2002; Talen, 2002; Dunham‐Jones, 2009: 37). Edge‐of‐town locations around western cities have often comprised a predominantly food‐focused landscape in the twentieth century, as part of modernism's spatial project. Some urban hinterlands have acquired complex land use combinations in which food is just one of many elements, as for instance, in the peri‐urban mix of urban, industrial and rural landscapes around Tuscan cities and towns (as reported in Parham, 1996). Peri‐urban areas around cities in developing countries are often suffering strains induced by massive urbanisation, while retaining a critical role in food security, as found around Hubli‐Dharwad in southwest India (Brook and Dávila, 2000). Evidence from Central and sub‐Saharan city edges (for example), shows the critical importance of urban agriculture as a survival strategy (Cofie et al, 2003; Trefon, 2009). Food growing has not disappeared from the peri‐urban zone even around western cities either, although rurality is being reconfigured and reconstituted (Murdoch and Marsden, 1994). Around many cities a substantial grey area of land uses has grown up of semi‐urban—semi‐rural development, including small‐scale hobby farms run by those deriving income from primarily urban sources. In this peri‐urban patchwork a range of competing interests are at work, leaving food space vulnerable and environmental quality undermined. Hough (1990: 126), has referred to a 'perverse energy system' in which (to paraphrase) resources are taken from the country, through agriculture occurring at huge environmental cost, exploited for city needs and then expelled as waste into a hinterland constituting a polluted sink for urban excess. Notions such as the ecological footprint, ecosystem services and the urban metabolism have been developed to help conceptualise, and offer applied tools to better understand and measure, how far into its own region (and beyond) a city absorbs food and other resources and creates carbon and other negative outputs (Rees, 1992; Wackernagel and Rees, 1996; Giradet, 1999; Roberts et al, 2009: 122). Concern for the health of the city’s countryside has been sharped by urbanisation often of a sprawling complexion, and sometimes massive in scale as in China and elsewhere (Bryant and Johnston, 1992; Chen, 2007). The so‐called 'presumption of primacy' for urban development results in an 'impermanence syndrome' whereby farmland is viewed as 'suburbs in waiting' by farmers believing they have development rights to sell farm land for urban development prices (Bunker and Holloway, 2001: 13; Cook and Harder, 2013). In relation to farming itself, these changes are

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connected to the move to a post‐productivist mode in which constant modernisation and industrialisation is undertaken, there are reduced farm outputs and greater integration with non‐ farm activities, in line with wider economic and environmental objectives (Ilbery and Bowler, 1998). From a variety of perspectives; environmental, social justice, gastronomic and economic, a it seems clear that approaches to peri‐urban food planning, design and management need reconfiguration. Yet the question remains whether there is a right balance to be achieved? Is it possible to ensure a productive diversity of land uses, encompassing farms, houses, business, shops and services as a sound basis for gastronomic and broader health? Research reported on from Italy and Australia offers examples of regionally‐based, locationally‐specific and urban design‐conscious food strategies to protect and enhance such peri‐urban foodspace but clearly these are not yet mainstream approaches (Parham, 2015). In spatial terms, of course there are techniques to call on including the use of urban growth boundaries (green belts have been employed over the long term in this way), while fully‐costed development charges reflecting the real costs of growth can also be employed. The gastronomic costs and benefits, measured in implications for conviviality and sustainability of urban settlement growth, need to be more adequately factored into discussion of peripheral food production and other foodscapes. The urban edge is also a gastronomic tourism landscape that can be situated as a growing subset of cultural tourism, with visitors primarily interested in a peri‐urban region for its diversity of good quality local food and wine products and the landscapes that support them (Parham, 1995, 1996; Bessière, 1998; Richards, 2002; Hjalager, 2002; Hjalager and Richards, 2004; Kivela and Crotts; 2006). This is reflected in increasing numbers of visitors who are primarily motivated by the opportunities to experience peri‐urban landscapes, enjoy locally focused restaurants, taste regional wines, and purchase products from wineries, mills, farm shops, nurseries, apiaries and markets, among others. Such tourism is often associated with high food quality (overlapping with artisan and organic approaches) that is produced through alternatives to dominant production modes. This is in turn connected to embeddedness in particular locations through alternative food networks and producer groupings (Ilbery and Kneafsey, 2000). Such networks cover newly emerging combinations of producers, consumers, and other actors who embody alternatives to the more standardised industrial mode of food supply (Murdoch et al, 2000, in Renting et al: 394). Similarly, the rise of the slow food and slow cities movement has been critical in foregrounding the peri‐urban as a critical food region given that these are intended to counter 'the loss of local distinctiveness as it relates to food, conviviality, sense of place, and hospitality' (Mayer and Knox, 2006: 322; Pink, 2008; Parasecoli et al, 2012). Of course it may well be the case that at least some peri‐urban representations of wonderful foodspaces remain in the realm of aspirational food fantasy, depicted in apparently pristine circumstances, with any uncomfortable or unsightly features, context and details erased. Actual threats to fragile gastronomic resources at real urban edges may be underplayed or ignored. However, despite such readings, as Boniface (2003) notes, such tourism can act in synchronicity with edge space agriculture and other food related land uses that challenge industrialised food approaches. The growth of alternative food networks and spaces such as producer markets at edge space locations may be an indicator of an economically subversive gastronomic approach insofar as these bypass the vertically integrative economic arrangements of conglomerate food suppliers, wholesalers and retailers. Food purchased here is also likely to be fresher, may be cheaper and will almost always be economically more supportive of small‐scale growers. Peri‐urban foodspace

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research conducted by the author around Florence certainly found evidence of such positive interplay between visitors and gastronomic resources and landscapes, and more recent study around Pisa seems to have similar findings (Parham, 1995; Orsini, 2013). Foodspace design has important but I argue under‐explored implications for both conviviality and sustainability on the urban edge as it deals with an essential design paradox: how to give people the access they desire to both a wild and productive countryside without continuously sprawling into that space, and thereby destroying valuable food landscapes and built forms. It is worth remembering that historically there have been attempts to plan settlements with such ideas in mind. The Garden City, for instance, was designed to positively connect city and countryside through a productive edge of allotments, orchards and diary farms. More recently designers informed by landscape ecology have been alert to the importance of design’s role in connecting and shaping the urban edge in biodiversity terms, with green belts, green fingers, wedges and corridors. This supports the 'biophilic city' configured for biodiversity while in certain places supporting 'food webs' and reducing ecological footprints (Beatley, 2010; Ignatieva et al, 2011: 17). Cities including Helsinki and Copenhagen have instigated substantial, long term, formal 'green fingers' plans which create a green backbone to structure urban form. 3.

Exploring the megalopolitan food realm

Cities' outward growth used to be conceived broadly as taking the form of suburban expansion giving way to the peripheries that were discussed in the previous section. However these spatial assumptions no longer hold. The rise of vast settled regions around cities has provoked a great deal of theoretical attention in geography and related disciplines, but research into such spaces’ food implications has been somewhat circumscribed. Although Pillsbury (1998: 209) has identified ‘cuisine regions’ based on particular megalopolitan conditions across the United States, there is an understandable emphasis on food poverty and obesity in the interrogation of post‐urban and post‐ suburban sprawl. Some of the food implications of the larger 'megalopolitan' scale (Psomopoulos, 1987: 41) are sketched here. The new urban forms developing through megalopolis are having food related socio‐spatial effects including creating the conditions for obesity, food deserts and obesogenic environments. It is argued that urban design focused on retrofitting sprawl is among the most helpful urbanism techniques for helping respond to and ameliorate these conditions. To be better understood, food space transformations wrought by massive urbanisation, need to be situated in relation to large (and arguably unsustainable) levels of population growth forecast within the next fifty to one hundred years. These in turn are expected to result in the development of vast urbanised regions stretching across much of the globe (Laquian, 2005). There are currently twenty‐ three megacities with over ten million inhabitants. While 3.3 billion people lived in urban areas in 2009, an estimated growth in numbers will increase that to five billion by 2030 (Roberts et al, 2009: 69). By 2025, we can expect to see around one hundred and thirty‐five giant urbanised regions along coastal edges and inland plains across the world. Of particular note is that in the post Second World War era huge metropolitan regions have grown outside traditional urban centres and the twenty‐ first century will see a continuation of this trend worldwide (Perlman, 2005: 169). A huge range of neologisms has been coined to describe these 'uncentred' places and the boundedness of Ebenezer Howard’s Garden City again has a particular resonance. As Fishman (2002: 59) points out, 'Now our challenge is to escape from the low density 'anti‐city' (to use Mumford’s term) that has sprawled out

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over whole regions and has de‐concentrated the central cities far more radically than the garden city activists ever envisioned'. As suburbs are replaced by a post‐urban world that provides jobs, housing and food services to its residents, but without the presence of traditional urban forms, everyday life in relation to food has also changed. In the edge cities that were identified in the late 1980s, the more recent 'privetopia' of gated communities, and other versions of sprawl, social life, including in relation to food takes place in privately owned spaces including indoor malls, business and office park atriums, gyms and airports (Garreau, 1991; McKenzie, 1994). Not just an American phenomenon, we now see such spatiality around a number of cities globally, including in Europe in a process dubbed ‘euro‐sprawl’ (Hardy, 2004: npr; Pumain, 2004; Bontje and Burdack, 2005). This fast growing post‐urban context offers an array of foodspaces that reflect settlement forms revolving around (and as far is food is concerned often experienced in) gated communities, distribution and customer fulfilment centres including ‘dark stores’, business and office parks, big box food stores, hypermarkets, fast food outlets and chain restaurants, petrol station forecourt 'road pantries' and the food courts of outlet and megamalls (Parham, 2005; Basker et al, 2012; Benedictus, 2014; Butler, 2014). Food spaces associated with gated communities are thinly represented in the research literature but include onsite 'gourmet restaurants' and other restaurants and supermarkets. As Pow Choon‐Piew, (2009) notes, Bourdieu's notion of the habitus appears well suited to describing lifestyles which model distinction through luxurious food consumption within such developments, often in the context of great inequality in the surrounding society. Meanwhile, other food spaces, with their seeds in suburban landscapes, have come to be seen as representative of the post‐urban. Emerging most strongly from the 1980s, very large supermarkets, superstores and hypermarkets became central features in the post‐urban retailing environment in Europe and elsewhere. Large‐scale superstores have shown a great deal of resilience and their market penetration has continued apace, despite intriguing examples of local rejection of the model's crude spatiality in places including Korea (Halepete et al, 2008). Similarly, 'superregional malls at freeway interchanges...became catalysts for new suburban mini cities, attracting a constellation of typically urban functions' (Crawford, 1992: 24‐26). As earlier regional malls lost their appeal, a variety of niche malls developed, some of which 'eliminate social and public functions to allow more efficient shopping' (ibid) while others have attempted to build in more food consumption elements to increase dwell times and spend. Two food‐related consumption spaces of increasing importance have been implicated in the decline of regional malls: these are the hybrid mall and the big box retail store. Sometimes understood as predominantly a western phenomenon, the trend has also been noted in places including India, where malls have become ubiquitous as middle class customers move from traditional ‘kirana’ stores to mall‐based food consumption (Goswami and Mishra, 2009). It is possible to argue that in megalopolis, an urban form has been created that starves its inhabitants of opportunities for sociability and conviviality in relation to food while given its vast spatial extent, rendering more of them subject to this narrowing down effect. One way that this has been conceptualised is as a broad process of McDonaldization in which 'the principles of the fast food restaurant are coming to dominate more and more sectors of American society as well as the rest of the world' (Ritzer, 1995: 1; 2008). This closely connects to the ubiquity of the car which has played a critical role in supporting post‐urban development and shaping its relationship to food in the context of a posited 'hyperautomobility' (Frumkin, 2002; Freund and Martin, 2007). One of megalopolis’s

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salient characteristics is that foodscapes and practices are often disconnected from the public realm or civic engagement; in part because the spaces for that engagement have been excised. This situation is associated with a rejection of design principles that govern traditional cities. With the rise of privately owned ‘public’ spaces, what really constitutes public space in relation to food is often blurred or elided. Yet, from an architectural perspective, Gastil and Ryan (2004: 9) advise that we cannot ‘ignore the inevitable’ but need to accept that these are ‘the real conditions of public space’ today: spaces that may cost to enter, or only be open for part of the day. The developing landscapes of megalopolitan space have created both winners and losers in food terms. Of course gastronomic marginalisation does not only arise in peripheral areas, yet the shaping of food access in megalopolitan regions has identified rising levels of obesity which have been correlated with changing foodscapes including an increase in out‐of‐home food outlets (Burgoine et al, 2009). Poverty, food insecurity, food deserts (or swamps) and obesity, are all evident in post‐ urban space and it has an argued role in causing or supporting obesity through the creation of obesogenic environments (Lake and Townshend, 2006). In spatial terms, while food deserts were originally conceptualised as occurring in urban neighbourhoods that had been left behind by transforming urbanised space, they have also been found in suburban areas, rural locations and megalopolitan regions (Clarke et al, 2002). Links to city design that undercuts opportunities for active travel on foot or by bicycle, and the increasing prevalence of fast food, have also been recognised as implicated in obesity production (Frumkin et al, 2010). As Guthman (2011: 77) notes of her fieldwork sites in megalopolitan California, the nature of the place is implicated in the levels of obesity experienced by her participants. Various health theorists and designers have proposed techniques to remodel the sprawl conditions of conurbations to help retrofit places that are more civilised and convivial; essentially referencing principles of urbanism that governed earlier placemaking processes in traditional cities. Dunham‐ Jones and Williamson (2009), for example, offer specific proposals for redesigning a range of post‐ urban spaces to improve individual outcomes including achieving obesity reduction, but also to institute sustainable and convivial urbanism with other food benefits including creating the conditions for food markets and small food shops. Their design approaches include for regional mall re‐use to create public space focused downtowns; edge city infill to repair fragmentation and improve walkability and interconnectivity; and office and industrial park retrofits to mend car dependent, land wasting spatiality (ibid). Duany's (2011) proposals for urban agriculturally focused retrofits too offer valuable ways to reintegrate food into dysfunctional post‐urban spaces, using transect based principles to remake more convivial food‐centred urbanism. 4.

Conclusions

At the scale of the peri‐urban edge, the city and its hinterlands have always been strongly interconnected in food terms, both for production and pleasure. In certain places traditional food production has continued or been revived to considerable gastronomic and landscape benefit; however the dominant trend has been towards foodspace decline on the edge. While capturing theoretically exactly what constitutes the productive periphery has proved difficult – spatially, economically and culturally – it does seem clear that the alienation of peri‐urban foodspace as a gastronomic landscape became a marker of twentieth century attitudes and practices with largely negative food effects. With a presumption of primacy for urban development, foodspace on the urban fringe suffered in many places; paradoxically at the same time as its crucial role in urban food

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resilience became increasingly evident. Contemporary peri‐urban farming and tourism practice centred on food can help maintain or reshape peripheral locations as gastronomic landscapes, increasing both their conviviality and sustainability. With sensitive planning, management and design all critical to this process, designers have conceived a variety of schema for supporting food‐centred urbanism, with the most promising emerging from transect inspired sprawl repair and agricultural urbanism perspectives. Similarly, the development of enormous sprawling regions around cities both challenges our notion of what constitutes urban space and present some difficult food issues in design terms. Driven by a variety of demographic, economic and cultural changes, megalopolitan settlement patterns are the setting for many peoples' interaction with food, yet the dispersed, fragmented and splintered foodspaces of the post‐urban region are often problematic in terms of both conviviality and sustainability. Loss of connection to location may be offset by new ways of expressing belonging in food terms. Yet the so‐called McDonaldization of foodspace evidenced through megamall food courts, gated communities, business parks, and distribution centres, among other foodscapes of megalopolis, has created sites for interaction that have turned their back on the public realm. These may also be predicated on most unequal economic relationships and judged as uncivil and unsustainable in relation to food as a result. Although not traditionally researched as locations for food poverty, food deserts and obesogenic environments, megalopolitan spatial design is implicated in their development, and thus substantially contributes to the pandemic of 'globesity', which is set to cause massive social and economic disruption and is already blighting many individual lives. An overarching conclusion from this discussion is that various peripheral urban forms are instrumental in undercutting productive urban food regions and convivial, healthy and sustainable food relations and practices in a range of ways foregrounded here. More attention is required to identify what is shaping foodspace in design and urbanism terms at these scales and how this plays out in specific peripheral contexts. That would act as a platform for better supporting food‐centred urbanism through a range of methods and structures, including urban food policy and strategy, land use and transport planning, urban design and architecture, and fiscal and economic instruments, among others. The paper concludes that such burgeoning urban scales can be designed and planned in ways that contribute to more sustainable food‐centred urbanism ‐ and processes of retrofitting foodspace along convivial and sustainable urbanist lines seem particularly important. Design proposals that remake space towards more gastronomic ends are to be welcomed as a positive response to food problems generated at peripheral post‐urban scales. 5.

References

Aguilar, A. G., Ward, P. M., & Smith Sr, C. B., 2003. Globalization, regional development, and mega‐city expansion in Latin America: Analyzing Mexico City’s peri‐urban hinterland. Cities, 20(1), pp.3‐21. Audirac, I., 1999. "Unsettled views about the fringe: rural‐urban or urban‐rural frontiers?" in O. J. Furuseth & M. B. Lapping (Eds.) Contested Countryside: The Rural Urban Fringe in North America, Aldershot, UK. Ashgate. Basker, Emek., Shawn Klimek., & Pham Hoang Van., 2012. "Supersize It: The Growth of Retail Chains and the Rise of the “Big Box” Store." Journal of Economics & Management Strategy 21.3 pp.541‐582. Beatley, Timothy., 2010. Biophilic cities: integrating nature into urban design and planning. Island Press. Benedictus, Leo., 2014. "Inside the Supermarkets' dark stores". The Guardian 7 January 2014 [Accessed online 10 March 2014].

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Matthew Potteiger, “Eating Ecologies: Integraging productive ecologies and foraging at the landscape scale”, In: Localizing urban food th strategies. Farming cities and performing rurality. 7 International Aesop Sustainable Food Planning Conference Proceedings, Torino, 7‐9 October 2015, edited by Giuseppe Cinà and Egidio Dansero, Torino, Politecnico di Torino, 2015, pp 131‐145. ISBN 978‐88‐8202‐060‐6

EATING ECOLOGIES: INTEGRATING PRODUCTIVE ECOLOGIES AND FORAGING AT THE LANDSCAPE SCALE Matthew Potteiger1 Keywords: urban ecology, foraging, ecological urbanism, design This paper explores a fundament shift in urban agriculture based on a model of productive urban ecologies and cultural practices of foraging. The first part identifies the extent and growth of urban foraging as a significant yet largely unrecognized cultural practice. It summarizes the findings of ethnographic research on urban foraging in Syracuse, NY, as well as a multi‐city study conducted by the USDA Forest Service. The result is a typology of urban ecologies and a narrative of the spatial practices of appropriating often marginal spaces of advanced capitalism (vacant lots, brownfields) as well as de‐commodified spaces such as parks or rights‐of‐ways. The second part focuses on design strategies for responding to the challenges and opportunities for urban foraging and productive ecologies. Since foraging is a dynamic and often transgressive practice, crossing boundaries of public/private property, as well as conceptual ones (culture/nature, cultivated/wild) it serves as a provocation for new ways of conceptualizing urban spaces, ecologies, urban agriculture, and design. Case studies and design proposals for Syracuse, NY and New York City provide a set of strategies for re‐describing the potential edible ecologies of urban landscapes and intervening in shaping those novel ecologies. It outlines a paradigm shift in design and planning thinking that works with the provisional tactical practices of foraging necessary to shape the emergent nature of new urban ecologies. These productive, edible ecologies integrate urban agriculture with critical landscape systems and re‐localize urban metabolism in fundamental ways. 1.

Introduction

In the short span of two decades urban agriculture has significantly transformed the fundamental notion of the city, inverting the urban/rural dichotomy of the global north by inserting food production‐‐ practices normally relegated to areas outside the city‐‐into vacant lots, parks, alleyways, rooftops, and practically every type of urban space. Regardless of the scale of these efforts, urban agriculture effectively reimagines the city as a productive system structuring flows of nutrients, water, labor, knowledge, capital, and all the dynamics involved in food systems. While this is a remarkable achievement, urban agriculture relies primarily on an agronomic model that requires significant inputs of physical resources, labor, capital and knowledge to radically transform urban conditions. An alternative model for the productive city and one that is ultimately complimentary to the agronomic model of urban agriculture starts with the recognition that there are already ecological processes at work in the urban landscape producing a diverse array of edible plants. Using an urban ecological model breaks down the urban/rural dichotomy even further to redescribe the urban landscape as a mosaic of hybrid and novel ecological systems. In addition, an increasing number of people are already eating from the unique plant communities of urban ecologies, gathering a great diversity of wild edibles and “weeds” through practices of foraging.

Department of Landscape Architecture, State University of New York, mpotteig@syr.edu

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An initial glimpse of the potential significance of this shift is suggested in the excerpt below from the author’s field notes taken during a project to document the production metrics of community gardens in Syracuse, New York (Figure 1). Met with the three Bhutanese gardeners at 7:00pm for follow‐up interview When I got there one of them was in the lot behind the back fence and she was harvesting Betu and other “weeds.” The house is vacant so the lot was overgrown. She came back into the garden through a gap in the chain link fence carrying an armful of greens! We continued with the interview. They showed us the different “weeds” they harvest (phonetic translations): Betu – lambs quarters Palungi – pig weed, they compare it to Swiss Chard Kali Sag – looks like nightshade (Kali=black) Kangi Sag – purslane Karela (?) – Jaringo ‐‐ looks like Pokeweed, they must cook it, I know the berries, at least, are poisonous. We asked where they get these weeds, vacant lots? “Yes,” wherever they find them around houses, or vacant lots.

Figure 1. Bhutanese gardeners in Syracuse, NY, with greens foraged from vacant lots behind the community garden.

This incident revealed the fact that the gardeners were gathering more fresh greens from the vacant lots and sidewalks of the neighborhood than were being produced in the compost‐filled raised beds that had been built by the coordinated effort of several non‐profit organizations. This revelation was

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also a provocation to follow the very elusive yet extensive practices of foraging by “New American” refugee groups as well as many other urban foragers representing a diverse range of ethnic, income, and other social groups. This growing cadre of urban foragers are doing the ground work of discovering wild edibles and “weeds” in unique ecological niches on the verge of roads, in the cracks of sidewalks, hidden in plain sight in the matrix of lawns, or discovered in public parks. Through this very direct engagement they are building new knowledge of urban ecosystems, constructing new values, and staking out new potential for the productive city. Taken together the model of urban ecologies and the cultural practices of foraging offer a conceptual framework as well as immediate practices to reimagine the urban landscape as a mosaic of “productive ecologies.” 1.1

Goal

This paper explores the reciprocity of foraging and productive ecologies for designing sustainable urban food systems in two parts. It begins at the ground level with an ethnographic study of foraging practices in order to establish baseline knowledge of who is foraging, how much, why and where. These narratives of the social, ecological, and spatial practices of foraging help to map a typology of urban productive ecologies as well as define the issues and challenges associated with them. The second part responds to these challenges and potentials with a series of design and planning propositions ranging from small‐scale site‐design to larger landscape scale strategies. It is based on a paradigm shift in ecological thinking that views urban ecology not as a disturbed version of ideal natural systems, but rather emergent, hybrid systems that produce novel multifunctional ecologies. Seeing the city as a mosaic of potentially edible ecologies also requires a paradigm shift in design and planning thinking that works with the provisional, tactical qualities of foraging necessary to shape the emergent and indeterminate nature of these new urban ecologies. 1.2

Context and Methods

The overall approach is to ground design and planning of edible urban ecologies in and understanding of the cultural practices of foraging, to learn from these vital practices as they provide very particular knowledge and direct engagement with urban ecologies. Contemporary ecological discourse that focuses on hybrid and novel urban ecologies is applied to redescribe urban landscapes and the potential for new design interventions in these spaces and systems. The first section of this paper summarizes a multi‐year effort to document foraging practices in Syracuse, New York, as well as a collaborative effort to share protocols and results with a multi‐city study conducted by the USDA Forest Service in New York City, Philadelphia, and Seattle. This on‐ going study by the USDA is perhaps the most extensive documentation of urban foraging to date. Using mixed methods of research, including interviews, focus group meetings, and “foraging walks,” information was gathered on who forages in these urban landscapes, what they forage, their motivations, and the types of places and urban ecologies that are critical for their practice. While the primary focus in Syracuse was on New American groups, specifically Bhutanese, Burmese, and Congolese, other foragers were identified through snowball sampling as well as contacts from engagement in community‐based projects. The Syracuse sample includes people ranging in ages from nineteen to eighty‐two, different neighborhoods, a diversity of ethnic groups, and a variety of income levels. Another part of the sample was drawn from the students in the College of Environmental Science and Forestry (ESF) part of the State University of New York (SUNY) system. This research is also part of on‐going participation action projects with New American groups in th

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Syracuse for developing community gardens and the Salt City Harvest Farm (SCHF), a community farm at the urban edge of Syracuse. This project‐based and community‐engaged scholarship approach helps to establish a strong working relationship and shared purpose with New American groups. The primary context of the study, Syracuse, a city in central New York, with a population of 150,000, is a rust‐belt city with a declining industrial base, aging infrastructure and high rates of poverty. In 2009‐2013, 34.6% people were living below poverty level in Syracuse (US Census Bureau 2014). The industrial history of Syracuse with waves of immigrant labor helped to create a culturally diverse city and that diversity continues to grow. As one of the target cities for refugee resettlement, Syracuse offers low‐cost housing and an infrastructure of support agencies for New Americans (Onondaga Citizens League, 2013). This context of a post‐industrial landscape with increasing areas of vacant land has implications for foraging that will be discussed below. The medium size scale of the city, the emerging cultural diversity, and new ecologies of this formerly urban landscape (Czerniak, 2013) also present new opportunities for developing models of sustainable urban systems (Marris, 2011; Tumber, 2013). In particular the city was a leader in developing one of the first urban forestry plans in the country, which begins to re‐describe the urban landscape from a systems perspective (Nowak and O’Connor 2001). 2.

Part I: Foraging Practices in Productive Ecologies

Foraging crosses not only physical but conceptual boundaries, making it difficult to define. What is offered here is a provisional definition of foraging that is qualified and expanded by the experiences and language used by the people engaged in the practices of foraging. These practices extend across a spectrum based on degrees of intervention in ecologies. At one end of the spectrum is minimal intervention where people gather just what they find from an existing system while at the other end of the spectrum are the intensive alteration of the components of soil, water, structures and other systems found in gardens and agricultural plots. However, in between foragers intervene in landscape processes to varying degrees such as harvesting only a percentage of a species, spreading seeds or pruning vegetation. Harvesting in some cases actually helps to propagate certain plants. It is the intention of working with existing systems that distinguishes foraging from the model of gardening or agronomy. Foraging is also a temporal strategy based on flexible use rather than fixe land tenure. As a result it often manifests as a temporary overlay on existing productive spaces – foraging between rows of a managed orchard or garden for example. 2.1

Who is foraging and why?

This elusive practice also makes the task of finding foragers a difficult one. Yet, a multi‐city study of urban foraging conducted by McLain et al. (2014) reveals foraging as a widespread and increasingly popular practice engaged by people across economic levels, ethnicities, and ages. This range is also evident in the sample of foragers interviewed in Syracuse which includes a retired engineer who forages wild grapes (Vitis vinifera L. subsp. Sylvestris Hegi) and sells them at the regional farmers market, someone who leads foraging walks for the local Slow Food chapter, and a Korean grandmother foraging for the family restaurant. Until recently there has been little to no recorded data of the numbers and types of plants being gathered in cities. However, documentation of this study shows an extensive list of edible species. A preliminary inventory in New York City revealed over sixty varieties of plants and fungi are being gathered, whereas in Seattle, interviewees report over 400 species gathered (McLain et al., 2014; th

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Poe, et al., 2013). In Syracuse, the New American refugee groups alone, find a dozen types of plants familiar to them from their original home landscapes and subsequent refugee camps in their otherwise unfamiliar surroundings of a North American city. The motivations for foraging are as diverse as the plants found and groups engaged in this practice. In all cases foraged food is highly value through different discourses including those of heath, ecological sustainability, culinary performance, or cultural identity. Foraging by students at SUNY ESF, for instance, is linked to broader environmental concern for reducing carbon footprint and performing certain bonds with nature. Foraging has also become a highly valued and popularized practice in the local food movement. Some of the world’s leading chefs such as Rene Redzepi of NOMA in Copenhagen advocate foraging and orient their cuisine around wild harvests. However, in a Korean restaurant in Syracuse the Grandmother of this multi‐generational space forages year‐round for an extensive variety of greens and ferns, yet all of the wild greens in the banchan bowls go unmarked on the menu. Foraging greens is such a common practice embedded in Korean culture that it does not need a premium designation. In no instance did the research find that foraging was devalued as the last resort for subsistence. While this may be a result of the populations sampled it does suggest an important corrective of the perception of foraging as a marginal practice that people would engage in only if they were poor and starving. Even for the New Americans living in parts of Syracuse identified as “food deserts,” foraging aligned with values of cultural identity and health rather than compensating for hunger or poverty. The most frequent and abundant type of plants that New Americans forage are “greens,” particularly lambsquarters, American polkweed (Phytolacca americana L.), pigweed (Amaranthus palmeri, S.Wats or A retroflexus L.), and purslane (Portulaca oleracea L.). Most of what they gather is simply not available in the grocery stores. Plants such as lambquarters, which wilt very shortly after harvesting, would have a very brief shelf‐life in a grocery store. According to New Americans the few culturally specific varieties of plants found in the one grocery store in the neighborhood or in the multiple small ethnic markets, are not fresh, or often frozen. Those interviewed also emphasize the healthiness of the fresh foraged greens. Stinging nettle (Urtica dioica L.), or “sishnu” as Bhutanese refer to it, has multiple medicinal uses for maintaining general health but also as a cure for digestive problems. As one Bhutanese man explained, when they were in the refugee camps, they had limited access to doctors or hospitals and “these plants were our medicine.” 2.2

The Spatial and Ecological Discourses of Foraging

Foraging as spatial practice seeks edibles anywhere a plant or mushroom will grow. In an urban landscape this means finding edibles in the cracks of sidewalks and median strips, as well as creek corridors, park woodlands and lawns, vacant lots, yards, and institutional grounds. Searching for plants in these spaces inevitably crosses physical and social boundaries and blurs the distinctions between private/public spaces. This crossing reveals conflicts as well as the potential for new relationships to place, ownership, and common use. Foraging as an ecological practice also transcends the dichotomies of urban/wild, or culture/nature. In the urban context vegetation is as much a human construct – managed or neglected, invasive or ornamental ‐‐ as a natural process (Pickett et al., 2001). Instead of seeing these urban spaces as degraded natural systems, new paradigms of ecological systems acknowledge that there is no ideal state of balance but rather more dynamic processes of disturbance, adjustment, and change in which humans have played a significant role(Ellis, 2014). The management practices of private property, institutions, parks, and open spaces maintain certain ecological process while suppresses others

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(mowing, weeding, etc.) and these spaces in turn reproduce and reinforce certain values (Pickett et al, 2001; Del Tredici, 2014). Human interaction with ecologic systems ‐‐ altering species distribution, hydrologic patterns, soil compaction, and micro as well as global climates‐‐ produces ecologies characterized by their heterogenaety and multifunctionality (Ellis). In Syracuse and cities across the rust‐belt, the economic downturns, loss of industry, and shrinking tax‐base that results in abandonment and cut‐backs on maintenance represent regime shifts in both social‐political and ecological systems. From an ecological perspective, the regime shift in the social/economic systems opens up opportunities for the emergence of new ecological systems. The vacant lots which are emblematic of this process, are actually quite full in terms of soils with latent seed banks and emergent vegetation processes, as well as toxins. Ruderal species, plants with adaptive strategies that enable them to colonize disturbed sites, quickly reclaim the formerly urban spaces of vacant lots, channelized waterways, and decaying infrastructure of sidewalks, walls, streets, roofs, and fences. The scale of this new urban ecology can be significant as in one estimate of Detroit, 40% of the total land area has been abandoned and reclaimed by “spontaneous vegetation” (Del Tredici, 2014). As these processes occur at different degrees and intersect with different sites at different scales new, and diverse ecologies emerge. Foraging leads the way in directly engaging and finding value in these unique, emerging patterns. The intersection of these social‐political and ecological regimes produces a rich mosaic of urban spaces for foraging. A typological analysis of the diversity of foraging spaces in Syracuse includes vacant lots, public spaces (parks), rights‐of‐way (including sidewalks), institutional grounds (schools, campuses, hospitals), cemeteries, natural forms/elements (creeks, steep slopes), and interstitial spaces (cracks, medians, boundaries). Each type varies according to spatial characteristics (scale, etc.), as well as degrees of access and management (or lack there of) practices that influence plant ecologies (mowing regimes, soil compaction). For example, cemeteries are spaces favored by many groups because they allow a high degree of access similar to a public park, as well as a diversity of plants. The long‐term land tenure of a cemetery and pastoral aesthetic favor mature trees and shrubs and undisturbed soils with extensive mycorrhizal development. 2.2.1 Parks and Public Spaces as Edible Ecological Infrastructure In Syracuse, as in most North American cities, the urban park system provides an infrastructure for larger scale and connected spaces dedicated to ideas of recreation and representations of nature. Since many parks were established as a counter narrative to the conditions of the industrial city, they protect open, relatively uncontaminated areas, and only herbicide use impacts the quality of edibles. Foragers also use park spaces for gathering mushrooms, fruits, and nuts, as well as sources for “invasive” edibles such as garlic mustard (Alliaria petiolata M.Bieb.) and goutweed (Aegopodium podagraria L.). In Syracuse, the parks preserve remnant and significant landforms and waterways, including drumlins with their particular soil profile. However, the park system is also shaped by the aesthetic ideology of a pastoral landscape that provides services of recreation, but not products such as food (Byrne and Wolch 2009; McLain et al. 2012). When they were originally planned, pastoral urban parks served as a refuge from the productive industrial city. Even though new attention to the ecological functions of open spaces has expanded the role of parks to provide multiple services such as stormwater retention and reduction of urban heat island effect, their potential as productive food spaces is still unrecognized and often prohibited. Syracuse city ordinances are typical in their prohibitions for anyone to “peel, cut, deface, remove, injure or destroy… pluck, break, trample upon or interfere with… take, dig, remove or carry away” any trees, shrubs, grass, or flowers in the parks (Syracuse Municipal code, Sec. 17.8).

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2.2.2 Foraging the In‐between: Interstitial Spaces

Figure 2. Typology of interstitial spaces across multiple scales.

The interstitial spaces, the spaces between socio‐political boundaries of property and land uses, as well as the edges between ecological zones, are critical sites of foraging (Figure 2). It is the very ambiguity of these spaces between authorities that create openings for behavior that is considered transgressive in most contexts (Galt et al., 2014). At the margins of the community garden or Salt City Harvest Farm at the urban edge, maintenance regimes (mowing, plowing, weed whacking) end, and weeds find space to flourish. At these margins, New Americans find stinging nettle, black nightshade (Solanum nigrum L.), and more lambsquarters. Around acres of Syracuse’s Inner Harbor area, an extensive brownfield once known locally as “oil city,” a chain‐link fence supports a spontaneous linear vineyard of wild grapes. For foragers interstitial spaces allow them to gain access to plants growing there, yet they can quickly retreat back to a safe public or private space. The interstices also operate across scales ranging from the cracks in the sidewalk to the borders between land uses and the successive and complex edges of urban development. 3.

Part II: Designing Edible Ecologies at the Landscape Scale

The foraging practices discovered in Syracuse aligns with studies in other North American cities (McLain et al. 2014, Poe, et al. 2013; Wehi and Wehi, 2009 ) to reveal the diverse values and its deep relational ties to nature, community, and place. Yet, despite these values and the growth in popularity, foraging remains a surreptitious, tactical operation that transgresses property boundaries and is often prohibited by management policies and/or subject to varying degrees of tolerance. The conflict between property management and the common practices that more or less transgress or trespass is just one of several tensions that foraging invokes. Foragers consume vegetation, potentially putting pressure on plant communities, and yet they are also knowledgeable stewards and advocates for protecting these resources. Paradoxically, the very sites that are most attractive for foraging, the interstitial spaces or highly productive ecologies such as wetland, are also some of the most toxic sites – the very processes and relationship that make for productive ecologies can also concentrate toxins. While these ecological and social tensions are at the root of the conflicts

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between foragers and land managers, they can also serve to identify important motivations and critical processes at work that can inform and generate change. The following set of design projects and proposals offer ways not only for resolving conflicts but also for realizing the unique potential of foraging to change fundamental relationships with urban ecology, place, and community. The design approach outlined here is grounded in the understanding of foraging as a set of creative cultural practices that can then be leveraged and extended in new ways to shape urban spaces. This approach is also grounded in the realities of emerging urban ecologies often found in the interstitial spaces of post‐industrial landscapes, and infrastructure corridors, as well as conventional managed spaces of parks, institutional grounds, or even the urban farm and community garden. However, to design for foraging and new urban ecologies also requires a paradigm shift in design thinking. The transgressive and opportunistic strategies of foraging that respond to the dynamics of changing urban ecologies pose challenges for conventional approaches to design, planning, and policy development. For instance, regulating land‐based resources is a fundamental practice of urban planning; however, foraging is more knowledge‐based and adaptive to changing land‐based conditions, emphasizing rights of use rather than property ownership. However, contemporary landscape design theory that embraces systems thinking and engages the novel ecologies of urban sites offers new strategies for meeting the challenges and potentials posed by urban foraging (Marris, 2011; Waldheim, 2006). The following examples begin with the design of individual sites that provide direct, comprehensible models of productive ecologies for foraging. However, since foraging and urban ecologies involve shifting relationships across multiple sites, it follows that design for foraging need not be bounded by a single site, but instead seeks to develop frameworks that link systems across multiple sites and scales. Working on the institutional scale of the ESF campus provides a model that is then expanded and applied to the landscape scale of the city. 3.1

Designing Comprehensible Systems at the Site Scale

A basic starting point for engaging the complexities of foraging is the design of small‐scale sites: the immediate point of contact between people, plants, and place. Working at this scale provides comprehensible models of systems that can then be scaled‐up and expanded to a larger urban landscape. Since the vacant lot is such a common space in post‐industrial cities such as Syracuse, prototypical designs for this space can then be repeated and multiplied to have significant impact on food access and the ecology of the city. Instead of seeing vacant lots as representing loss, degradation, and other negative conditions to overcome or transform, foraging practices help to discover the existing and emerging values of these sites that can be leveraged into new designs. Minimal interventions such adding soil that contains a rich seed bank, selectively removing certain species such as Buckthorn (Rhamnus cathartica L.), or establishing varieties of plants that can self‐propagate or create favorable conditions for other species, all tend to work with the emergent nature of these sites. Rather than controlling form through typical garden design approaches, here the intention is to “set the site in motion,” creating the conditions for change and guiding the indeterminate processes.

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Figure 3. Rhama Clinic Forest Garden, Syracuse, NY, with “wild” edibles at initial planting (left) and four years later (right).

The Rahma Clinic garden in Syracuse exemplifies a design for foraging (foraging‐driven design). A local non‐profit, the Alchemical Nursery Institute, collaborated with the Muslim American Care and Compassion Alliance (Rahma means “mercy” in Arabic) to manage the vegetation succession of this vacant lot that lies adjacent to a health care clinic to create a “food forest.” The food forest concept uses principles of permaculture to mimic in a very general way the layered structure of a forest plant community – canopy, sub‐canopy, shrub, herbaceous, groundcover, underground (root crops), and vertical/climber layers. The site continues to evolve as certain plants spread by rhizomes or seeds from birds that find suitable habitat in the garden (Figure 3). The Rahma Clinic Garden, just is one example of growing popularity of “forest gardens.” The Beacon Food Forest in Seattle or the Edmonton River Valley Food Forest in Alberta, are two of the more well‐ known projects in this genre. These edible ecologies involve a sprawling, even messy‐looking diversity that appears in stark contrast to a manicured lawn or even the conventions of a community garden. However, by framing what many perceive as unruliness within a field of care ordered by pathways, signs, and borders, these sites help to focus public attention the value of these systems (Nasseaur 1995) and re‐shape perceptions of aesthetics, functionality, and their social. In addition, these sites offer the opportunity for direct community engagement in the creation and maintenance of the system, as well the experience of eating from these systems, all of which contribute to the understanding how these new urban ecologies work. 3.2

Connecting Sites: The Edible Campus

While small‐scale actions on individual sites help to change the texture of vacancy, it is difficult to consolidate the fragmented distribution of vacant lots to create spatial patterns such as corridors or patches of any significant scale that can function as landscape ecology (Forman 1986; Pickett 2001). Focusing on institutional spaces, instead, offers a means of creating these larger‐scale patterns. Institutions have already assembled significant land resources and, somewhat paradoxically for foraging, they offer the authoritative control to develop these spaces into edible ecologies. Most importantly they can serve as significant public spaces with varying degrees of access and inclusion. th

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On the campus of The College of Environmental Science and Forestry(ESF), part of the State University of New York system, student groups initiated a project for an “edible campus” – an overlay of edible ecologies on the existing campus landscape. The goals of this multi‐year project are: 1. gradually transform under‐utilized spaces on ESF’s main campus into delicious and more ecologically functional habitats 2. create an experiential learning environment for students and visitors that integrates ideas from many disciplines already taught on campus (Green Campus Initiative 2015). The project reflects the cultural discourse of sustainability, native plants, restoration, and other values one would expect at this environmentally focused college. The initiation and on‐going planning and development of the edible campus project involves these groups as well as other stakeholders, including the head of grounds maintenance, director of the Office of Sustainability, various faculty, and interested students. Students in the landscape architecture Food Studio at ESF developed conceptual plans that went through various reviews by stakeholders. The design works with the idea of novel ecologies. The campus already has several such situations: a roof garden originally planted with sedums, which has shifted to a massive field of chives (Allium schoenoprasum L.), and an innovative project for the green roof of the Gateway Center, which adapts the plant communities of the regional dune ecology of Lake Ontario to the extreme conditions of wind, sun exposure, and fluctuating moisture episodes of the rooftop. This garden also addresses university administrators’ aesthetic concerns. The Gateway Center roof garden is visually stunning in all seasons, illustrating the concept of how “messy” systems are more acceptable if viewed within ordered frames (Nassauer 1995).

Figure 4. Concept for creating a connected series of edible ecologies along the edge of the campus of the College of Environmental Science and Forestry, Syracuse, NY.

The organizing concept for the edible campus is to develop a corridor along the edge of campus that is adjacent to a large historic cemetery designed by the Olmsted office (Figure 4). This edge is an

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interstitial space composed in some sections of mature hardwoods and in others invasive buckthorn, lawn, or meadow dominate. A broken chain‐link fence does little to impede the flow of people between campus and cemetery, a space where many students also forage for mushrooms, acorns, raspberries, and other foods. As a corridor, this space links distinctive landforms that define the city, extending from a drumlin on the upper part of campus down to an interstate highway embankment that separates the still‐expanding campus from the Southside neighborhood of Syracuse. The strategies for developing this into an edible foraging landscape involve a sequence of actions – mapping existing plants, clearing invasives, establish new plant communities ‐‐ led by student groups, faculty, and the campus maintenance. As it developes the edible ecologies of this campus project will provide a tangible model for linking multiple spaces into a publicly accessible system that can be applied to the landscape scale of the city. 3.3

Scaling‐out: Mapping Foraging at the City Scale

Working at the landscape scale involves more diverse groups and greater complexities in land uses and intersecting ecologies. The critical knowledge about how these cultural and ecological systems interrelate is gathered from two sources. First, since knowledge of urban ecologies is constructed and maintained through the very act of foraging and resides in the experience of foragers, it is essential that foragers be interviewed and engaged in the process to track patterns of use, intensities, and critical areas. Second, this knowledge must be linked to more conventional land‐ based mapping and documentation. In Syracuse, GIS mapping is used to identify the patterns of foraging typologies that can be correlated with other demographic and land use layers. Even the mapping practices can be collaborative and open to foragers who increasingly employ social media and smart phone apps to document and share information. For example, In California, researchers with the Berkeley Open Source Food project (BOSF) document wild edibles in the East Bay Area food deserts in a field guide and post current field observations on their iNaturalist project site (Berkeley Open Source Food). 3.4

Foraging a New Productive Ecology as Urban Infrastructure

Synthesizing this kind of systemic knowledge and mapping the spatial patterns provide the basis for larger‐scale spatial planning that can serve as ecological infrastructure for the city. The GIS mapping of foraging typologies and their distribution across the city provides data that can be integrated with other city planning programs for promoting innovative land use. One such opportunity is to coordinate with the recently established land bank in Syracuse, which has the authority to seize tax‐ delinquent properties and offer them back to individuals or organizations at below market rates. The land bank is a means of managing the marketplace to make changes in the urban landscape in the absence of strong regulations or public financing. The land bank’s Green Lots program provides funding for community gardens, which could be used to acquire and consolidate vacant lots and develop edible ecologies as an alternative to the conventional raised bed community gardens. At the macro‐scale, urban landscapes represent a hybrid of biophysical systems and cultural infrastructure. Transportation infrastructure, for instance, often follows river corridors. These macro patterns can also serve as the framework for developing productive ecologies integrated with urban infrastructures of open space, transportation, water, and housing. This is the objective for a proposal to scale‐up urban foraging by creating an edible ecology for the Onondaga Creek corridor in Syracuse. This creek corridor cuts a north/south transect through the city of Syracuse linking open spaces through various neighborhoods of different income levels, race, and ethnicity, as well as the th

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downtown business and entertainment district. For most of its journey through the city, Onondaga Creek is fenced and forgotten. The fence has removed this riparian zone from park maintenance, and the resulting vegetation succession is rich in edible species including walnut (Jugans nigra L.), American basswood (Tilia americana L.), wild grape, chokecherry (Prunus virginiana L.), raspberry, elderberry(Sambucus nigra L. ssp. Canadensis (L.) R. Bolli), Queen Anne’s lace (Daucus carota L.), mugwort (Artemisia vulgaris L.), sumac, and nannyberry (Viburnum lentago L.). The proposed design strategy leverages this hidden asset as a resource for the larger system and to encourage significant public engagement with the city’s ecological infrastructure. Instead of removing the whole fence, the alternative strategy is to create a varied edge condition that mediates the abrupt fence line, and, in certain areas where slope and water quality permit, realigning or even removing the fence to allow limited access to the creek. Along this more complex edge, a public trail provides access to different foraging potentials. Immediately adjacent to the trail, orchards and mass plantings of popular berry‐producing shrubs extend the riparian edge. To compliment this concentration, plants that are more sensitive to foraging pressures are dispersed in less accessible locations requiring more knowledge and effort to forage them (Figure 6).

Figure 5. Design strategy for Onondaga Creek Corridor as a productive ecology that provides seed sources for the dispersion of plants through the larger neighborhood (credit: Ella Braco).

Concentration and dispersion also work at the landscape scale. The stream corridor as “source site” provides habitat for birds that then disperse seeds throughout the adjoining neighborhoods that have the highest vacancy rates in the city. To aid this process, the design provides guidelines for organizations (schools, churches, community centers) in these neighborhoods to adopt vacant lots through the land bank program and develop them to serve as “receptor sites.” The guidelines help establish the basic conditions for vegetation succession including compost and elements that attract birds, which serve as starting points for novel systems to emerge. The Design Trust for Public Space in partnership with New York City’s Department of Parks and Recreation (DPR) recently proposed a similar concept for a continuous corridor of native plant infrastructure along the Bronx River Greenway. The proposal includes the recommendation for planting edible native species, which diverges from the official DPR policy against foraging in public

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spaces. The Five Borough Farm II publication describes this new recommendation for native plant infrastructures: Native plant infrastructures, including edible species, could be reestablished in New York City’s parks and parkland over time by DPR by identifying appropriate areas, researching the preexisting local ecology of each place, and diverting investments to improve the native ecology of the areas. Foraging could be incorporated to a greater extent within DPR maintenance regimes. DPR could explore the potential for designated foraging zones and/or foraging days within parks. (Design Trust for Public Spaces, p. 63) Using the proposal for Onondaga Creek as a model, students from ESF’s Food Studio took these recommendations and developed more specific plans to illustrate how this shift in policy could be implemented in design. (Figure 6)

Figure 6. Design straties for edible ecology along the Bronx River in New York City

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Conclusions: Toward Productive Urban Ecologies

Foraging across a diverse typology of spaces offers an expanded conception of the productive city. While urban agriculture has played an important role of reinserting productive functions into urban space, breaking down the dichotomy of rural vs. urban, it still separates out production as a discrete space relegated to vacant lots, rooftops, or raised planting beds. The Continuous Productive Urban Landscape (CPUL) is significant in integrating urban agriculture with the larger landscape systems of the city (Bohn and Viljoen, 2014). The model of productive urban ecologies and foraging compliments this spatial strategy and links it to the emerging ecological realities and cultural practices of urban landscapes. Foraging as an opportunistic, flexible practice attuned with the emergent and novel ecologies of urban landscapes. The mix of native and exotic vegetation thriving in the urban voids, on compacted soils, within chain‐link fences, or in the margins of roads is not the idealized rural nature represented in parks or the Arcadian ideal of pure or even restored nature. Foraging is key to understanding and finding critical values in these hybrid urban ecologies which have been unrecognized or misunderstood. The very challenges that foraging in these places poses for planning and design also helps to focus attention and engage these critical realities. The design approach outlined above advocates a process of learning from foragers, building a knowledge base of not only information about urban vegetation systems but also strategies for interventions. Design, as an on‐going, adaptive process, provides flexible frameworks to integrate vital ecological processes and cultural practices into the infrastructure of the city. 5.

References

Berkeley Open Source Food. http://forage.berkeley.edu/. [Accessed on June 7, 2015]. Bohn, K. and Viljoen, A. 2014. Second Nature Urban Agriculture: Designing Productive Cities. Routledge, London. Byrne, J. and Wolch, J., 2009. Nature, race, and parks: past research and future directions for geo‐graphic research. Progress in Human Geography, 33 (6), 743–765. City of Seattle, 2011. Parks and Recreation Department, Beacon Food Forest Project Information, http://www.seattle.gov/parks/projects/jefferson/food [accessed March 3rd, 2015]. City of Syracuse, Department of Parks. http://www.codepublishing.com/ut/syracuse/. [Accessed on March 21, 2015]. CNY Vital/Onondaga Webpage. Refugees Demographics. (Without date). http://cnyvitals.org/onondaga/demographics/refugees [Accessed on March 3rd, 2015]. Czerniak, J. 2013. Formerly Urban: Projecting Rustbelt Futures. Princeton Architectural Press, New York. Del Tredici, P. 2014. The Flora of the Future, in Projective Ecologies, edited by N. Lister, N. and C. Reed, pp. 338‐ 257. Actar Publishers, New York. Design Trust for Public Space. 2014. Five Borough Farm II: Growing the Benefits of Urban Agriculture in New York City, Vanguard Printing, New York. Ellis, E., 2014. (Anthropogenic Taxonomies): A Taxonomy of the Human Biosphere, in Projective Ecologies. Lister, N. and Reed, C., eds. Actar Publishers, New York. Forman, R.T.T., and Godron, M., 1986. Landscape Ecology. John Wiley and Sons, Inc., New York. Galt, R.E., Gray, L., and Hurley, P., 2014. Subversive and interstitial food spaces: transforming selves, societies, and society–environment relations through urban agriculture and foraging, Local Environment: The International Journal of Justice and Sustainability, 19:2, 133‐146, DOI: 10.1080/13549839.2013.832554 Gibson‐Graham, J.K. (2008). Diverse economies: performative practices for “other worlds”. Progress in Human Geography, 32 (5), 613–632. Green Campus Initiative. College of Environmental Science and Forestry. 2015. ESF’s Edible Landscape: Vision and Values. Unpublished manuscript.

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Jacke, D. and Toensmeier, E., 2005. Edible Forest Gardens. Vol. 1. Chelsea Green Publishing, New York. Jorgensen, A. and Keenan, R. (eds.). 2012. Urban Wildscapes. Routledge, New York. Marris, E., 2011. Rambunctious Garden: Saving Nature in a Post‐Wild World. Bloomsbury, New York. edible McLain, D.J., Poe, M.R, Hurley, P.T., Lecompte‐Mastenbrook, J., and Emery, M.R. 2012. Producing landscapes in Seattle’s urban forest, Urban Forestry and Urban Greening 11. 187‐194. McLain, D.J., Hurley, P.T., Emery, M.R., and Poe, M. R. 2014. Gathering “wild” food in the city: rethinking the role of foraging in urban ecosystem planning and management, Local Environment: The International Journal of Justice and Sustainability 19:2. 220‐240. DOI: 10.1080/13549839.2013.841659. Nasseaur, J.I. 1995. Messy ecosystems, orderly frames, Landscape Journal, 14(2): 161‐170. Nowak, D.J. and O’Connor, P.R., 2001.Syracuse Urban Forest Master Plan: Guiding the City’s Forest Resource Technical Report NE‐287. into the 21st. Century. USDA Forest Service. General Onondaga Citizens League. 2013. The World at Our Doorstep. Pickett, S.T.A., Cadenasso, M.L., Grove, J.M., Nilon, C.H., Pouyat, R.V., Zipperer, W.C. and Costanza, R. 2001. “Urban Ecological Systems: Linking Terrestrial Ecological, Physical, and Socioeconomic Components in Metropolitan Areas,” Annual Review of Ecological Systems. 32:127—57. Poe, M.R., McLain, R.J., Emery, M.R., and Hurley, P.T. 2013. Urban forest justice and the rights to wild foods, medicines, and materials in the city. Human Ecology. 40:6. _ D0I 10.1007/s10745‐013‐9572‐1 Syracuse Community Geography. 2014. “Putting Down Roots: Refugee Agricultural Practices in Syracuse, NY.” GIS Story Map. http://bit.ly/1wLWiwh. [Accessed on March 3, 2015]. Syracuse Community Geography. 2014. “Syracuse Hunger Project, Executive Report,” http://communitygeography.org/wp‐content/uploads/2013/10/Hunger‐Project‐ Report.pdf. [Accessed March 12, 2015]. Tumber, C. 2013. Small Gritty and Green: The Promise of America’s Smaller Industrial Cities in a Low‐Carbon World. MIT Press, Cambridge. United States Census Bureau. (2014). State & County Quick Facts; Syracuse (city), New York. http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/36/3673000.html. [Accessed on January 18, 2015.] Waldheim, C. (ed.) 2006. The Landscape Urbanism Reader. Princeton Architectural Press, New York. Wehi, P. M., and Wehi, W. L. (2009). Traditional Plant Harvesting in Contemporary Fragmented and Urban Landscapes. Conservation Biology 24: 594–604.

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David Fanfani, Sara Iacopini, Michela Pasquali, Massimo Tofanelli, “Sustain‐edible city: Challenges in designing agri‐urban landscape for the th ‘proximity’ city. The case of Prato, Tuscany”, In: Localizing urban food strategies. Farming cities and performing rurality. 7 International Aesop Sustainable Food Planning Conference Proceedings, Torino, 7‐9 October 2015, edited by Giuseppe Cinà and Egidio Dansero, Torino, Politecnico di Torino, 2015, pp 146‐155. ISBN 978‐88‐8202‐060‐6

SUSTAIN‐EDIBLE CITY: CHALLENGES IN DESIGNING AGRI‐URBAN LANDSCAPE FOR THE ‘PROXIMITY’ CITY. THE CASE OF PRATO, TUSCANY1 David Fanfani•, Sara Iacopini••, Michela Pasquali∗∗∗, Massimo Tofanelli∗∗∗∗ Abstract: ‘Intermediate domains’ represented by farmland in strong contact with urban environment result pivotal in pursuing interwoven and integrated goals, where basic functionings ‐as food production or land taking containment‐ merge with aims for a general improvement of the quality and attractiveness of built and social urban environment. Such intermediate urban‐rural spaces allow also to address and reflect, in terms of process development, on some new requirements and guidelines to be introduced in physical planning tools in order to better interact with the manifold urban policies and stakeholders. These requirements, starting from urban design codes and principles, encompass the management of environmental resources and use of agri‐urban area as well as citizens, institutions and private parties involvement and further regulatory and incentives tools for land owners commitment as well as the matter of food production as a social matter. The paper accounts for two bottom‐up ongoing jont experiences carried on in Prato municipal area (Tuscany) where two agri‐urban close and semi‐enclosed area are concerned respectively, by a project for the creation of an agri‐urban public park and by a participative neighbourhood laboratory aimed to share integrated and community design goals between citizens, associations, public subjects and ongoing urban farming initiatives. In these two connected contexts two different actions, ‘socially produced’, try to cross and relate with urban policies and planning tools accordingly with an innovative approach.

Foreword

Remaining farmland allotments in the city proximity, or semi‐secluded in urban areas, although usually neglected in public policies and vision, represent a strong opportunity for built environment improvement and regeneration and in triggering a new and integrated urban design and planning approach. Moreover this matter could be placed in the frame a new bioregional approach on planning and urban design in which new local and place‐based (bio)economies construction processes fit and co‐evolve (Norgaard 1997) with a wider set of community self‐reliance, ‘transition’ and resilience design goals (Thayer, 2013, Magnaghi 2014). In such a prospect food production recovery or enhancement practices often represent the ‘generative’ factor in triggering and supporting bottom‐up processes of agri‐urban spaces protection, stewardship and improvement. Although experiences of local food chains and system productions are widespreaded adopted (Viljooen, Bhom 2014), policies and design guidelines for local food systems are issued (ERC 2011, Redwood 2009, Donovan et. Al 2011, Morgan. Sonnino 2010,), this ‘movement’ encounters many difficulties and obstacles in integrating and framing with ordinary planning and urban design tools

Altough the shared and unitary conceiving of the paper, the paragraphs 1, 2, 3.1. and 4 are to be attributed to David Fanfani, the 3.2.1 to Massimo Tofanelli, the 3.2.2. to Sara Icopini and the 3.2.3. to Michela Pasquali. • Associate Professor in Urban and Regional Planning, Architecture Department, Florence University •• Phd student in migration studies and researcher at the Institute of research and social actions (i.R.I.S., Prato) ∗∗∗ Landscape architect, director of the non profit association Linaria ∗∗∗∗ Urban planner and researcher at the Institute of research and social actions (i.R.I.S., Prato)

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characterized by ‘routinary’ practices sector based approach where mainly prevails a sectoral and top‐down approach.. According with that, it appears helpful, in some cases, to adopt and foster some ‘bottom up’ processes, sometimes in form of ‘’deliberative design local laboratory”, where ‐thanks to a pro‐ active’ approach‐ inhabitants, stakeholders, representatives of public bodies and municipality, could meet and share new visions, actions and innovative coordination practice in order to achieve as new ‘urban wellbeing services” (UWS) and ‘public goods’ delivering (Vanni 2011 ).

Introduction to the action context

The growth and development of the settlements and urban form in Prato –underpinned by a historical polycentric asset‐ generated a peculiar patterns of interwoven agriculture exploited parcels and urban neighbourhoods. In such a patterns wedges and corridors of inner secluded and semi‐ secluded areas – mainly still cultivated with forms of ‘intensive’ farming practices‐ merge with a quite well defined periurban ‘green‐belt’ that is, notwithstanding, strongly affected by urban influence and fragmented urban tissues and functions (see fig. 1).

Figure 1. Aerial view of rural areas, wedges and urban nodes concerned by the activities in the east sector of Prato

In this framework farming activities, as just recalled, are mainly carried on accordingly with intensive and mechanised assets with not negligible impacts on the environment (e.g. soil fertility loss and erosion, groundwater pollution), where the weak economic profitability of farming activities is partially compensate by the CAP payments. The growing awareness –either on behalf of farmers and of consumers and citizens‐ about the unsustainability of such a model of exploitation and farming, and of the recovery of a green proximity environment as opportunity for pursue ‐alongside with the quality of life and urban environment‐ new forms of rentable and fair periurban agriculture, calls for a new focus on the importance of the agricultural spaces mentioned above. Among them, as defined, the ones represented by agricultural wedges, and corridors penetrating in the urban structure represent the main ‘fields’ where is possible to define and test new forms of

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urban agriculture that, although not tailored by the prevalence of social goals and practices, follows very different principles by the ‘intensive’ model. In these spaces it seems to be room to create and innovate in the domain of consumption‐production schemes and in spatial planning tools as well. That in designing a new pivotal role for these areas, no more conceived as ‘urban waste’ but as key elements for the recovery a new urban form and relation/articulation between urban and rural domains.

The study cases

The two following study cases presented account for a bottom‐up design process referred just to two close context encompassing the pointed out features and where ‘social shared visions’ call for integrated projects where environmental, economic, social, design, policies innovative issues merge, as well as, for strong innovation in urban design practices. 3.1. Capezzana social farm: from an urban ‘green park’ to an agriurban public park The area interested by the first ongoing process is placed in the west fringe side of the municipal area (see. Fig.2) and is a farmland area inherited –with many other farmland and rural goods‐ by the Prato municipality including an old farm building badly preserved dating from the fifteenth century.

Figure 2. Aerial view of the Capezzana agricultural area and of the old farm to recover (red circle)

The farm as the fields, until few years ago, were occupied by the family of the last renting farmer that exploited the property leading jointly a little breeding activity and cultivation of arable. Such activities allowed to the farm, thanks to the renters attitude, to perform the function of a didactic

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centre of environmental education, open to the primary and elementary schools of the quarter as well as to the neighbourhood citizens. It is worth noting that the exploitation of the farm was ‘nature e based’, mainly dedicated to the breeding of a native local cow race called “calvana” and to organic cultivations of traditional wheat cultivars for ‘food mile’ bread production. Six years ago the municipality, according with a peculiar conception of public goods economic enhancement of a certain success in Italy, decided to sell the farm building and to change the urban plan, envisioning a residential estate development for a part of the area and the role of public urban park for remaining 10 hectares . The crisis that stroke the real estate sector after 2009 hampered the realization of such previsions and created the conditions for the proposition of quite different project idea on behalf of some social actors, including the last farmers family that carried on the activities. Starting from the position of the previous and present administrations, not available to rent again the farm, the last family that occupied the building participated to a public call for the building purchase and won the public call itself2. That, anyway, with the aim to had the opportunity to develop again the multifunctional agricultural activity leaded in past, featured by some important social functions. In such a prospect the destination of the arable land as urban park needs to be overcome or ‘re‐interpreted’ in such a way to maintain and coalesce the public access and benefits with the development of entrepreneurial farming activities although in a ‘nature based’ way. With this aim of public interest and periurban agriculture promotion the Agricultural Park of Prato Association3 supported and fostered the project of farming activity recovery in defining, jointly with the farmer family, a strategic project for an periurban public agricultural park that innovated the ordinary and routinary idea of ‘public urban green’. The idea underpinning the project –submitted to the administration with the aim to start a procedure of public call for the agri‐park management‐ is based on the conception of private farming activity conducted according with goals of public interest and producing ‘public goods’ and activity that develop synergies with farming exploitation itself. That means that ‘public goods’ and functionings of public utility are delivered not only as by‐products or positive externalities of private activity –as in the economic ordinary conception‐ but are, alongside with market goals, constitutive of the farming plan. In such a vision the private role is conceived as collaborative with public action in achieving results of public utility and community fairness accordingly an intentional scheme. Coherently with this framework the project submitted to the public administration foresee the protection, maintainment and enhancement of periurban public green spaces in an active way. That with the development of agricultural activities mainly carried on accordingly with the principle of ‘agroecology’ and organic agriculture, allowing to visitors and citizens, thanks to rural paths, access to the fields and services and utilities delivered by the farm itself. It is evident that such a farming setting allows either the production of ‘public’ and ‘non market’ goods (e.g. ecosystem services, landscape regeneration and amenities, environmental education and awareness, etc.) and the delivering and development of proximity services and economies more market oriented, although in a fair way (e.g. selling of fresh food locally produced, rural hospitality and leisure services, didactic programs for agriculture and crafts). The project for the agricultural public park in the area of the neighbourhood –more properly called “village”‐ of Capezzana, is at the moment under the assessment of new public administration elected

The purchasing procedure definition, at the moment this paper is wrote, is still ongoing. The non for profit association ‘Prato Agricultural Park’ constituted in 2010, is a voluntary partnership that includes associations of environmental and cultural promotion, of professional farmers, and of social promotion. The statutory goals of the association are aimed to promote, through cultural initiatives and operative projects, the protection and values of periurban rural areas through a sustainable agriculture form there developed in such a way to foster forms of local endogenous development. 2 3

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in 2014‐ especially for the matters that relate to a new vision and conception of the urban public green spaces management. 3.2. The project. “Trame di Quartiere”4: an urban agricultural park for a new sense of place stewardship and belonging The Capezzana project is strongly related and substantially in physical continuity with the bottom up process that concerns the ‘green corridor’ that originates from the area described, overcomes the west urban freeway and flanks the dense residential neighbourhood of S.Paolo, reaching out the urban historical centre (see again fig. 1, right side ). 3.2.1. The context and the goals of the laboratory The action‐research project “Neighbourhood Plots”, developed together with the residents of San Paolo, Borgonuovo and Casarsa (recently renamed Macrolotto 0), introduces the study and practice of diversity management into these neighbourhoods of Prato through a series of workshops, urban walks, interviews and narrations. The goal, on the one hand, is to collect and reconstruct the historical memory of the two neighbourhoods, whether that of collecting large or small stories that happened in these places or those that strengthen residents’ awareness of neighbourhood events and characteristics. The project also intends to stimulate critical attention of professionals about the pitfalls of processes of participation and urban planning as well as the opportunities that are typical to an approach oriented to diversity management at a neighbourhood level. The change in recent decades has had a significant effect on the social and economic structure of the city of Prato. Recent research has documented a widespread feeling among residents of disorientation and helplessness in the face of urban transformation, driven by global forces beyond local control, yet with concrete effects on the lives of citizens. Notable changes have occurred in both the physical transformation of the neighbourhood, in its daily functions, in the network of services and public goods distributed, as well as in the social attributes of residents. The increasing concentration of the presence of citizens of Chinese nationality intermingles with a local context whose signs of past development are tangible: San Paolo and Macrolotto 0 are markedly isolated as a result of being encircled by the railway and a major thoroughfare, which renders them difficult to access. In addition, both neighbourhoods are full of dead‐end roads that although they bear the label cul‐de‐sacs have virtually nothing in common with their suburban American counterparts. Pointing to this urban reality engages a theme very much neglected by urban planning processes—that of diversity management, which is not only characterized by the presence of a mixité of residential and commercial zones, society and economy, subcontracting and industry, Southern Italian migrants, rural Tuscan transplants, and long‐time Pratesi, but that is shot through with global flows of migration and international trade. The central theme/challenge for Prato is not so much how to design neighbourhoods that are different, but rather how to intervene in neighbourhoods in which diversity and separation coexist. San Paolo and Macrolotto 0, which are icons of the factory city, are located to the west of the ancient wall, between the railway to the north and the beltway. Within these districts exists a wide range of forms, functions, and populations.

4 Neighbourhood plots th

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Needless to say, especially from a social point of view, the two districts have distinct characteristics. The “Macrolotto 0” can be seen as a zone of transition—the historic port of entry into the city for many families of Italian heritage and more recently of non‐European immigrants, with a particularly high concentration of residents of Chinese nationality. Within these linear barriers, the city includes a wide area of concentration of manufacturing activities and a vibrant commercial activity along Via Pistoiese and up to the historic centre. On the far side of the centre, to the west, is the compact core residential neighbourhood of San Paolo, from Via Donizetti until the beltway and south to Via Galcianese through areas with remnants of rural‐turned‐urban green spaces. San Paolo maintains a greater residential presence, with a good network of services and a lively social environment, most related to the components of the original Italian population, with roots as Tuscan sharecroppers and Southern transplants. 3.2.2. Activities and methodological matters of the project More specifically, the project structure consists of two series of activities: 1) research, which refers to the study of characteristics of the local society and the neighbourhood in response to changes in its physical, social, and cultural features; 2) action, embodied in the creation of public seminars and workshops with the involvement of experts who bring specific skills, among which the documentation and collection of narratives, whether photographic, video, audio or text, in the management of public space, particularly in the reuse of industrial spaces, abandoned factories and warehouses, as well as remaining rural and urban green spaces. The latter goal stems from the residents’ perception of a lack of strategic plans and integrated urban planning models at the local administrative level. Conversely, they were proposing a forward‐looking bottom‐up approach based on the innovative reuse of abandoned industrial buildings, the recognition of the biological food production and important social functions played by this “green corridor” (e.g. promoting sociality and civic engagement out of the encounter between people of diverse backgrounds, ethnicity and social status; educational, cultural and outdoor activities). To bring together the ideas emerged during the first phase of the project, two workshops, supported even by experts 5 were organized. Together with the inhabitants, local‐based associations and stakeholders, existing valuable resources and opportunities (e.g. disused or historical buildings, undeveloped land, schools, strategic structures, etc.) were discussed and eventually identified. During the design process, the outcomes of the didactic laboratory led by an environmental teacher6 with the pupils of the primary school “V. Frosini” located in the San Paolo neighbourhood, were also taken into consideration. Working with the children enabled us to grasp their perspectives and wishes on the city as well as to include local actors that are too often neglected in the urban planning processes. During these outdoor activities, the pupils interviewed residents of different ethnic backgrounds, learnt how to recognize plants, flowers and insects, developed a more ecological worldview and sensitivity to human‐environment interrelationships.

5 The workshops were coordinated by Michela Pasquali, landscape architect and director of the non profit association Linaria, and David Fanfani, Associate Professor in Urban and Regional Planning at the University of Florence. 6 Serena Maccelli, Legambiente. th

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The ongoing idea arose from these laboratories is to design an urban agricultural park inspired by similar worldwide experiences (Barcelona, Nordhavnen, Los Angeles), whose main functions are: 1. 2. 3. 4.

Increasing food supply and city resilience to climate changes; Creating public spaces enhancing social interactions; Providing public services for the residents; Connecting the neighbourhood with the farmland area, to the west, and the urban historical centre, to the east, ‐ thanks to pedestrian and bicycle paths; Improving the quality of urban life.

5. A third workshop, which will be held in autumn, aims at designing a strategic plan constituting the starting point for a discussion on the future of the area between residents, local stakeholders and the present administration. 3.2.3. Design practice and principles

Accordingly with the context feature and project goals the design activity starts from the awareness that open spaces are considered necessary as open‐air amenities of great value for the future of Prato, whose extremely varied forms and statuses are the basis for the quality of life and the daily landscape. TramediQuartiere with the help of a multidisciplinary team that combines expertise in landscape design, architecture and urban planning, has taken a comprehensive approach to an urban planning and development project in the area, considering the site’s geographical and physical setting, the project’s satisfaction of users’ needs and expectations, its appropriation by users, and its ability to evolve. Considering the city as a real living organism that is constantly changing, spatially and socially, TramediQuartiere public workshops has oriented urban design towards other horizons than just functional and spatial composition, considering urban planning as a process in which dialogue with the site, with time and with the partners involved become fundamentals of the project. The workshops aim to design a major urban development centre which is a place of work and leisure at the same time; aimed at innovation, a diversity of urban forms, and social mix objectives devised through a very active, creative consultation process. This kind o multiplicity space would play a role in social cohesion, education, and cultural activities, becoming a community hubs that celebrate and raise awareness about and thanks local food production, sport and cultural activities. Events such as festivals, harvest dinners, cooking, or growing demonstrations, and educational programs can inspire DIY activities involving schools, local associations, including ethnic communities, low income families, seniors, and children. The benefits extend to many facets of the health and wealth of a city. TramediQuartiere proposes an ecological and biological based city‐planning model that would focus on community, health and ecosystem. Through the workshops has emerged an integrative process focusing on solutions based on the interconnectedness of the systems as a whole unit, rather than separate parts where the design strategy would integrate social, economic, estetic, ecological, and economic values to achieve the best results. The interest of the proposal in the area is rather like a restoration, a reappropriation of a green space and by being part of projects that are more rooted in the local fabric. TramediQuartiere aims to create a new regenerative landscape that promote biodiversity and social sustainability to organize the area in a hierarchy which ranges from large extensive pieces of

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landscape to the intimacy of the gardens, orchards, vegetable plots, squares and sport amenities and infrastructures with recreation ‐sports and cultural activities. (see figg. 3,4)

Figure 3. The project concept of the whole areas

Figure 4. vision sketch of integrated landscape and use in the agricultural wedge of TramediQuartiere

The proposal is based on the development of the agricultural potential and the activities related to it, like production, processing, treatment, and local shop and farm markets. The idea is based on a rationale use that ensures harmony between future uses and long‐term respect for the existing agricultural identity: diversity could be maintained with local crops that identifies the regional area, but also with the inclusion of multicultural fruit and vegetable already cultivated in the vegetable garden of the Chinese community, and open to other communities. The design will be based on a search for contemporary expression of nature in the city; on the natural dynamic of existing ecological systems and the application of differentiated maintenance. An experimental playground and laboratory shape all the park space to take landscape architecture and urbanism in new directions and for a new type of productive open‐space system (see Viljoen 2006,cit. 2014). In this way Tramediquartiere explores an alternative to the urban traditional park

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and garden that integrated design with nature and agriculture with aesthetic, in a long term and a sustainable development.

Conclusions

Although at their very early stage and their differences, the two laboratories we accounted for allows to underscore some relevant matter in dealing with planning and design of in‐between spaces (Sievert, 2003) accordingly with sustainability and food production goals. First of all the multidimensionality of the issues at stake calls for the overcoming of the traditional ‘functional’, ‘zoning oriented’ and sectorial approach in physical planning. Planner and urban design skills have to be integrate and collaborate with other competences, especially concerning agri‐environmental, landscape and socio‐economic approaches. Furthermore this entails the necessity, in order to achieve planning results effectiveness, to involve, in a participative and ‘bottom‐up’ process, stakeholders, inhabitants, associations in order to reframing the context problems framework and better address the more relevant issues for the area regeneration. The process of integration between urban and agriurban domains that stems form this kind of approach, especially considering the enhancement of short food supply chains and CSA schemes, seems to fit with the fostering of new local economies, social integration and well‐being, place awareness on behalf of citizens and stakeholders. That also allowing for the enhancing and appreciation of the not negligible market and not market values generated from periurban open spaces agricultural use (Brinkley 2102). On behalf of public bodies and policies the multidimensionality of this kind of design processes calls for the overcoming of a ‘command and control’ attitude and for the better integration and coordination between the different sectors and administrative levels concerned, that in such a way to better unfold a real governance process. In this framework the regulatory role of public seems to be pivotal in addressing land revenue expectations on behalf of land owners that usually hinder the possibility of a common goods oriented use of urban and periurban open spaces. Public owned land also turn out to be a key success factor as the contexts examined reveals an alternative strategy opportunity at the mainly recently practiced by public administrations in Italy that conceive and identify the ‘public goods’ and properties value enhancement with their selling to private operators. In that contrasting and misconceiving the nature of goods itself (Maddalena 2014). Finally is worth noting as this kind of contexts allows to better sound and deal with the calls for innovative planning and design methods and solutions in order to recovery a fair and sustainable relationship between urban domain and its surrounding region for the sustainable ‘relocalization’ (Thayer 2013) of the city itself.

References

Brinkley C., 2012, Evaluating the benefits of periurban agriculture, in Journal of planning literature. Sage, 0‐11 Donovan J., Larsen K., Mc Winnie J., 2011, Food sensitive Planning and urban design: a conceptual framwork for achieving a sustainable and healthy food system. Melburne: Report commissioned by the National Hearth Foundation of Australia (Victorian Division) at www.heartfoundation.org.au/ SiteCollectionDocuments/Food‐sensitive‐planning‐urban‐design‐full‐report.pdf > (accessed August, 2015) European Regions Commitee, 2011, Opinion of the Regions on ‘Local food systems’ (outlook opinion), (2011/C 104/01), at http://eur‐lex.europa.eu/legal‐ content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELEX:52010AR0341& from=EN, (accessed September 2015) Maddalena P., 2014, Il terriotrio bene commune degli italiani. Proprietà collettiva, proprietà private e interesse pubblico. Roma: Donzelli Magnaghi A., ed, 2014, La regola e il progetto. Firenze, : Firenze University Press th

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Morgan K., Sonnino R., 2010, The urban foodscape. World cities and the new food equation. Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy and Society, pp.209‐224 Norgaard R.B, 1994, Development betrayed. The end of progress and a co‐evolutionary view of the future. New York: Routledge Redwood M, ed, 2009, Agriculture in Urban Planning: Generating Livelihoods and Food Security. Milton Park, Oxon, (UK): Earthscan Sievert T., 2003, Cities without cities. Between place and world, space and time, town and country. London: Taylor & Francis, Thayer R.L., 2004, LifePlace. Bioregional Though and practice. Berkeley: California University Press, Thayer R. Jr., 2013, The world shrinks the world expands: information, energy and relocalization, in, Cook E., Lara J.J., (eds), Remaking metropolis. Milton Park, Abingdon (UK): Routledge, 39‐59 Vanni F., 2011, Agricoltura e beni pubblici: una proposta di riorientamento della PAC, in AgriregioniEuropa, Anno 7, n. 26, p.63. at: <http://agriregionieuropa.univpm.it/content/article/31/26/ agricoltura‐e‐beni‐pubblici‐una‐proposta‐di‐ri‐orientamento‐della‐pac>, (accessed, September 2015) Viljoen A., Bohme K., Howe J., eds. 2005, CPUL’S, Continous productive urban landscapes. London: Elsevier Viljoen A., Bohme K., eds, 2014, Second nature. Designing productive cities. Milton Park, Oxon (UK): Routledge,

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Radu Mircea Giurgiu, Fritz‐Gerald Schröder, Nico Domurath, Daniel Brohm, “Vertical farms as sustainable food production in urban areas. Addressing the context of developed and developing countries. Case study: brick born farming, Dresden, Germany”, In: Localizing urban th food strategies. Farming cities and performing rurality. 7 International Aesop Sustainable Food Planning Conference Proceedings, Torino, 7‐9 October 2015, edited by Giuseppe Cinà and Egidio Dansero, Torino, Politecnico di Torino, 2015 pp 156‐170. ISBN 978‐88‐8202‐060‐6

VERTICAL FARMS AS SUSTAINABLE FOOD PRODUCTION IN URBAN AREAS. ADDRESSING THE CONTEXT OF DEVELOPED AND DEVELOPING COUNTRIES CASE STUDY: BRICK BORN FARMING, DRESDEN, GERMANY Radu Mircea Giurgiu1, Fritz‐Gerald Schröder, Nico Domurath2, Daniel Brohm2

Keywords: food security, vertical farm, global balance, sustainability, urbanization Abstract: Food is one of the essential thing for human existence. Population growth, urbanization and climate change put big pressure on space and resource utilization. Traditional farming and strategy for food supplying are not sustainable anymore. Urban Farming is a response to these challenges, by finding alternatives of utilising the urban space as a platform for plant cultivation. One of the ways is through Vertical Farms which are enclosed facilities with absolute control of environment, producing high qualities and quantities of fresh food, all year round. In spite of the advantages, there are only a few of such facilities in the world. Initial investment and maintaining costs are the biggest issues. This put in the context of Global North and Global South gap, turn the economic disadvantage into a very difficult thing to overcome. This paper is analysing Vertical Farming as a complex concept that can be decompose in many constitutive parts and it’s looking on how this parts can be translated for other contexts, where economy is unstable. For this purpose the case study of BrickBorn Farming project from Dresden, Germany is discussed. The progress of the project and the development to this time shows potential for knowhow that can be fitted in many economic and social contexts. This way the global problems are addressed to possible global solutions which can lead to a better global stability and equal chances of development, with the main goal of achieving food security.

Context of the problem

We live in a time of fast pacing and continuous development of societies. In the last centuries, humankind used the cognitive qualities to use the planet for its own progress. The better quality of life is searched by everybody but self‐actualization, as the popular theory of Arthur Maslow says, can be reached just by solving the other layers of the pyramid. The psychological needs are the base of Maslow’s pyramid. Food and water are among the things that people need in order to survive and both are interconnected and not infinite. Progress for humankind leads to accelerated growth in numbers. It is predicted that by the year 2050, there will be 9 billion people on the planet. In this context the basic needs like food, seem challenging. Food security is an urgent topic at the moment, and challenges that face the planet seem to be non‐ eluding. Agriculture and horticulture are the motors of food producing in the World. Global diversity is, of course, important to understand how significant, food security as an issue is, but the global problems are always the same. Beside the increasing number of the population, urbanization is also a factor to be considered. Not only that we will be more people on the planet, but also around 80 percent will live in urban spaces. That can be translated as more land required for leaving places and less farmland. There is already predicted that we will need more land than available, in order to sustain in the future, but this urban sprawl puts even more pressure on the challenge. Human impact on the nature in the race of fast economic success, has led to a number of negatives effects on the environment. Rapid Climate Change (RCC) is a result of human non‐sustainable 1 2

University of Applied Science, Dresden, Germany, radu.giurgiu@outlook.com Institute of Horticulture Technologies, Dresden, Germany, info@integar.de

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intervention and development. This is a process that has only one way and people are trying to slow it down to gain more time to act, but the effects are visible and can lead to catastrophic events. Especially from the food security point of view. Draughts and floods, among other major weather events can jeopardize entire farmlands and have huge negative impact for economics and health of the people (Aubry, et.al. 2012). The problem of feeding the world in 2050 is one of the biggest challenge humanity has to face. This lead to focus energy of researchers, practitioners, governments and communities in order to find solutions, to prevent more damage, reduce exacerbation and apply new sustainable, long term thinking solutions. 2.

Urban Farming

Some keywords that define the problems that humanity will face, are interconnected. This means that the problems have some identical centre points, which means that solutions focused on the centre point can bring good results for multiple issues. We identify this centre points as population growth, big demand of food and urbanization. A possible solution can be that getting food inside of the cities will solve demand for high number of people without having to think how to stop urbanization (Grawel S. and Grawel P., 2012). This solution is defined as Urban Farming (UF) and it gets more and more attention. UF can be applied in different ways. The most popular are roof gardens, living walls, community gardens, urban allotments, vertical farms etc. All have in common efficient use of space and resources in order to produce food in the cities with no negative impact on the environment. Locally grown food is getting higher in demand as people wanting to know more about where and how the plants are grown. This is a good thing for encouraging involvement, but also has some limitations (Sigrid, 2002). Climate remains a big risk factor of cultivating the crops in unprotected horticulture. The Vertical Farm (VF) is a way of Urban Farming that adds the controlled environment in the equation. This means that the crops are grown inside buildings where all parameters that are needed for cultivation are controlled and is independent of the weather events. Vertical Farms have a number of advantages that puts this alternative agriculture approach in the spotlight. Firstly, growing plants indoor, independent of the weather and the seasons, allows year‐round cultivation of vegetables, herbs etc. (Despommier, 2011). It is very important to provide fresh food in so called “off season” and helps avoiding high prices and fluctuations. The transportation and logistics for getting fresh food out of season is not only bad for economy but also impacts negatively the environment. VF is defined by high technology applied in crop cultivation. LED lighting (Fan, et.al. 2013), controlled fertirrigation, soilless cultures, sensors and software that allow the growers to check and manipulate the environment are some of the features that give the users so much flexibility and mobility, obtaining high yields in shorter time. This alternative way of agriculture shows that it can be a way to tackle the future challenges for food security (Fischetti, 2008). 3.

Vertical Farming – developed and developing countries

3.1

Current state

As stated in the previous chapter, VF has become a centre piece in the discussion on food security and urban planning for sustainable food production. Although all the advantages show good ways of facing the threats of urban sprawl, growing population and scarcity of resources, there are not many function facilities at the moment. That might stand as a surprising fact but the keys are the costs. VF

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is a highly technologized edifice that uses resources efficiently and also produce more in less space, but the initial investments are too high for many growers to start. The costs can be recovered in some years, but the initial investment is simply too high. The features used in the VF are as expensive as effective (Zhang, et.al. 2002). LED lighting although getting more and more popularity and increasing competitively of producers, is still a high end product. As all new technologies, development and higher demand will eventually lower the prices and become more affordable. Until we reach that point, time should be used as a beneficial factor and solutions should be implemented in order to develop progressively. Even if there are funds enough for starting a VF facility, the maintaining of a fully functioning food producing facility at this scale is costly. And this varies worldwide which shows the potential or the challenge of this technology to be applied (Fig.1).

Figure 1. Energy prices comparative worlwide. (NUS Consulting statista, 2015).

The Vertical Farms existing today can be found in USA, Japan, Singapore or Korea. The advantages of having this technology in order to produce food are already explained from the environmental, and economical point of view. The geographic localisation of these facilities can be explained from the kilowatt prices and availability of the vegetables. In USA, electricity is rather cheap in comparison with other countries, even with those ones that have a stable economy. This allows maintaining and operating a VF. There are more and more VF appearing in the US, showing that the first ones proved th

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to be successful. This is encouraging for researchers, practitioners and governments all over the world to focus more energy in this topic and make possible that this facilities can be implemented worldwide. In far east, there are also a few VFs. In Korea and Japan, for example, there is low availability of fresh vegetables coming from open field cultivation (Beghin, et.al. 2003). There are many greenhouses that produce food, but VF gets more attention because of the total control and independency of weather and seasons. Also, in this part of the world the acceptance for this kind of high technology applied is very big, and so it can enter the market and get the approval of the consumer very fast. 3.2

Challenges for developing countries

As we stated, the food security problems are global and are affecting countries worldwide. The vertical farming, can respond to this problems, but until now, there are more theoretical principles. The research on this theme is wide enough to be translated into practice, but high cost of implementation still need to be solved in order for practice to be achievable. This can be done by common effort from industry, academia, research and governments (Iles and Marsh, 2012). If key players in the field join forces, the cost can be assured in the name of sustainability and long term thinking (Rickby and Caceres, 2001). There are already discussions, ongoing projects and even associations worldwide in order to make lobby for the technology and help implementing as fast as possible. The countries that will suffer the most from the climate change and food insecurity are actually the poorest ones (Fig.2). Developing countries are already struggling to produce food and secure the wellbeing of their citizens. Low technology traditional agriculture is not a good match for the adverse weather events and for the increasing population and urbanization (Pauchard, et.al. 2006).

Figure 2. UN Human Development Report (2014)

In this article we focus on how VF can respond to future challenges in regard to food security and urbanization. We already stated that developed countries intensify their efforts to implement this facilities of food producing in the cities. The high initial investments and electricity prices are the biggest factors that stop the initiation. This means that developing countries have no potential of such strategy to take place in the cities. Food producing at the developing countries level is lacking technology and it’s rarely intense agriculture. The adaptability of these countries to climate change and unpredictability of the weather put them in a dark spot for the challenges of the future. More

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research projects have to be developed with regard to the applicability and poorer countries too (Cohen and Garett, 2010). Adaptability, flexibility and scalable The VF represents one of the possible solution of producing food inside cities with positive impact on the environment, and smart and efficient use of space and resources. This factors qualifies VF as a sustainable way of food producing. The biggest challenge until now is the economic one (Zezza and Tasciotti, 2010). Although year‐round production, with increased yield and less resources needed can return in important profits. But the obstacle represent the initial investment. Developing countries have less competitive economical background than developed countries. Costs are a big factor that can make some strategies seem unsuitable for them. Table 1. Motivation for Urban Agriculture listed by developed countries, newly industrialized countries and developing countries (Brohm, et.al. 2012) Developed countries Recreation/rehabilitation Self‐made local food Environmental education Decrease of crime Waste land use Social integration Improvement of micro‐climate Increase of biodiversity Sustainable urban development Organic food Consolidation of communities Neighbourhoods City beautification Less CO2 emissions

Newly industrialized countries Fresh local food Auxiliary income Ruin use/ waste land use Shortening of transport distance Decrease of crime

Developing countries Healthy fresh self‐made food Source of income

It is a fact that the problems are global so the solutions should be as well; there is interdependency between Global North and Global South (McClintock, 2010). The first is using the most of the world’s resources that are in many part in Global South. But the biggest discrepancy relies in economic development. Quantity is a normal dependent of the economic factor, but quality should not be the same. Scale is very important when we discuss novel strategies for food security. If the projects are scalable, then countries with less strong economies can apply them in a smaller scale. This can allow them to build up in a progressive way, using the time as an advantage. Profit reinvested can lead to succession development and so help shrinking the gap. To discuss the flexibility and adaptability of VF, we do not have to think of the facility as a whole, but to decompose and apply just the things that will add value to those who use it. Going back on the advantages of this technology VF is an alternative to traditional plant cultivation, through offering alternatives for resources needed. LED can mimic and replace sunlight, water is recycled and more than 90% can be saved, no pesticides are used etc. A fully equipped VF will have all this features in state of the art fashion. But in some parts of the world some resources are enough so the focus can be tuned towards other. This strategy in terms of resource efficient use is part of the VF ideology. The elements that compose the complex facility can be understood separately and just the ones that can bring value and are affordable should be priority and others should come later as an update of

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the features. If more people will design this kind of modular and flexible projects, the flow of knowhow between countries will be faster and more achievable. 4.

Case Study – BrickBorn Farming, Dresden, Germany

4.1

Site

BrickBorn Farming (Fig.3) is a project of a proposed Vertical Farm in the city of Dresden, the capital of Saxony, in Germany. The project begun in 2013 lead by Prof. Dr. Fritz‐Gerald Schröder from University of Applied Sciences, Dresden.

Figure 3. BrickBorn Farming (original)

Dresden is one of the greenest cities in all of Europe, with 63% of the city being green areas and forests. Having this reputation, the contrast of the small industrial area in the west part of the city strikes one and give a sence of alteration in the urban canvas of the capital of Saxony. In this part of the city, there is an abandoned factory that was intended as a food production facility. 4.2

Background

The building was designed by the german architect Kurt Bärbig, and was constructed between 1927 and 1930. Although the function of the building was to produce processed food, and the building is empty since 1991, time until some tried to use the space, for other functions. The building is important for the city of Dresden because it represents a historical heritage from one of the important architects of Germany. Kurt Bärbig that lived between 1889 and 1968. In 1923 he was appointed as the sole architect of Dresden in the German Academy for Town Planning. Bärbig’s progressive thinking, characterized by social aspects of urban and landscape design pays homage to the spirit of the times of objectivity, material relatedness and an effort to "period of promoterism". Born in Dresden in 1889, he immigrated to Brazil in 1934 and came back to the ruined city that was a result of the World War II. In 1952, he was head of freelance architects in the competition for the redesign of Dresden. He had an important involvement in rebuilding the city as we know today. The food factory he designed, has particular features that make it as an important edifice of the urban space. He designed it as a processed food production facility including bakery, brewery and

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distillery, but it was not completed due to the world economic crisis from 1920s. The one that were accomplished by that time were the meat factory and the vehicle hall on the other side of the street. The building has 12.000 square meters available space and was designed according to functional principles, and defines the space in the street with the curved façade. There was a six sided glass tower, typical for the 1920s architecture that was lid from inside, and served as advertisement and attention drawing tool, towards the site. 4.3

Construction specifications

Sandstone, stone, plaster are known as typical facade materials in Saxony. Actually brick, clinker are associated with north Germany, Hanseatic cities such as Lübeck and Hamburg. In the Saxon cities of Dresden, Leipzig and Chemnitz there are several notable buildings, ensembles and settlements in the early decades of the 20th century, which are influenced by the material of clinker with its various ochers, reds, browns ‐ a building material that can be considered more sustainable. 4.4

BrickBorn Farming – Vertical Farm in Dresden

In 2013 BrickBorn Farming (BBF) project was started as an idea of Vertical Farm in the abandoned food production factory designed by Kurt Bärbig. The project aims to find suitable solutions for implementing plant cultivation technology in the building, in order to produce fresh food in the city while starting a pioneer project in the field that can stand as a model of future food production and planning in the urban areas. Since then, the project went to more developing phases and the idea was repeatedly communicated, gathering experts and potential stake holders in a common discussion about the possibility of implementation. Nevertheless, there is still a high level of research and development work needed, in order to achieve a profitable solution when the market is ready for this technology. A special challenge is the high technical complexity as well as large energy demand. Various aspects regarding food production in urban areas should be linked, which is an objective of the project. 4.4.1 Guidelines of the project (http://www.brickborn‐farming.de/) Coordination cooperation The most fundamental challenge, however, lies in the common dialogue between all workspaces. The focus is on plants and animals. In order to produce food and sustain the business, it requires the best possible optimization of the production factors use such as energy, water, fertilizers, feed, etc. Complex relationships, which can be solved only through a holistic interdisciplinary property development. Plants, mushrooms and algae cultivation The cultivation of plants is naturally taken place outdoors. Cultures which are not adapted to the respective prevailing cultivation climate, yet can be produced in greenhouses. However, the year‐ round cultivation of any plant can be carried out only under absolutely controlled conditions. Greenhouses under central European conditions are optimal only partially, since it is often too hot in summer and in winter, the insulation performance of the glass is not sufficient to be able to grow profitably. The protected cultivation in buildings prevents bad influences on plant growth under expert supervision and efficient use of cultivation factors. Particularly suitable for building bound th

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growing systems, different leaf and fruit vegetables, strawberries, herbs, precious mushrooms and algae can be cultivated. Development potential exists primarily in the fields of optimization and adaptation of cropping systems, automation and plant monitoring. Aquaculture Controlled breeding in water living organisms (fish, molluscs, crustaceans and algae) will progress in the coming years. There were problems so far especially with the water treatment and the high heat demand of some plants. It is increasingly trying to provide circuits to further increase the profitability of the systems, for example, in combination with the growing plants. As a module in a building‐ related food production, aquaculture is intended to represent the main focus in the field of animal production. However, these circuits can make sense only when there is a design that will not make any compromises for any of the participants in it. Plant culture Not every plant culture is entirely suitable for the protected cultivation in buildings. However, the classical plant breeding offers the potential to create modern, adapted varieties, their characteristics are not only the best growth but also healthy products, and they may also follow new trends quickly, and realize consumer requirements specifically. Supplemental lighting The development of efficient high‐performance LEDs is at the centre of numerous experiments. However, the use is not yet fully suitable for large‐scale crop production. The lamps commonly used are not optimally adapted to its range of plant growth, and consume a lot of energy (Fan et.al. 2013). The combination of reinforced and novelty in conjunction with intelligent lighting control and tuned light recipes can lead to a successful and profitable possibility. Energy Energy is the central issue in the production of plants and animals in protected cultivation. Electricity and heat are really intensive production factors which denotes a friendly environment approach in order to have the best impact. Energy saving, energy recovery, energy storage and transport must be pursued. The building‐bound production offers a variety of options. So waste heat harvested from lamps, can be used to temper water in the fish production. Production waste can flow in the energy recovery and facades are also used as solar power areas. Important here is the development of systems for transferring heat energy in transport and storage media. Architecture, urban development and conversion There are number of municipal buildings possible for the production of food. Vacant industrial buildings, skyscrapers, unused military facilities represent just a small selection. In addition to the preservation of monuments, revitalization effects surroundings of the production facility and can have positive effects on urban development. The construction of new buildings can be useful. Monitoring systems All cultural processes must be constantly checked for compliance with optimum parameters. One of the most difficult challenges in the projects is monitoring living organisms and obtaining meaningful derivation of the health from their vital functions, but results in a higher guarantee of success for the production. This creates a need to develop new sensors connected to intelligent regulation and control algorithms for the protected production.

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Marketing, acceptance, Education New methods of cultivation can arouse mistrust among consumers. The numerous advantages of the urban, building‐related food production, must be conveyed transparently and comprehensibly. The insight into the production building and the exact explanation of the modern methods are probably the best tools to achieve the necessary acceptance form. Can be relined confidence through the compilation of studies on the ecological balance and the safety of the processes and products. Project Development The planning and implementation of a complex project requires a comprehensive preparation. Starting with the determination of a suitable property, the find operators, investors and marketers to concepts of financing a high degree of networking and advocacy is needed. The project development has to lie in competent hands that can consider all aspects in advance. Hygiene, food safety In the open field cultivation and water bound aquaculture, the organisms are exposed to every imaginable influences. Animals absorb these situations better, because they have an immune system and possibly able to escape from negative influences. However, plants need protection in order to achieve optimum growth. The protected cultivation in buildings allows the maximum optimization of plant growth claims, and so no residues occur. The mandatory hygienic measures has to be observed for humans, so plants and animals can be significantly better enforced here. 4.4.2 Communication of the project Part of the challenge of starting such a project, is getting acceptance from the community. This can be done through consistent and progressive communication efforts where the ones that worked to develop the project should be transparent and present the advantages of implementing this technology. Food security is not influenced just from producer to receiver, but also customer behaviour is an important factor (Sharp and Smith, 2003). In the future, the growing population will create a high demand for food, but also the expectations are high. Of course, this varies on the global scale, but always the end user of the products has as important role as the producer. On the other hand, communication, marketing and making the concept as visible as possible leads to future collaboration with industry, academia, scientific areas and governments, which can further develop and help implementing the project. In the first year, after the concept was developed, it was presented in a number of conferences and symposiums at a national and international level, where the new ideas were shown and put for discussions. This returned important feedback from specialists in the field coming from industry, academia, science or politics and positioned the project on the map of future technologies to be applied. Among this conferences, there was Future Horticulture Conference, under the auspices of the Federal Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Consumer Protection of Germany, "Regional Concepts for the Energy Change" that took place on the central campus of BTU Cottbus‐Senftenberg and was a cooperation between German and Polish governments. Then, the project was presented also in China, at “BIT's World Congress of Agriculture" that took place in the garden city of Hangzhou 200 km south‐east of Shanghai, where there were more than 1000 participants from 63 countries. These communication efforts were important to establish new targets for further developing and optimizing the project, as well as building networks in the field that can lead to future collaborations or more focused efforts head into this subject.

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4.4.3 Further development The initial concept presented strengths and challenges in term of implementation in the near future. This lead to a number of workshops that aimed to debate the BrickBorn Farming from as many perspectives as possible, in order to tackle the challenges and understand all the implications and effects. International workshop ‐ Concurrent Engineering This workshop was organised at the University of Applied Sciences from Dresden. It took place in three intensive days, with participants from the Master Course of Horticulture of the host University, PhD students, and developers of BBF with partners from Germany, Romania and Japan. The objectives were set prior to the meeting and a common ground of documentation was set, where everybody could contribute with ideas and references that could be used in the workshop. In the "concurrent engineering process" so‐called experts work simultaneously on a common technical development. The tasks and objectives were set and distributed to ones that had expertise in the certain field. This type of working together in the same room with different task but common goals, sped up the process, compressing the time and reducing the risk of later becoming necessary changes and also, improves coordination between experts involved in the workshop. The entire process was coordinated by Prof.Dr. Fritz‐Gerald Schröder, and the information and progress was shared between participants on a common data set, while the direct verbal and media communication are characteristic to very positive results. In the workshop the focus was on technology applied, product development, investment, profitability and studying what are the needs for this project to be successful and how can be further developed and implemented. The teams were working on crop and crop systems, climate and irrigation control, economy, design, supplemental light and facility management. In the end all information was ad in a common report that gives perspectives for the upcoming steps. The results showed that the biggest challenge is the supplemental lighting with LEDs, which will become the highest costs of production. More research on better optimization, and implementation of supplemental lighting must be done in order to raise the affordability for large scale production. But the strategies developed and analysed both environmentally and economically, show the flexibility of the project with modular growing systems (Fig. 4).

Figure 4. Lettuce growing A‐frame system. (INTEGAR, 2014, drawn by R.M. Giurgiu)

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Green Infrastructure Seminar “As urban sprawl and landscape fragmentation continues worldwide, the concept of green infrastructure has recently been gaining increased attention from policy, research and practice. In a nutshell, green infrastructure (GI) aims at enhancing the connectivity, stability and productivity of green in its widest sense. The scope ranges from agricultural spots in the urban fringe, via urban brownfields to rooftop gardens in condensed city centers” (Green Infrastructure seminar, Nürtingen‐ Geislingen University, 2014). The seminar was organized by Nürtingen‐Geislingen University, Germany and Kassel University, Germany, and it was 100 % online with participants as international students dealing with landscape architecture and neighboring disciplines, from all over the world. Teams of 4 were formed and from October 2014 to January 2015, the students had the opportunity to see weekly presentation of case studies relevant to the topic, both from research and practice. A multidisciplinary engagement was encouraged. The teams had to firstly prepare a personal case study and present the threats and the solutions on a wiki page format. Interaction between students and cases was also allowed and encouraged. The second phase was working on collaborative project. One team formed from students from Romania, Macedonia, India and Jordan have selected brick Born Farming as a challenge to study and think of ideas in term of green infrastructure through Vertical Farming. The students identified some threatening issues that can be addressed in the following design process. Food Security: The floods or other climatic events can result in poor crop yields and threaten the food security of the city. Lack of Green in Industrial Area: Although projects of GI techniques are planned on a long term, the industrial area is still dominated by big buildings, lack of green space, and an uninviting environment for the community and visitors. History and Culture: The Food Production factory failed due to the World Economic Crisis from 1920, but the fact that is not now active with any function, may lead to losing the cultural heritage that the Architect Kurt Bärbig left behind. The second approach was through a number of analytical drawings of the site from different point of view. Urban context, attractions of the city and the dynamic of the use of space (Fig.5) was noted. On a more micro level, activities and functions of the neighborhood were analyzed. Urban allotments were also found and mapped to see which the opening of the community to urban farming is. To address the flooding problem, the river systems were mapped with flooding dams and reservoirs. The environmental parameters like sun, wind, precipitation schemes were analyzed. The building site and structure was studied as a potential space for food production, research and community engagement. This documentation was used for further projective analyzes. For the projective drawings, each participant made some drawings related to what each found most significant as a potential for development in this case study. There were ideas about a food production combined with research in the field and also focus on education and community engagement. The surroundings of the building were also proposed as sustainable green infrastructure by applying a strategy for development with permeable pavement, greenery and linking to nearby park and other green zones from the city. The other means of urban farming, like urban allotments were linked to this case study with focus on education, innovation, rejuvenation of a “non interesting” area with the ending result of food produced in a clean and novel way that sustains the city. Deeper in the green infrastructure area, were proposed strategies of site valuable waste produce that can be reused. For example waste of heat or water from the active factories nearby the building can be headed towards the food production Vertical farm (Fig.6), which can use heat to lower costs and use hydroponics to phytoremediation of the water and reuse it in the process.

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Figure 5. Mapping of functionalability in the neighbourhood of BrickBorn Farming (Ivana Lilikj, 2014)

The final step was to make a collaborative design synthesis where the main ideas and approaches were coagulated into a singular project outline. Here were highlighted the important of the BrickBorn Farming project as food production facility in the city, but also it would become a new social node in the city, where innovation, education and research would be valued and shared. And though becoming a model of other facilities that can be developed for a more sustainable future. Agricultural systems of the future BrickBorn Farming was selected as a case study to be debated in the competition of visions 2015 entitled Agricultural Systems of the Future, from the Federal Ministry of Education and Research of Germany. The aim of the competition was to interview as many representatives from research, industry, organizations, politics, administration or the media about their ideas and about future

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developments of agricultural systems, in order to derive research and technology policy‐relevant innovation fields for agricultural research. Until mid‐July total of 96 visions and concepts were received, of which 31 were selected by the Expert Advisory Group. The Brick Born Farming consortium was able to convince with its submitted sketch and was invited to present the concept as part of the creative workshops conducted in Potsdam. The workshop was the follow‐up of the contest of the visions to further develop in a creative process innovative future models and solutions for the agricultural systems of the future. Using the Design Thinking approach led by moderators and coaches of the Hasso Plattner Institute Potsdam (HPI Academy). The ideas were developed in intense teamwork following common understanding of the issue and objectives.

Figure 6. Projective drawing. Srategies proposed (Radu Giurgiu, 2014)

4.4.4 BrickBorn Farming – conclusions Urban farming is a response to the food insecurity challenge and rapid urbanization. Vertical farming is a way of food production within cities, while using the resources efficient, and having most possible control over the environment with no independency of outdoor events. BrickBorn Farming is such a concept, developed for an abandoned building from Dresden, Germany. Although it is designed on a specific site, the development progress shows the flexibility of the systems, which can be adapted to other buildings and scenarios. The project is looking continuously to new ways of helping to bridge the theory with practice and stands as a case study that can be replicated in other areas (Vandermeulen, et.al. 2009). At this moment, the facility needs a big investment and many th

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players involved in order to make it function. But the efforts to diminish this gap could be used as knowhow for other small scale facilities in other parts of the world. 5.

Conclusions

Food Security is an important topic on a Global level. Rapid Climate change, urbanization and population rise, together with the scarce resources bring new challenges for the humanity to face in the future. The gap between the Global North and the Global South ads more difficulties into the equation because the solution designed for addressing the challenges must be adaptable and scalable. The flexibility of the new ideas and concepts is an important factor if we can respond globally. Urban farming grows in popularity because it has a number of advantages. The environmental one is the biggest advantage, with low impact in this regard, but also is defined as a solution to sustain mega cities with fresh food. Urban farming can have many applications and ways to do it, but should always respond to the local challenges and global ones and use the site information to adapt them. Vertical farming is one of the ways of producing food, but differing from the other ways through independency of weather events. This brings the technology in the spotlight as the rapid climate change make the weather unpredictable and strategies for traditional agriculture can fail and produce huge negative effects for food security. Although all the advantages listed bring Vertical Farms as optimal solution, there are very few facilities functioning. The reason is the initial price of investment and the maintaining prices, especially in the countries with high price of electricity. This challenge can be overcome if we understand the Vertical Farm as a complex concept constructed from many different parts that act together as a sustainable long term food production facility. This will give the flexibility needed to use the key elements and adapt to the existing potential of investment. BrickBorn Farming is a case study from Dresden, Germany, where an abandoned building show a high potential of becoming a Vertical farm. This project is on continuous developing and search of innovation, ideas and partners to get from theoretical concept to practice. Communication efforts and developing workshops are done in a time that the debate is more acute and more are becoming interested in a novel way of food production, in the cities. The development and guidelines of the project can be taken out of context, understood and adapted for other sites and scenarios. The international approach has led to a good transfer of know‐how and even from today it can inspire other projects as it. Countries that face problems not just from the global challenges regarding food security but also economic instability (Cohen, 2004), can use the knowledge and develop projects that use the time as a factor for progressive development. Parts of Vertical Farming concepts can be adapted and used in developing and semi‐industrialized countries. There should be more collaboration on this level and research experiments should start in such countries, too. The global threats over food security have to be address on a Global level with efforts from many countries and societies.

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References

Atkinson S.J., 1995, Approaches and actors in urban food security in developing countries, Habitat International, 19(2), pp151‐163 Aubry C., J. Ramamonjisoa, M.H. Dabat, J. Rakotoarisoa, J. Rakotondraibe, L. Rabeharisoa, 2012, Urban agriculture and land use in cities: An approach with the multi‐functionality and sustainability concepts in the case of Antananarivo (Madagascar), Land Use Policy, 29(2), pp429‐439 Beghin J.C., J.C. Bureau, S.J. Park, 2003, Food security and agricultural protection in South Korea, American Journal of Agricultural Economics, 85(3), 618‐632 Brohm D., N. Domurath, F.G. Schröder, 2012, Urban Agriculture, A Challenge and a Chance, Conference: 13th Scientific Days Gyöngyös Cohen B., 2004, Urban growth in developing countries: A review of current trends and a caution regarding existing forecasts, World Development, 32(1), pp23‐51 Cohen, M.J. and J. L., Garrett, 2010, The food price crisis and urban food (in)security, Environment and Urbanization, 22(2), pp467‐482 Despommier D., 2011, The vertical farm: Controlled environment agriculture carried out in tall buildings would create greater food safety and security for large urban populations, Journal fur Verbraucherschutz und Lebensmittelsicherheit, 6(2), pp233‐236 Fan X.X., Z.G. Xu, X.Y. Liu, C.M. Tang, L.W. Wang, X.L. Han, 2013, Effects of light intensity on the growth and leaf development of young tomato plants grown under a combination of red and blue light, Scientia Horticulturae, 153, pp50‐55 Fischetti M., 2008, Growing Vertical, Scientific American, 18(4), pp74‐79 Grewal S. and P. Grewal, 2012, Can cities become self‐reliant in food?, Cities, 29(1), pp1‐11 Hertwich E. and G. Peters, 2009, Carbon footprint of nations: A global, trade‐linked analysis, Environmental Science and Technology, 43(16), pp 6414‐6420 Iles A. and R. Marsh, 2012, Nurturing Diversified Farming Systems in Industrialized Counries: How Public Policy can contribute, Ecology and society, 17(4), pp1‐32 McClintock N., 2010, Why farm the city? Theorizing urban agriculture through a lens of metabolic rift, Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy and Society, 3(2), pp191‐207 Pauchard A., M.Aguayo, E. Peña, R. Urrutia, 2006, Multiple effects of urbanization on the biodiversity of developing countries: The case of a fast‐growing metropolitan area (Concepción, Chile), Biological Conservation, 127(3), pp 272‐281 Rigby D. and D. Cáceres, 2001, Organic farming and the sustainability of agricultural systems, Agricultural Systems, 68(1) pp21‐40 Sigrid S., 2002, Local organic food markets: Potentials and limitations for contributing to sustainable development, Empirica, 29(2), 145‐162 Sharp J.S.and M.B. Smith, 2003, Social capital and farming at the rural‐urban interface: The importance of nonfarmer and farmer relations, Vandermeulen V., X. Gellynck, G. Van Huylenbroeck, J. Van Orshoven, K. Bomans, 2009, Farmland for tomorrow in densely populated areas, Land Use Policy, 26(4), pp 859‐868 Zezza A. anfood L. Tasciotti, 2010, Urban agriculture, poverty, and food security: Empirical evidence from a sample of developing countries, Food Policy, 35(4), pp265‐273 Zhang N., Wang M., Wang N., 2002, Precision agriculture—a worldwide overview, Computers and Electronics in Agriculture, 36(2‐3), pp113‐132 Green Infrastructure seminar, 2014, Nürtingen‐Geislingen University Available at: < https://fluswikien.hfwu.de/index.php?title=Landscape_Democracy_2015/>, [Accessed 28 September 2011]. BrickBorn Farming [online] Available at: < http://www.brickborn‐farming.de/ [Accessed 27 September 2011]. Electricity prices comparative World wide, NUS Consulting, [online] Available at: <http://www.statista.com/statistics/263492/electricity‐prices‐in‐selected‐countries/> [Accessed 14 September 2011]

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Dirk Wascher, Leonne Jeurissen, “Metropolitan Footprint Tools for Spatial Planning. At the Example of Food Safety and Security in the th Rotterdam Region”, In: Localizing urban food strategies. Farming cities and performing rurality. 7 International Aesop Sustainable Food Planning Conference Proceedings, Torino, 7‐9 October 2015, edited by Giuseppe Cinà and Egidio Dansero, Torino, Politecnico di Torino, 2015, pp 171‐184. ISBN 978‐88‐8202‐060‐6

A METROPOLITAN FOOTPRINT TOOL FOR SPATIAL PLANNING AT THE EXAMPLE OF FOOD SAFETY AND SECURITY IN THE ROTTERDAM REGION D.M Wascher1, Leonne Jeurissen1

Keywords: food consumption, ecological footprint, spatial planning, sustainable cities

Abstract: Recognizing that food production and consumption is not only linked via one‐directional food chains in terms of processing and logistic pathways, but also part of cross‐sectoral and hence multi‐directional value chains associated with bio‐economy, the EU project FOODMETRES has explored the role of metropolitan footprint assessments as decision support tools for spatial planning at the regional and European level, estimating self‐sufficiency at the level of metropolitan regions. The tools are also able to derive spatial zoning with an urban core area, followed by a green buffer reserved for nature and recreation, a metropolitan food production zone differentiating a plant‐based and a protein‐based supply zone, and a transition zone, which is meant to provide food for adjacent urban areas. Within this zoning strategy, food safety aspects are incorporated by placing livestock farming at a remote position following the need to reduce direct expose of core urban population to this sector’s impacts (health, odours and food safety issues). Central to these efforts has been the attention to metropolitan regions. As global hotspots for trade, transport and tourism, metropolitan regions hold extremely high stakes in food logistics, safety and quality. At the same time they are places where local, regional and global agro‐food processes have a great potential for generating synergy. Therefore, metropolitan regions can be considered as being privileged for agro‐food system innovation. This paper illustrates possible applications of this tool in the context of the Metropolitan Region Rotterdam‐DenHaag (MRDH) and puts forward spatial planning recommendations for food safety and food security targets. 1.

Background: Food Safety

Conventional food production operates in a global food supply network, which has been increasing exponentially since the 1960s. Figure 1 illustrates that the per‐capita trade activity at the level of Global Agro‐Food Systems (GAS) is largest for The Netherlands and hence a case in point to act as a potential vector for microbiological or chemical contaminations. Ercsey‐Ravasz et al. (2012) stress the need to monitor, understand, and control food trade flows as it becomes “an issue no longer affecting just single countries, but the global livelihood of the human population”. At the level of Local Agro‐Food Systems (LAS), food safety and quality usually depends largely on one person, or a small team and are therefore prone to conflict with other daily activities or transparency issues. Production of healthy food requires avoiding excessive accumulation of undesirable – or even harmful – substances like heavy metals or nitrates in food products, which can be a problem in urban agriculture. Most food produced in cities is consumed directly by the growers themselves, without having passed any safety assurance system. More analyses, more evidence, targeted professional advice to practitioners, and better media information are crucial on these issues. On the other hand, with raw materials usually coming from local sources and food storage, processing or transactions being clearly restricted, food safety risks associated with LAS must be considered as rather marginal, certainly when compared to the inevitable delays when tracing contamination pathway within the complex nature of GAS. The really limiting factor of LAS, however, is the size of the area available for

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Dirk Wascher, Leonne Jeurissen, “Metropolitan Footprint Tools for Spatial Planning. At the Example of Food Safety and Security in the Rotterdam Region”

food production: the 105 urban agricultural initiatives within the Municipality of Rotterdam cover about 31.5 hectare in total (Kirsima, 2013) which amounts to less than 0.05% of the area needed for 600.000 citizens (see Figure 2).

Figure 1. International trade activities in 2007 at the level of GAS (Ercsey‐Ravasz et al., 2012).

Figure 2: Local Agricultural Food Systems of Rotterdam th

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Dirk Wascher, Leonne Jeurissen, “Metropolitan Footprint Tools for Spatial Planning. At the Example of Food Safety and Security in the Rotterdam Region”

Being the global hotspot for agricultural world trade, the Metropoolregio Rotterdam – Den Haag (MRDH) holds extremely high stakes in food logistics, safety and quality. At the same time it is a place where local, regional and global agro‐food processes have a great potential for generating synergy. To date, food safety problems are often directly related to the fact that many people live in high population density areas, animals are intensively kept, transport networks are complex and pathogenic vectors affecting human health are extremely mobile by air, water and organisms. At the same time, the ongoing ‘transition’ toward a ‘low carbon’ society calls for a new ‘re‐localisation’ of energy and matter flows, especially between urban and rural domain. In this context, The FOODMETRES project seeks to contribute with spatial and functional assessment tools that are based on the principles of coherent ‘food sheds’ or zones. Such an approach needs to adhere to the following principles: (1) resource efficiency measures for saving energy, water, nutrients and space, (2) circular economy to minimize waste and optimise value chains, and (3) spatial zonation to better manage health risks associated with intensive livestock farming, such as Q‐fever, MRSA, ESBL, and the threat of an H5N1 pandemic (CEG, 2012).

Ecological Footprint as a Conceptual Framework

The European Sustainable Development Strategy (CEC, 2009) addresses a broad range of ‘unsustainable trends’ ranging from public health, poverty and social exclusion to climate change, energy use and management of natural resources. A key objective of the SDS is to promote development that does not exceed ecosystem carrying capacity and to decouple economic growth from negative environmental impacts. A report commissioned by the European Commission (2008) came to the conclusion that the Ecological Footprint should be used by EU institutions within the Table 1: Ecological footprints in global and local hectares based on the population figures for the six case study areas

Sources: * EUREAPA online scenario modelling and policy assessment tool (Briggs, 2011) ** National references and estimates based on EFSA (2011) *** EUREAPA data for S‐Africa & estimates

Sustainable Development Indicators (SDI) framework. The Ecological Footprint measures how much biologically productive land and water area is required to provide the resources consumed and absorb the wastes generated by a human population, taking into account prevailing technology. The annual production of biologically provided resources, called

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bio‐capacity, is also measured as part of the methodology. The Ecological Footprint and bio‐capacity are each measured in global hectares, a standardized unit of measurement equal to 1 hectare with global average productivity (CEC, 2008).

Figure 3: Ecological footprint (EF) in global and local hectares for London, Rotterdam City Region, Berlin, Milano, Ljubljana and Nairobi2. Large dark circles as global hectares and small blue circles as local hectares showing the land requirements in terms of food production areas based on national accounts.

However, due to a fragmented research history with simultaneous and largely uncoordinated efforts across sectors, research institutes and regions, ecological footprint calculations are manifold and differ substantially in terms of underlying data and methodologies. While the ecological footprint is still considered as a key reference and communication tool when comparing environmental impacts at highly aggregated levels, the above mentioned inconsistencies have been a matter of concern for both research and policy. With the emergence of the European Footprint Tool (Briggs, 2011) this situation has clearly improved. The new, internet‐based assessment tool offers a harmonized methodology for all 27 EU countries plus another 16 countries and regions of the world which allows statistical modelling and even scenario developments for different sectors, among which food consumption impacts, as global hectares (see Table 1). Another challenge of the ecological footprint approach is the abstract dimension of its currency – the global hectares which represent the total impact of certain economic sectors and activities as the sum of all processes along the production chain – in this case the food chain from farm to fork. This includes all energy, water, land and material input resources such as fertilizers, machinery and packing material that occur along the full food chain. Using global hectares as a normalized unit

Calculations of both global and local hectares for Milano, Ljubljana and Nairobi are based on estimates.

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allows Ecological Footprints to be expressed in comparable area terms, despite differences in bio‐ productivity among land types, regions and countries. EUREAPA tracks the use of six categories of productive areas: cropland, grazing land, fishing grounds, forest area, built‐up land, and carbon demand on land. The translation into global hectares uses yield factors and equivalence factors, which relate the bio‐productivity of each land type to the global average bio‐productivity. Because the bio‐productivity of land types varies by country, yield factors are used to relate national yields in each category of land to the global average yields. Equivalence factors adjust for the relative productivity of the six categories of land and water area. EUREAPA figures have been used to illustrate the global hectare requirements of the six case study areas in comparison to local hectares based on different references (see Table 1 and Figure 1). The annual production of biologically provided resources, called bio‐capacity, is also measured as part of the Ecological Footprint methodology, and is also accounted for in terms of global hectares. While global hectares can be considered as a typical dimension of evidence‐based impact assessments, the associated land demands appear rather virtual in terms of their spatial‐geographic explicitness.

Methodology of the Metropolitan Foodscape Planner (MFP)

Here is where the FOODMETRES Metropolitan Foodscape Planner tool come in. Rather than relying on global hectares as the basis for communicating the impacts of urban food consumption, this tool is designed to translate the principles of the available ‘bio‐capacity’ into a spatially explicit reference base that manages both ‘demand’ and ‘supply’ data simultaneously at the scale of metropolitan regions. MFP thrives largely on European data making it – to a certain degree – independent from national/regional data sources (see Table 2). The latter must be considered as a pre‐requirement for European‐wide applications at virtually all metropolitan regions with the European Union. Table 2: Data Layers applied in the MFP model. Data Layer Cities_startpoint_Berlin Corine Land Cover 2006

Source www.eea.europa.eu/data‐and‐maps/data/corine‐land‐cover‐2006‐raster‐3 version 8 april 2014, download 13 jan 2015 in arccat export .tiff als esrigrid in MFT.gdb www.eea.europa.eu/data‐and‐maps/data/natura‐5#tab‐gis‐data shapefile Natura2000_end2013_rev1.shp European Landscape Typology LANMAP (Mücher et al. 2006) lanmap2_v1_level_4_ls‐cod

Natura2000 Lanmap2v1 Multi‐ring‐buffer around combine distance‐raster and 3 rasters with the correct legenda and greyed city_startpoint: first calculate radii areas based on: total demand per ring Homogenous Soil Mapping Units (HSMU) as modelled by CAPRI (Kempen et al. HSMU 2005) and Eurostat crop area data desaggregated to hsmu’s by CAPRI. Year per country: NL 2008, BL 2008, DE 2008, PL 2004.

Building MFP requires a series of data management and GIS operations to be performed in Excel and Arc‐Info. Using the example of the Rotterdam Metropolitan Region procedure, we will illustrate the following sequence of steps that are required: ‐ Creating the dynamic footprint‐driven spatial zoning framework (von Thünen, 1826);

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‐ ‐

Disaggregation of the CORINE land cover units to arrive at distinctive land use types in form of commodity groups (HSMU); Establishing commodity group allocation rules on the basis of landscape units (LANMAP);

Building upon the classical market‐centered von Thünen (1826) model, but translating it into contemporary agri‐environmental and spatial planning strategies, we developed the following concept of metropolitan zones: (1) urban core area, followed by (2) a green buffer reserved for nature and recreation, (3) a metropolitan food production zone differentiating a plant‐based and a protein‐based supply zone, and (4) a transition zone which is meant to provide food also for adjacent urban areas. Making use of the figures for urban food demand, MFP projects the corresponding land demand figures in the form of ‘local hectares’ to those areas of land that can be considered to be eligible for farming. We hence excluded all land covered by urban areas, waterbodies (sea, lakes & rivers), nature and landscape conservation sites, forests and other non‐farmlands such as rocks, beaches and swamps. Around urban centers we reserved a zone as ‘green buffer’ for mainly biodiversity and recreational functions – but without investing into further elaborations. Here we obviously consider all land to primary serve this potential function. The guiding principle for introducing such a green buffer was based on the assumption, that (1) urban dwellers will appreciate short travel distances to enjoy these functions, and (2) there is a basic need to offer micro‐climatic compensation for high density urban zones in terms of air quality and circulation.

Figure 4: The von Thünen model in two variation – as isolated state and a modification displaying river access and a sub‐centre location.

Following the green buffer, we gave full priority to the supply with plant‐based food groups such as rotation crops (wheat, sugar beet, potatoes), other cereals, oil seeds, vegetables and fruit, taking the total hectare requirements for calculating the width of the plant‐based metropolitan food‐ring, as we th

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call it. This means that the amount of available farmland within this ring matches exactly the total amount for land needed for all plant‐based food groups, but that actual distribution of these food groups within this ring shows of course large deficits and surpluses, thus the type of expected imbalance we consider as an important reference when exploring potentials for optimizing the supply with regional food on the basis of the available land. Directly following the plant‐based ring, follows the protein‐based food production ring which extension corresponds exactly to the amount of hectares requires for fodder crops and dairy farming. The decision to place livestock farming at a remote position follows the need to reduce direct expose of core urban population to this sector’s impacts (health, odors, food safety issues). Figure 4 shows the von Thünen model in two variations with market gardening and milk production in the direct periphery of the central city. This corresponds in the MFP approach with the concept of the urban agriculture as part of the central core area and extensive dairy farming at the fringe and in the green buffer. Not being part of the agro‐food sector, firewood and lumber production has not been taken up in the scheme. Crop farming and three‐field system corresponds with the plant‐ based food ring, so does the location of livestock farming at the outer periphery in line with the MFP’s zoning concept. In the following we explain the step‐wise approach towards building the MFP zoning framework for Rotterdam (see Figure 5). 3.1

Green buffer

Determining the green buffer is the only step that is not driven by the ecological footprint data derived from EFSA/national data. This is because the area demand for recreation and nature experience is not considered to be directly related to matters of food consumption. At the same time research has shown that urban dwellers benefit from a certain minimum of available open green space to compensate for urban density, noise and pollution. However, technical references differ quite largely and given the fact that the urban buffer is not the only space offered preserved for nature and recreation – all existing protected areas, forests and water bodies are exempt from food planning objectives – we decided to establish a certain minimum distance as the rule of thumb: namely 50% of the urban core’s average radius between its periphery and the subsequent metropolitan food rings dominated by high agricultural production. For Rotterdam the radius of the Urban Core is 10km. For the Green Buffer half that distance – thus 5 km – has been taken. Within this Green Buffer we did not consider existing land use areas to be eligible for land use change/food group allocation plans. We did though consider to maintain existing grasslands to contribute to extensive livestock farming as in the past. Remaining areas are meant to be successively converted to extensive cultural landscapes, nature areas and recreational parks. 3.2

Metropolitan food rings (plant‐ and protein‐based)

The radii of the “Metro‐Food‐Ring veg”, the “Metro‐Food‐Ring prot” and the “Transition Zone” are calculated based on the total demand in ha for the population and the total area available for agriculture per ring. For Rotterdam the city population for the Metro‐Food‐Ring is 1.2 million and the region population for the Transition Zone is 6.6 million (see Table 3). The demand per capita can differ for different zones and for vegetable products and animal products. Table 3 shows the demands we used to calculate the rings. The total area available for agriculture is the area classified in Corine Land Cover as agricultural areas, sport and

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leisure facilities, green urban areas, natural grasslands and sparsely vegetated areas, minus the protected areas in Natura2000. The allocation of crops within the zones is based on the land cover, landscape typology and the protected area database.

Figure 5: MFP zonation for both Rotterdam city (Zones 1 – 3) and Metropoolregio Rotterdam Den Haag (zone 4) at the level of Metropolitan Agro‐Food Systems (MAS)

The crop data per HSMU comes in *.gdx format. The approach was as follows: ‐ Calculate per HSMU the area for each crop category according to the crop category table, both absolute and relative to the total HSMU area (= density). Also determine the dominant crop (qua area). ‐ Join these data to the HSMU geometry. ‐ Make a selection of the HSMU’s with crop data, and extract the HSMU’s within the outer zone boundary. ‐ Union the above with the zones (rings) defined previously and aggregate based on the zone‐id and HSMU‐ID. If the zones cross national borders combine the HSMU data of those countries. ‐ Calculate for each crop category the absolute value of the area in that HSMU polygon in that zone in ha as: percentage crop area multiplied with the HSMU polygon area in ha. ‐ Calculate the total area per zone for each crop category. ‐ Calculate for each zone the division of area’s between the crop categories. Base the calculation of the “Status quo” of crop area per zone and per crop type on these divisions. ‐ Comparison of the status quo with the demand results in the surplus/deficit.

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Table 3: Calculations for the MFP zoning distances for the City Region and OECD Region of Rotterdam. Ring types (zones)

Rotterdam city region Rotterdam OECD region Urban Core Green Buffer Organic dairy in UC & GB

Distance Surface area of rings (ha) Demand factor (ha/p) (km) Arable or Arable Grass Arable Arable Grass‐ grass land (includ. or grass protecte d)

Population

Required surface area (population x demand factor) surface land use type (ha)

1,200,000 7,800,000 0‐10 10‐15 0‐15

Metro‐Food‐Ring (plant‐ 15‐24 based) Metro‐Food‐Ring (protein‐ 24‐40 based) Transition‐Zone 40‐150

12642 25608 38250

14,436

0.05 288,720

68930 41,129

0.0341

163,445 1,402,085

1,200,000 40,920 0.178 911,280 162,208

0.2121

6,600,000 1,399,860

grass, irrespective of protection arable, not protected arable and grass, not protected arable and grass, not protected

3.3

Landscape allocation rules

Since the objective is to actively change land use on the basis of ecological footprint data, there was need to ensure that the changes that are being proposed are taking into account aspects like elevation, soils and climate. For this purpose we introduced the LANMAP (Mücher et al 2006) layer to the approach which offers a European landscape classification with the above features (see Figure 6). Based on expert judgment we established allocation rules that would prevent users from implementing changes that must be considered as not suitable given the corresponding landscape type. A lookup table was created containing suitability values for LANMAP‐Corine combinations. For each combination the table provides a suitability value (‐1 unsuitable, 0, 1 suitable) for each of the seven crop types (see example in Table 4). The tool generates initial suitability values for the start crop type situation. As soon as a new crop is ‘painted’ to one or several grid cells within the study area, the tool utilizes the lookup table to grab the suitability value of this new crop type on the basis of the background layers for land use, HSMU, etc. Table 4: Landscape allocation rules for the Rotterdam region. LANMAP CORINE Atlantic lowlands on organic materials with pastures (Alo_pa) 12 Non‐irrigated arable land 18 Pastures Atlantic lowland sediments with arable land (Als_al) 12 Non‐irrigated arable land 18 Pastures 20 Complex cultivation patterns 888 Glastuinbouw Atlantic lowland sediments with hetrogenous agri (Als_ha) 12 Non‐irrigated arable land 20 Complex cultivation patterns Atlantic lowland sediments with pastures (Als_pa) 12 Non‐irrigated arable land 18 Pastures Atlantic lowland sediments with water bodies (Als_wa) 12 Non‐irrigated arable land

WhPoSu OthCer

Oils

Fodd

Veget

Fruit

Grass

GTB

‐1 ‐1

0 ‐1

0 0

‐1 ‐1

1 1

‐1 ‐1

0 ‐1 0 ‐1

0 ‐1 1 ‐1

0 ‐1 0 ‐1

0 ‐1 1 ‐1

1 1 1

‐1 ‐1 0 1

1 1

‐1 ‐1

0 ‐1

1 1

0 0

‐1

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The abovementioned check is performed for all crop types. A ‘suitability’ layer is generated for each crop type. Each of these seven layers generated contains the selection of grid cells marked as ‘suitable’ according to the check for a given crop type. Such grid cells are highlighted by way of colouring the outlines with the same colour used to code crop types. The result is a layer with outlines that can be overlaid on the drawing layer to visualize high suitability on top of dominant crops. Each of these can be toggled on and off whenever the focus is given to a particular crop type.

Figure 6: Boundaries and codes of the LANDMAP units for the Rotterdam region.

Figure 7: Demand‐Supply analysis for 8 food groups of the Metropolitan Food Zone 2 (crops for plant‐based food) for 1.2 million people (in hectares)

Tool results from Rotterdam

Zone 2 (Figure 7) is between 15 and 24 km distance from the city centre and can be entirely dedicated to producing crops for plant‐based food: all the consumption needs arising from the 1.2 th

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million Rotterdam people can theoretically be satisfied within this zone. However, Figure 7 shows that the current land use is still focusing strongly on livestock farming and that there are clear deficits fruit (15.000 ha missing) and slight deficits for rotation crops, other cereals and oilseed plants. Exceptional, certainly when comparing to other European metropoles, is the major surplus for vegetables (more than 3000 ha). This can be explained with the presence of the extensive areas of Dutch glasshouse production in Westland and Oostland (see Figure 7). Today this production is dedicated to 90% for food export and is strongly dominated by a few lead crops such as tomatoes, zucchini and bell paprika. Zone 3 (Figure 8) follows between 24 and 40 km distance from the city centre. According to our scheme, this zone is entirely dedicated to crops supporting the city’s demand for livestock such as dairy and meat products. Given the resource intensity of animal‐based food products it is not surprising that this zone requires a surface area four times as large as the one for plant‐based food products in Zone 2: more than 160.000ha. In this zone the largest deficit is for fodder crops (almost 100.000 ha). Today these fodder crops are being imported from more remote Dutch locations and of course in the form of soya feedstuff from oversee amounting to about 20% of the total (van Gelder and Herder 2012). On the other hand we see a clear surplus of grassland production for dairy farming. In terms of the zones diameter (16km) it should be kept in mind that this is also a consequence of the city’s location close to the North Sea where no land‐based food production is possible.

Figures 8: Demand‐Supply analysis for 8 food groups of the Metropolitan Food Zone 3 (crops for livestock farming) for 1.2 million people (in hectares)

Zone 4 (Figure 9) spans over a distance from 40km to 150km measures from the city centre. This means that the Transition zone spans well into Belgium and Germany. Applying the OECD scheme as a reference (7.8 million people) means that such a region covers almost half of amount of the total Dutch population (16 million). Also here it is important to acknowledge the fact that the sea‐side location of this region almost doubles the distance of the zone towards the inland. Even so, the large area demands in terms of local hectares (almost 1.4 million) demonstrates the realities of densely populated regions here and elsewhere in the world. In terms of the demand‐supply relationship, the

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transition zone mirrors the situation of Zone 3: the biggest deficit is for fodder crops required for livestock farming.

Figure 9: Demand‐Supply analysis for 8 food groups of crops in Zone 4 (Transition) providing crops for plant‐ based food and livestock farming for 6.6 million people of the OECD region (in hectares)

The MFP out presented in figure 5 to 8 are not only meant as assessment results for framing the impact of urban food production on the different metropolitan zones, but are also providing operational input to a stakeholder‐oriented foodscape‐planning device. For this purpose we introduce the data into the so‐called ‘digital maptable’ which allows users to perform land use allocations by means of a digital pen. Addressing the surplus/demand figures resulting from the assessment, users can than make proposals for where and how to change the existing land use (food crops) in order to more properly meet the demands identified by the tool. Please see for further illustrations of the maptable approach Wascher et al., 2015.

Conclusions and Recommendations

Tools have been developed to assess food security and food safety at local and metropolitan regions. These tools showed that, depending on the region, areas can be self‐ sufficient. However, more densely populated areas limit the possibilities for metropolitan food supply. Spatial planning of activities should take various aspects, such as food safety, into account. The food safety questionnaire proved to be successful in pinpointing critical areas that need further attention to improve food safety at the local level. Recommendations Food Safety: ‐

Introduce spatial planning modules as a pre‐cautionary food safety principle according to which food chain operations are managed within clearly defined zones. Increase the resource efficiency of food system operations within dedicated regional zones that separate livestock farming from vegetable production.

‐

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‐

Make use of tools developed within the project (Sustainability Impact Assessment & Metropolitan Footprint Tools) to support policy makers in establishing optimal spatial planning of metropolitan food production. A food safety questionnaire derived in the project can be used by actors within the food supply to assess possible critical points for food safety and quality. Enable more research into the food safety consequences of a transition from global to metropolitan or local food production.

‐ ‐

Recommendations Food Security: ‐ Integrate the notion of metropolitan regions into Rural Development programmes and funding schemes. It is crucial to achieve a common understanding on how metropolitan regions are triggers for sustainable development in rural regions, and that funding instruments and rules require appropriate consideration in territorial eligibility settings. ‐ Provide incentives and financial support for the agro‐food sector where system innovation including aspects of governance and social embedding are properly addressed at the level of metropolitan food sheds. ‐ Establish European Cross‐border Partnerships between policy makers, spatial planners and entrepreneurs to share experiences and to build up cross‐border food shed activities for metropolitan regions. ‐ Make RIS 3 (Regional Innovation Strategies of Smart Specialization) an approach to develop metropolitan innovation strategies targeting at Agrofood clusters that act as technological, infrastructural and economical hubs. ‐ Use footprint assessment tools in knowledge brokerage session to raise the awareness regarding impacts of urban food consumption; ‐ Monitor and report on innovation impacts on the ecological footprints at the level of metropolitan regions metropolitan regions at a regular base. The Metropolitan Foodscape Planner (MFP) offers (1) hands‐on impact assessment tool for balancing commodity surpluses and deficits, (2) a visual interface that depicts food zones to make impacts spatially explicit, (3) landscape‐ecological allocation rules to base land use decisions on sustainable principles, and (4) European data such as EFSA, LANMAP, HSMU and CORINE Land Cover to allow future top‐down tool applications for all metropolitan regions throughout the EU.

Though less accurate as the national land use survey data, HSMU is available for the whole of Europe, allowing direct top‐down assessments without resource‐consuming data gathering procedures. The concept of spatially allocating specific food groups for which a certain supply deficit has been recognised – e.g. vegetables or oil seeds are typically underrepresented in the metropolitan surroundings of cities – to areas with clear food supply surplus coverage, for example grasslands, points at the need to guide such stakeholder decisions by offering additional land use related references. We are aware that introducing clear spatial demarcations for different food groups in the forms of zones is drastically contrasting with the everyday situation in our current metropolitan regions. In order to provide further guidance during this process, MFP offers the spatial references of the European Landscape Typology (LANMAP) to ensure that stakeholders receive ‘alert’ messages if their changes they propose are in conflict with the allocation rules laid down as part of the landscape‐ ecological references. Both the MFP‐zoning concept and the LANMAP‐

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based allocation rules are in principle open to stakeholder revisions. This way, a high level of tool transparency and flexibility can be achieved – the basis for gaining trust and ownership throughout the process. 6.

References:

Briggs, J., 2011. The EUREAPA Technical Report. Stockholm Environment Institute, University of York. UK. One Planet Economy Network, 38 pages CEC, 2009. Mainstreaming sustainable development into EU policies: Review of the European Union Strategy for Sustainable Development. , Communication of the European Community, Brussels, COM(2009) 400 final, 16 pages CEC, 2008. Potential of the Ecological Footprint for monitoring environmental impacts from natural resource use: Analysis of the potential of the Ecological Footprint and related assessment tools for use in the EU’s Thematic Strategy on the Sustainable Use of Natural Resources. Report to the European Commission, DG Environment. CEG, 2012. Health policy in consideration of good care for animals and environment ‐ With a select ion of three essays. Ethics en Heal th Monitoring 2012. Centre for Ethics and Health of the Netherlands. 32 pages. EFSA, 2011. Chronic food consumption statistics. Avaialble at http://www.efsa.europa.eu/en/datexfoodcdb/datexfooddb.htm Ercsey‐Ravasz, M., Toroczkai, Z., Lakner, Z., and Baranyi, J., 2012. Complexity of the International Agro‐Food Trade Network and Its Impact on Food Safety. PLoS ONE 7, e37810. Kempen, M., 2012. EU wide analysis of the Common Agricultural Policy using spatially disaggregated data. Doctoral Thesis, Rheinischen Friedrich‐Wilhelms‐Universität Bonn, 96 pp. Kirsimaa, K., 2013. Urban farming in Rotterdam: an opportunity for sustainable phosphorus management? An approach for linking urban household waste management with urban farming. Paper written in contribution to an MSc Internship Land Use Planning (LUP‐70424), Wageningen University, 76 pages Mücher, C.A., Wascher, D.M., Klijn, J.A.,. Koomen, A.J.M, Jongman, R.H.G., 2006. A new European Landscape Map as an integrative framework for landscape character assessment. R.G.H. Bunce and R.H.G. Jongman (Eds) Landscape Ecology in the Mediterranean: inside and outside approaches. Proceedings of the European IALE Conference 29 March – 2 April 2005 Faro, Portugal. IALE Publication Series 3, 233‐243. Van Gelder J and Herder A., 2012. Sojabarometer 2012 [Soya barometer 2012 (in Dutch)], Amsterdam: Profundo. Von Thünen, J.H., 1826. The Isolated State. (English translation by Carla M. Wartenberg, with an introduction by the editor), Pergamon Press. 1966 Wascher, D.M., Kneadsey, M. and Pintar, M. (eds), 2015. FoodMetres ‐ Food Planning and Innovation for Sustainable Metropolitan Regions. Preliminary Report 2015. Wageningen, 44 pages

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∗

HEALTHY WORKS. FOOD AND LAND USE PLANNING IN SAN DIEGO REGION Bruno Monardo1, Anna Laura Palazzo2 Keywords: Healthy food policies, Land use planning, Urban Agriculture Abstract: Across the US, where ‘food deserts’ heavily shape access to fresh, local and healthy food, institutions, NGOs and private citizens are committed to designing and implementing measures aimed at getting a greater control over the food daily supplied to million people. This paper will focus on the case study of the San Diego Region (CA), where the goals of ‘a sustainable, secure and resilient food system’ addressed by an array of instruments ranging from food policies to land use tools and municipal and zoning codes are mobilizing from the very beginning community at large: producers, brokers, consumers. The account is twofold. On the one hand, it aims to highlight a sort of ‘value chain’ within the approach in linking traditionally separate issues, on the other hand, it prompts for new meanings and uses for vacant land, that can result in a strategically planned and delivered green infrastructure comprising the broadest range of open spaces and other environmental features.

1. Food concerns across the US. The institutional framework and beyond On the backdrop of the latest general policies addressing local food issues in the US, this paper aims to explore the experience of San Diego County and San Diego City, where for over a decade now, several influential non‐governmental organizations have been lobbying for framing the food issue within a comprehensive range of guidelines, policies and plans. A main focus will be devoted to the match (or mismatch) between the claim for food supplies reasonably next to communities and planning and design strategies tackling urban agriculture at large, notably within vacant and derelict urban areas. The movement to create a healthier food and agriculture policy has been slowly and steadily gaining ground across the US, thanks to seminal work of an array of non‐governmental bodies experiencing common paths towards more sustainable lifestyles. Food concerns, even related to the highest rates of overweight and obesity held by the US among the industrialized nations (over one third of US adults are obese), couple with a widespread stand for food democracy: food justice and social inclusion, along with individual freedoms and citizenship, are at stake within the march for the human rights. Statements of principle do matter (Neff, 2014), still public opinion is far more concerned about everyday perspectives and solutions. It has been calculated that the average food item in the US travels between 1,500 and 2,500 miles from farm to fork (Mansvelt, 2011), whereas around 40% of food produced on US farms is not consumed (San Diego County, 2012). The growing consensus around ‘local’, rather than ‘sustainable’ or ‘organic’ food, is witnessed by more than three quarters of American consumers actively seeking out and buying products they perceive to be local (Feagan,

∗ This paper is related to the dissemination of the EU research project ‘MAPS‐LED’ (Multidisciplinary Approach to Plan Specialization Strategies for Local Economic Development), Horizon 2020, Marie Sklodowska‐Curie RISE, 2015‐2019. The program implementation is based on networking universities from EU (Mediterranea Reggio Calabria, “Sapienza” Roma, Aalto Helsinki, Salford Manchester) and USA (Northeastern University Boston, San Diego State University). 1

‘Sapienza’ University of Rome.

‘Roma Tre’ University of Rome.

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2007). Likewise, in recent years, City Region Food Systems (CRFS) have emerged as the proper concept in order to try, assess and improve local food system sustainability, while taking into due account ecological and socio‐economic aspects (Donald et alii, 2010). At the federal level, big efforts have been done to provide a geography of ‘food deserts’ within large urban and metropolitan areas (Fig. 1)3. They often correspond to poverty pockets, the most at risk in terms of availability of fresh and wholesome foods (USDA ERS, 2015).

Fig. 1. The American food deserts according to the ‘epidemiological approach’ held by the USDA. Source: USDA ERS, Food Access Research Atlas (2015), available at http://www.ers.usda.gov/data‐products/food‐access‐research‐atlas.aspx.

In order to tackle these needs, the renowned American Planning Association (APA) released its Policy Guide on Community and Regional Food Planning in 2007, stressing the linkages of local food systems with the manifold dimensions of sustainability: energy, water, land, transport and economic development (APA, 2007; Morgan, 2009). Notably, Urban and Peri‐urban Agriculture (UPA) in its multifaceted forms is deemed to give new perspectives to urban revitalization strategies, particularly for fostering social inclusion in contemporary, fragmented communities, endorsing local food movements and conveying trust and loyalty among producers and consumers. According the UN, “[Urban agriculture] is an industry that produces, processes and markets food and fuel, largely in response to the daily demand of consumers within a town, city, or metropolis, on land and water dispersed throughout urban and sub‐urban areas, applying intensive production methods, using and reusing natural resources and urban wastes, to yield a diversity of crops and livestock” (Smit et al., 1996). APA states that “by no means is zoning the only way to promote urban agriculture. In cities 3 A ‘food desert’ is a census tract with a substantial share of residents who live in low‐income areas that have low levels of access to a grocery store or healthy, affordable food retail outlet. According to USDA, “tracts qualify as ‘low access’ if at least 500 persons or 33 percent of their population live more than a mile from a supermarket or large grocery store (for rural census tracts, the distance is more than 10 miles)”. Under these criteria, “about 10 percent of the 65,000 census tracts in the United States meet the definition of a food desert. These food desert tracts contain 13.5 million people with low access to sources of healthful food. The majority of this population — 82 per cent — lives in urban areas”.

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that have ambitions to rapidly expand urban agricultural opportunities, it may be necessary to make land and funding available. In many cases, the demand for urban agriculture, such as community garden plots, is not nearly being met” (APA, 2010). To sum up, the American way to address agriculture and related labor, food costs, food quality issues, stays in a set of federal, national and local level policies involving public bodies along with nongovernmental organizations such as community groups, producers’ representatives, businesses and land trusts. In the last few years, an increasing number of local bodies (to date some 200) have been provided with Food Policy Councils (Fig. 2), in order to manage food matters at large (APA, 2010). In the next sections, we will go deeper into significant experiences at regional and city level addressed by an array of instruments ranging from food policies to land use tools and zoning codes mobilizing from the very beginning the community at large.

Fig. 2. Urban strategies and food policy councils. Source: http://www.jhsph.edu/research/centers‐and‐institutes/johns‐hopkins‐center‐for‐a‐livable‐ future/projects/FPN/directory/index.html

Integrating the local food system in Regional Plans. The experience of Chicago

Among the most virtuous and innovative strategies, tools and practices carried on across the country, land inventories, such as the ones conducted in Portland and Detroit, are being employed by municipal governments to support Urban and Peri‐urban Agriculture (UPA) projects. In the past four years large cities including Atlanta, Boston, Minneapolis, Portland revised policies and zoning ordinances to accommodate changing land‐use patterns. Non‐profit organizations and municipal governments in many cities across US have also begun creating food policy councils, which often include items for strengthening UPA. As pointed out by the last American Planning Association report on these topics (APA, 2012), UPA continues to grow as a planning priority and several Counties are including its strategies in their Comprehensive Plans. As already mentioned, the issue of local food is often defined by strategies dealing with UPA and specific connected initiatives as farmers’ markets, community gardens, animal husbandry, commercial kitchens, culinary art training centers, ethnic grocery stores and restaurants, connected th

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peri‐urban agri‐farms, and so on. These activities are important, but they represent only some aspects of the larger ‘Local Food System’ issue. A Local Food System is more than the physical produce and includes the land the food grows on, processing, packaging, distribution, market creation, retail and waste management (Fig. 3). The decision of including the dimension of Local Food System in a Comprehensive Regional Plan usually stems from a combination of factors. There may be support from community stakeholders, an explicit endorsement triggered either by the general interest or the prioritization of specific community issues, such as lack of access to healthy nutritious food. Sometimes interest in local food may be generated from municipal policy makers, who may be committed to pursue local food strategies as a means to achieve other primary goals such as economic development, land preservation and community identity. In the Chicago Region case, during the Comprehensive Plan building process, issues surrounding local nutrition, such as healthy food access and the environmental impacts of eating choices, exerted a great influence on the main strategies to be followed by the community. Based on this feedback, the Chicago Metropolitan Agency of Planning (CMAP) elevated the ‘Local Food System’ to one of core keys in the Chicago Comprehensive Regional Plan “Go to 2040. Invent the Future”, one of the most significant regional tools in the last years in US. The recommendations of Chicago Plan reflect the breadth of challenges and opportunities that the Region faces, but also provide specific, implementable actions to address them. Responding to the critical issues of the Region, the plan offers recommendations identifying four great themes (Livable Communities, Human Capital, Efficient Governance, Regional Mobility) that are structured through twelve axes as a whole. The ‘Local Food’ one, belonging to the first theme (Livable Communities) is strongly related to the other items of the general strategy and particularly to the environmental and anthropic issues (water management, ecosystem preservation, land‐use and density pattern, mobility networks and transportation systems). In order to identify the benefits the community aims to achieve by including ‘Local Food’ in regional strategy, the Plan rationale argues on issues why it has become a priority.

Fig. 3. Scheme of the Food System Cycle. Source: San Francisco Planning Urban Research Association (SPUR, 2013)

Chicago's Comprehensive Plan calls to strengthen the regional food systems. If local food production were increased in the seven counties of metropolitan Chicago, it could create over 5,000 jobs and generate $6.5 billion a year in economic activity. Over the last fifteen years, regional demand for

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local food has grown 260 percent, and recent surveys show that three‐quarters of Americans care that their food is grown locally. By producing more of the food consumed locally, it keeps money in the region, supports local businesses, strengthens communities, and delivers delicious, fresh produce to eat. Local food systems offer many economic, environmental, and quality‐of‐life benefits that apply to businesses, residents, and the Chicago urban region as a whole. As consumers, individuals benefit from having more opportunities to buy fresh produce to cook at home or eat at restaurants, tackling ‘food deserts’. Local entrepreneurs benefit from increased business opportunities. Local communities benefit from stronger, more diverse local economies where they grow and buy their food from a local farmer, which increases farm income and jobs and circulates money within the same Region and State, rather than sending it elsewhere. In fact, fruit and vegetable production has the potential to generate three to seven times more jobs and farm income than corn and soybean production. Highly valuing Chicago rich agricultural land for its potential to feed, UPA can also exert preservation of the existing farmland, joining as well the rural character that some of residents prefer, more economically viable. The amount of agricultural land and the size of farms in northeastern Illinois are shrinking due to urban growth and development, but the number of smaller farming operations is on the rise. A shift towards food production could help address a number of challenges that the region's agricultural system faces. Commodity crop production typically requires large acreages and expensive inputs and equipment, presenting barriers to entry for most people interested in farming. Because over 90% of food consumed in Illinois is produced elsewhere, food purchases support jobs and economies where the food is produced and processed remotely rather than in Illinois, where much of food demand could be met. The Chicago region and surrounding counties are well‐positioned to meet the demand for local food because the majority of the direct‐to‐consumer supply comes from metropolitan areas and collar counties. Farms across the nation earned $1.3 billion from direct sales in 2012. By supporting and strengthening the ‘Local Food System’, northeastern Illinois is poised to tap into this economic potential. Challenges remain, however, and the Plan delivers a significant role for local governments for: ‐ providing access to land, facilities and infrastructure to give farmers, distributors, and food entrepreneurs a chance to become established; ‐ adopting or modifying policies and standards to encourage local food operations and to reduce the cost and uncertainty of projects; ‐ encouraging the market, innovation, businesses, and entrepreneurs through policies such as local food procurement targets for schools, workforce development opportunities, and hunger assistance programs; ‐ supporting and participating in forum to discuss and address ‘Local Food System’ issues, to coordinate policy initiatives, programs, events and to connect buyers and sellers.

The San Diego County Agenda on local food

California is long since well placed in the battle for healthy food. ‘Roots of Change’, a San Francisco‐ based non‐profit organization, released the homonymous report in 2001 commissioned by the Columbia, Clarence E. Heller Charitable and W.K. Kellogg foundations (Roots of Change, 2001). Its core concept, developed in ‘The New Mainstream: A Sustainable Food Agenda for California’ (2005), was strategically decisive in shifting the State’s goals related to food and agriculture by providing new values and principles into production and distribution practices, government policies and

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business models. As a result, the ‘California Food Policy Council’ (CAFPC) was established as a collaborative of local food policy groups working to ensure that California’s food system address relevant policy priorities, generate public support for those policies, educate policymakers on food system issues, and advocate for change in California. The CAFPC, currently collecting 26 ratified members representing local communities across the State, strives to bring transparency to food systems legislation, and to re‐envision a political process that includes a more diverse range of food and farming interests to the table. The ‘Declaration for Healthy Food and Agriculture’ (2008), was a further step endorsed by a broad base of organizations and thousands of individuals with a long‐ established commitment to a healthier food and agriculture. A major critical issue lies in translating these principles into land use regulation policies: as a matter of fact, despite State standards4 and retention policies carried out by several counties and cities, farmland conservation programs have been only marginally effective. Major efforts were in the direction of regulating the allowable residential density in suburban and rural areas, depending on soil fertility. A by far wider range of perspectives is met by San Diego County that released the ‘San Diego County Farming Program Plan’ (2009), the Strategic Plan ‘Healthy Works. San Diego Regional Healthy Food System’ (2012) and the ‘County General Plan’ (2011). Such challenging array of tools address food regional systems in a place‐based perspective, tackling land use policies. Despite large tracts of rocky and stony soil and serious water shortage, San Diego County boasts of sound agricultural economy with more than 5 Billion dollars annual impact and praises itself on having the highest proportion of small scale growers in the State and the largest number of certified organic growers of any California County5. It ranks first in the US for its proportion of farmers with off‐farm income, witnessing for a peculiar lifestyle that will probably be winning in the long run (Fig. 4). Yet, almost all food grown in San Diego County is exported beyond its borders, whereas about 95% of the food locally consumed comes from outside its boundaries. Furthermore, the vast majority of farming operations by volume are dedicated to only a few crops, among which avocados and citrus take up 70% of all land area dedicated to farming. Nonfood crops, such as flowers, ornamental plants, and turf, make up for two‐thirds of annual agricultural value. These figures account for the larger economic return that ornamental and nursery crops, largely offsetting the high water costs, provide in comparison to other agriculture commodities. The ‘Farming Program Plan’ takes over two primary goals: promote economically viable farming in Unincorporated San Diego County6, and encourage land use policies and programs that recognize the value of working to regional conservation efforts. A majority of the unincorporated County’s land, in excess of 90 percent, is either open space or undeveloped, including several large federal, state, and regional parklands that encompass much of the eastern portion of the County. As a matter of fact, unsustainably high water rates failing to differentiate between residential, commercial or agricultural uses are putting at risk farmland in cultivation, driving farmers out of 4 The California Environment Quality Act requires lead agencies to evaluate whether a proposed project may have adverse effect on the environment and, if so, if that effect can be reduced or eliminated by pursuing an alternative course of action or through mitigation. Projects subject to review under CEQA include the development of vacant land into residential, commercial or agricultural uses or the conversion of agricultural land to residential or commercial uses and potential impacts that could result from a project on environmental resources such as farmland, natural habitat, archaeological sites. 5 In the US, small farms are defined in terms of their gross revenues: the farms with less than 250 thousand dollars are considered small (USDA, 2007). The average size of a farm in California is equal to 126.6 hectares (313 acres), while in Europe the average size is 12.6 acres and Italy is only 7.9 hectares. 6 An unincorporated area is a region of land that is not governed by its own local municipal corporation, but rather is administered as part of larger administrative divisions, such as township, parish, borough, county, city, canton, state, province or country. The unincorporated land encompasses 2,600 sq. miles, that is around 57% of the surface area of San Diego County.

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farming, and limiting any potential increase in the supply of local food. A major result, strongly backed by the San Diego County Farm Bureau representing farmers, growers, and producers, would be to lower water rates for agriculture to a more sustainable cost ($900 per acre‐foot) by 20157. Subsequent ‘Healthy Works. San Diego Regional Healthy Food System’, was enforced following the newly‐established San Diego Urban‐Rural Roundtable collecting over 100 leaders and stakeholders from around the San Diego region to develop a set of recommendations aimed at building a healthy, fair, economically thriving, and environmentally sustainable food system. ‘Healthy works’ plays a major role, focusing on several objectives on a regional scale, examining the barriers and analyzing the opportunities to meet an increasing demand for high quality local food by providing daily consumers with healthy and fresh produce.

Fig. 4. Farmland in San Diego County is proximate to –even integrated with– urban land. Source: San Diego County, Health and Human Services Agency, 2012. Healthy Works San Diego Regional Healthy Food System, Strategic Plan.

In turn, the San Diego General Plan (2011) reflects the County’s commitment to a sustainable growth model that facilitates efficient development near infrastructure and services, while respecting sensitive natural resources and protection of existing community character in its extensive rural and semi‐rural communities8. The General Plan, tackling seven state‐mandated topical areas ‐ Land Use, Mobility, Housing, Safety, Conservation, Open Space, and Noise ‐, is specifically in charge of unincorporated areas, providing a renewed basis for the County’s diverse communities to develop Community Plans that are specific to and reflective of their unique character and environment consistent with the County’s vision for its future. Due to water scarcity, the majority of new development—approximately 80 percent—is planned in the County’s western areas within the County Water Authority (CWA) boundary. The overall philosophy of the General Plan is to promote the wise use of the land resources including encouraging urban growth to be contiguous with existing urban areas and maximizing urban infill 7 Established in 1913, the San Diego County Farm (part of the network of the Bureau California Farm Bureau Federation) represents San Diego agriculture through public relations, education, and public policy advocacy in order to promote the economic viability of agriculture balanced with appropriate management of natural resources. 8 A major concern is related to significant reduction in farmland in San Diego County from nearly 530,000 acres in 1987 to 304,000 in 2007, depending on the rising cost of water coupled with development pressure.

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while also encouraging agricultural use and retaining the natural character of non‐urban lands. Consequently, the so‐called Community Development Model is to be implemented by three regional categories – Village, Semi‐Rural and Rural Lands – that broadly reflect the different character and land use development goals, reported in the document. As a broad set of development classifications, these regional categories do not specify allowable land uses, but rather the regional structure, character, scale and intensity of development (Fig. 5). Within this frame, the Land Use Designations are defined by the land use type and the maximum allowable residential density or nonresidential building intensity.

Fig. 5. Regional categories map. Chapter 3. Land use element Available at: www.sandiegocounty.gov/pds/generalplan.html

Settlement patterns for community development in the unincorporated areas are based on a physical structure defining communities by a ‘village center’ surrounded by semirural or rural land. In communities inside the CWA boundary, higher density neighborhoods and a pedestrian oriented commercial center would provide a focal point for commercial and civic life. Medium density, single family neighborhoods, as well as a broad range of commercial or industrial uses, would surround the commercial core. As for semirural neighborhoods surrounded by greenbelts, agricultural uses, or other rural lands would be located outside the more urbanized portion of the communities (Fig. 6). Site design methods that reduce on‐site infrastructure costs and preserve contiguous open space or agricultural operations are encouraged. The Rural Lands category is applied to large open space and very‐low‐density private and publicly owned lands that provide for agriculture, managed resource

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production, conservation, and recreation and thereby retain the rural character for which much of unincorporated County is known. The County’s rural character is to preserve by retaining and protecting farming and agricultural resources, while supporting long‐term presence and viability of agricultural industry as an important component of the region’s economy and open space linkage. As for open spaces, they are split between managed open space and functional open space (Fig. 7). The latter comprises agricultural lands (grazing, orchards, vineyards, and other crops), scenic corridors, and areas of steep terrain). Conservation is primarily applied to large tracts of land, undeveloped and usually dedicated to open space, that are owned by a jurisdiction, public agency, or conservancy group. Allowed uses include habitat preserves, passive recreation, and reservoirs. Recreation, applied to large existing recreational areas, allows for active and passive recreational uses such as parks, athletic fields, and golf courses. Forest conservation Initiative Lands applies where land use designations are addressed by specific policies. The County has funded a voluntary pilot program for purchasing agricultural easements, in order to promote long‐term preservation of agriculture (a Purchase of Development Rights). Interest in this program on the part of farmers and land owners has been very high. Funding is eligible in case the property actively farmed or ranched for a minimum of two years prior to applying for the program, and/or realized a density reduction as a result of the General Plan.

Figs. 6/7. San Diego County General Plan. Julian Rural Village Boundary (left) and Julian Community Plan Open Space. Available at: www.sandiegocounty.gov/pds/generalplan.html

In turn, the City of San Diego amended its zoning code (2012) by enhancing the ‘zero food miles’ approach. Specific goals were introduced in order to increase opportunities for urban agriculture, seen as a powerful tool for urban regeneration and social inclusion, namely for immigrants and refugee groups from Somalia, Vietnam, Cambodia, who tend to prefer food from their own culture by accommodating urban agriculture and urban farming in vacant lands (Monardo, Palazzo, 2014).

Natural resources, vacant land, sustainable mobility: building a healthy network

In 1974 Kevin Lynch and Donald Appleyard were commissioned by the Marston family a scientific report on San Diego area, whose title (‘Temporary Paradise?’) emblematically focused on the extraordinary ‘Mediterranean’ climate and the environmental quality and vulnerability, suggesting

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‘ex ante sustainable’ future visions for the city. The report was divided into two parts: an analysis of the regional landscape (Fig. 8) and a technical appendix (An environmental planning process for San Diego) that “recommends the organizational means, and the assignment of functions required to carry on a continuous process for planning for environmental quality in the region”. However, many recommendations did not come true: after more than 40 years it is evident that the soil consumption and the urban sprawl phenomenon has not been prevented, as well as the transit network has not been developed and coordinated with the land use design. The huge Mission Valley and other valleys in the core urban area have been massively urbanized: shopping malls, business activities and housing enclaves have been built within the downtown and the weak ring of few tramway lines (locally known as ‘Trolley’). Nowadays, impressive canyons still rhythmically crisscross all the territory and the grid of urban fabric is fragmented on the edges of the canyon layout; mobility is mainly based on private automobiles and the major valley bottoms are crossed by urban freeways.

Fig. 8. The core of San Diego urban region according to the interpretation by Lynch & Appleyard Source: Lynch, K., Appleyard, D., 1974, Temporary Paradise?

The rationality of the infrastructure network, together with the comfortable freeway and ordinary road section, encourage the private mobility with limited traffic bottlenecks. Basically, car users can choose at every node whether using the main local boulevards or avenues (at a reduced speed because of the many traffic lights), or a longer path on the major axes. Nevertheless, given the relevant potential of territory assets, the peculiar combination of geomorphology and urban imprinting allows focusing on the conception and possible implementation of an outstanding infrastructural/environmental network. This could be achieved preserving the incredibly rich canyon system, particularly in the most natural parts, utilizing their edges as ecological corridors. In many places the lush and attractive natural areas around and between the infrastructural ribbons offer intriguing opportunities for creating local green systems and leisure areas. The canyon network is undoubtedly the most important natural resource with over 150 items engraving the Greater San Diego (Fig. 9). It provides urban residents and users with valuable open space delivering a wide range of benefits. The canyon domain harbors incredible biodiversity and its ‘green infrastructure’ provides valuable ecosystem services, as air cleaning and filtering, as well as

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mitigating the ‘heat island’ effect. This asset also offers an escape to nature from an otherwise completely paved, low density urbanized pattern. Development around these areas has often left a legacy of neglect and degradation. These precious open spaces are in need of care and enhancements, including safe and enjoyable access (physical and/or visual), wetland and upland habitat restoration and opportunities of strengthening nature into the urban fabric. The ‘canyon vector’ is the key for conceiving and creating a complex backbone system for embracing an integrated vision of significant layers representing an explicit green interstitial network regenerating the urban and peri‐urban matrix in San Diego. The vision of the future suggested by the city plans is a complex structure of alternative mobility (pedestrian paths and bicycle lanes) around the built areas, bringing the margins to a new life and connecting the canyon and creek network at high environmental value to the main local functions, as well as promoting the development of urban farming and connected activities.

Fig. 9. The main canyon system engraving the urban fabric in San Diego. Source: Google Earth, 2015

So, the canyon structure through the overlay with local parks, vacant land and plots, sport areas, urban farms and community gardens, neighborhood and urban facilities (schools, libraries, markets, cultural centers, etc) can reveal all its synergic potential for building innovative healthy and virtuous dimensions of sustainable lifestyles for the numerous civic communities in the city (Fig. 10). Despite the overwhelming favor to the automobile mobility, many Californians, including San Diego citizens, are interested in walking and bicycling as a means of alternative, ‘sweet mobility’. Across the US, following the best practice in developed countries, pedestrian and bike modes are gaining consensus as healthy, efficient, low cost, and available to nearly everyone. ‘Sweet mobility’ styles achieve the larger goals of developing and maintaining ‘livable communities’ making neighborhoods safer and friendlier, reducing transportation‐related environmental impacts, mobile emissions and noise, preserving land for open space, peri‐urban agriculture and wildlife habitat. 5.

Open issues. Pursuing a holistic approach

What is the incremental value of San Diego experience ‐ within the dynamic US context ‐ for focusing the role of Local Food System within the policies of urban regeneration? And could it be used to foster virtuous environmental strategies in contemporary fragmented communities? As it was argued, there is no doubt of the increasing success of UPA initiatives, considered within the general framework of the ‘Healthy Food Policy’, at the moment a core issue not only in developing

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countries, but also in the US policies and strategies (as well as in other OECD countries) both at central and local institutional levels.

Fig. 10. Bicycle and pedestrian network as a backbone of the green system recovering the canyon asset. Source SANDAG, ‘San Diego Regional Bicycle Plan, Riding to 2050’; San Diego Canyonlands, ‘Canyon Enhancement Planning Program’

The San Diego case is to an extent emblematic of the potential of promoting a proactive set of initiatives in terms of actors, partnerships, social value, community involvement, economic sustainability, mixed functions, and new identities. However, it would be an illusion to think that

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such a ‘recipe’ can be imported ‘sic et simpliciter’ into other contexts. In fact, its relevance as best practice is obviously related to specific conditions of space, time, and civic culture. The current impetus in the US – and particularly in California – is clearly different from the European context. US communities are operating in a post‐crisis context, and a new horizon of project initiatives with a moderately confident vision for boosting local economies and pursuing ‘fair redevelopment’ is emerging. San Diego City General Plan (2008) was honoured by the American Planning Association (APA) in 2010 for emphasizing the vision of the ‘City of Villages’ and the multifaceted nature of communities. Its sensitivity towards the Food System and UPA approach was stressed in the latest amendments (2012) permitting the spontaneous creation of ‘Community gardens’ and ‘Retail farms’ to encourage a ‘new deal’ in terms of green, smart and socially inclusive urban and peri‐urban spaces. The quality of the County Plan, in terms of complexity, assured its relevant potential as a catalyst for regional and urban revitalization in its multifaceted interpretations, emphasizing eco‐environmental, physical, cultural and symbolic dimensions without neglecting concurrent economic and social aspects. In some respects this new generation of Plans (in California, as well as Illinois and other States) is part of a more systemic vision that emphasizes the priority of revitalization programs in urban regions. In terms of regeneration impact of the initiative, the UPA phenomenon may be considered only the ‘tip of the iceberg’. More complex ‘critical mass’ can be found in the potential of complex relationships emerging in the Healthy Food System domain. The success of the initiative is mirrored through the potential to implement virtuous forms of dialogue between the fragmented identities of the Community: healthy and ethnic food implications can be a powerful vector in terms of programs and perspectives of environmental values, landscape assets, social inclusion, proactive education, and limited but socially significant economic rebounds. Conversely, however, the ongoing experiences in San Diego (and Chicago as well with different profiles) reveal some critical issues. Sometimes the risk of delaying or paralyzing the ‘plan cycle’ is evident, due to ‘difficulties in dialog’ between non‐professional proponents (e.g. some specific non‐profits or local civic associations) and the public authorities. The plan follow‐up by the public administration (Counties and Municipalities) has the typical advantages and limits of the ‘common law’ juridical culture: in general, the public sector represents a ‘referee’, limiting its action to the definition of policy frameworks and the management of rules, letting the different actors play the game. Coming back to the main issue about the role of Local Food System strategies in regional and local planning, looking at the general dynamics within US, and in particular at the lesson of San Diego and Chicago, it is possible to underline that this approach may take on a concurrent, complementary role with intriguing potential, if – and only if – some specific conditions are respected. Land and plots devoted to UPA should be conceived and planned as integrated activities, not in competition with ‘powerful land uses’, in terms of development rights. Looking towards a post‐crisis horizon it is not unlikely that community gardens or urban and retail farms in the inner parts of settlements could quickly be replaced with new urban development projects as soon as the economic cycle will allow developers to pursue new profit by filling ‘vacant’ in‐between or fringe land resources. From this point of view, a low density urban and peri‐urban fabric with a relatively large amount of vacant ‘interstitial’ land can represent an advantage, keeping together urban agriculture patterns, open space systems and denser areas. The spaces dedicated to UPA and its connected activities should be conceived and planned within a holistic approach, as part of the overall ‘greening strategy’ of settlements. Community gardens,

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urban farms, farmers’ markets and so on should be designed as elements of a complex open space system, included within the great natural assets of public parks, private gardens, urban and peri‐ urban woods, hydrographical and environmental systems of the city and its metropolitan domain. 6.

Acknowledgements

Issues and contents of this paper were discussed and shared by the Authors. Sections 1 and 5 were written by both Authors. Sections 2 and 4 were written by Bruno Monardo; section 3 was written by Anna Laura Palazzo.

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TRACK 2. GOVERNANCE AND PRIVATE ENTREPRENEURSHIP The track focuses on urban food governance on the multi‐sectoral, multi‐level and multi‐ actor characteristics of food system management.

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Lisa V. Betty, “The historic and current use of social enterprise in food system and agricultural markets to dismantle the systemic th weakening of african descended communities”, In: Localizing urban food strategies. Farming cities and performing rurality. 7 International Aesop Sustainable Food Planning Conference Proceedings, Torino, 7‐9 October 2015, edited by Giuseppe Cinà and Egidio Dansero, Torino, Politecnico di Torino, 2015, pp 200‐214. ISBN 978‐88‐8202‐060‐6

THE HISTORIC AND CURRENT USE OF SOCIAL ENTERPRISE IN FOOD SYSTEM AND AGRICULTURAL MARKETS TO DISMANTLE THE SYSTEMIC WEAKENING OF AFRICAN DESCENDED COMMUNITIES Lisa Betty1

Keywords: Social Enterprise, Entrepreneurship, Food System, pragmatic Pan Africanism, Underdevelopment

Abstract: This work aims to explore the historical relevance and current necessity for grassroots social enterprise and entrepreneurship, from the base of underserved communities overwhelmed by hyper‐ incarceration and unemployment, to support the production of community empowering capital with prospects for economic growth in food system and agricultural markets. This mixed methods research project is based in a socio‐cultural historical framework and involves aspects of community development and empowerment, food system advocacy, youth entrepreneurship, systemic weakening of community foundations, the prison industrial complex, and pragmatic Pan Africanism based in the work of: Afro‐Brazilian activist Abdias do Nascimento’s conception of quilomboismo, Huey P. Newton's theory of Revolutionary Intercommunalism, and Jessica Gordon Nembhard’s study on African American cooperative economic thought and practices. In addition to a survey of social enterprise, community development and entrepreneurship in food system and agricultural markets from the 19th century by enslaved and maroon communities in the southern United States and Caribbean region to the contemporary period in diasporic or urban migratory spaces, there will be a case study on social enterprise organizations in Boston, MA and New York state, such as Haley House, The Food Project, Fresh Food Generation, The BLK ProjeK, Soul Fire Farm, and Drive Change. These organizations are at the forefront of supporting and advocating for important interventions (employment training and entrepreneurship support), policy changes, community development, and empowerment for correctional controlled individuals and underserved communities of African descent through the alignment of solutions for individual and community development with food system advocacy.

Introduction

In “The New Jim Crow” (2012), legal scholar Michelle Alexander examines the evolution of systemic racism, the War on Drugs, mass incarceration and the Prison Industrial Complex (PIC). The period of Jim Crow can be define as government‐led systems of economic, social and political repression and segregation of people of color in the U.S. from 1865 to 1966 supporting white supremacy and maintaining white privilege. For Alexander the “New Jim Crow” is a reconstitution and continuation of government‐led oppression of people of color, particularly African Americans, through the criminal justice system. The existence of the “New Jim Crow” is documented through the exponentially expansive qualities of the PIC through the extension of Richard Nixon’s War on Drugs policies by Ronald Reagan and George Bush’s presidential administrations in the 1980s and 1990s. The reinvigoration of the War on Drugs was compounded with racially biased judicial and prosecutorial practices within the U.S. criminal justice system which increased the length of mandatory minimum sentencing and the amount of plea bargain deals for non‐violent drug offenders. This exponentially increased the prison population and communities affected by 1

Lisa Betty, M.A. Candidate (New York University), lvb238@nyu.edu

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incarceration. Corporate and political interests have been intrinsically tied to capitalist profitability of incarceration. As private for profit prison corporations, such as the Corrections Corporation of America and GEO Group, focus on inmate population growth and prison profitability (Alexander, 2011, pp. 231), enormous profits are gained by telecommunication companies, gun manufacturers, private health care providers, the U.S. Military (prison labor used to make war supplies). Fortune 500 corporations also use prison labor to avoid paying minimum and living wages to U.S. workers. Angela Davis, Bryan Stevenson and Loic Wacquant share Alexander’s analysis of connecting the enslaved labor central to modern U.S. Capitalism as ancestral to the "correctional controlled" labor of global Capitalism – which includes, and fluidly moves between, the drug industry and Prison Industrial Complex (Davis, 2011; Wacquant, 2002; Blackmon, 2009). This correctional controlled labor is overwhelming sourced from working class, underclass, under caste, and (what Karl Marx identifies as the) lumpenproletariat communities of color occupying systemically underdeveloped and underserved spaces in urban centers. Engaging with the concept of the “New Jim Crow” and current efforts to end mass incarceration remedying the underdevelopment experience by affected communities, the following questions have emerged: As slavery became Jim Crow which subsequently transitioned into the New Jim Crow, what will stop the ongoing evolution of subjugation of the most vulnerable in our society? How can poor people, especially of color, survive and thrive regardless of bad policies, deindustrialization, globalization and transitioning modes of control? How can poor people, with a focus on poor people of color in urban areas that are high priority targets in the War on Drugs and Prison Industrial Complex, establish legal economies that are community supported, empowering and maintained outside the illegitimate and legitimate sectors of Capitalism? Can economic advocacy through entrepreneurial and social enterprise involvement in food system markets simultaneously address unemployment, hyper‐incarceration, economic deprivation, and food resource needs? The drug industry, War on Drugs policies and the Prison Industrial Complex have targeted working and lower class communities. This work aims to explore the historical relevance and current necessity for grassroots social enterprise and entrepreneurship, from the base of underserved diasporic communities overwhelmed by hyper‐incarceration and unemployment, to support the production of community empowering capital with prospects for economic growth in food system and agricultural markets. This mixed methods research project is based in a socio‐cultural historical framework and involves aspects of community development and empowerment, food system advocacy, youth entrepreneurship, systemic weakening of community foundations and the prison industrial complex. This project utilizes pragmatic Pan Africanism based in the work of: Afro‐Brazilian activist Abdias do Nascimento’s conception of quilomboismo, Huey P. Newton's theory of Revolutionary Intercommunalism, and Jessica Gordon Nembhard’s study on African American cooperative economic thought and practices. 2.

Theoretical Framework

I define pragmatic Pan Africanism through interconnecting themes of Pan African communalism, Revolutionary Intercommunalism, and economic cooperativism. The intersection and/or acknowledgement of the utility of these three theoretical and practical anti‐oppression models are integral in advocating for grassroots based community and global development. Abdias do Nascimento’s Pan African communalism is fundamental to this intersection and advocates instituting communalism through the narrative of “quilomboismo,” referring to the maroon state of Quilombo dos Palmares (1605‐1694) in Brazil. This ideological model for development places human beings as

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the base of power, leading to the elimination of white privilege in economy, polity, society and culture (Nascimento, 1989, pp. 11). Co‐founder of the Black Panther Party for Self‐Defense, Huey P. Newton theorized revolutionary intercommunalism as anti‐oppression and anti‐capitalist solidarity building amongst subjugated global communities. Pragmatically built into the practices of the BPP and written as a part of his PhD dissertation, Newton asserted the United States was no longer a nation‐state but a boundless empire controlling spaces and populations through moving technologies and mechanisms of the state (Heynen, 2009, pp. 417; Newton, 1980, pp. 18). Jessica Gordon Nembhard’s recent publication, “Collective Courage: A History of African American Cooperative Economic Thought and Practice” (2014), demonstrates the importance of cooperative economic development as a community economic development strategy. Cooperative economics has historically supported marginalized populations gain independence, in the midst of racial segregation, racial discrimination, and market failure (Gordon Nembhard, 2014, pp. 18). 3.

A brief historiography

During the period of enslavement in the Americas, Africans and their descendants established a significant economic base in provision grounds and internal market producing local fruit, vegetables, meat, fish and other foodstuff throughout the Diaspora (Levine, 2003, pp. 261; Carney and Rosomoff, 2011; Sheller, 1998; Eiss, 1998; Sheridan, 1985; Johnson, 1989; Gaspar, 1988; Beckles, 1991; Marshall, 1991; Tomich, 1991; Campbell, 1991; Schlotterbeck, 1991; Johnson, 2009). Free, enslaved and maroon Africans were able to find autonomy through self sustaining agricultural systems that fended off starvation and established economic and cultural sovereignty allowing the purchase of freedom, acquisition of additional land, personal items and/or needed food resources. In addition to cultivation for consumption, cooking and selling food were common occupations of enslaved and free women (Carney and Rosomoff, 2011, pp. Kindle 2190‐2192). Known as "higglers" and "hucksters" in the British Caribbean and quitandeiras in Brazil, the “market women” of plantation societies specialized in selling prepared beverages and cooked food and surplus agricultural goods (Carney and Rosomoff, 2011, pp. Kindle 2196‐2197). In the post‐emancipation period, land ownership and agricultural market systems remained relevant. In the Caribbean, a broad class of Black property owners emerged shortly after the abolition of slavery and continued to thrive at the early turn of the century (Brown, 2014, pp. 59). Although tenancy, sharecropping, and the crop lien systems were economic and social control arrangements present in post‐emancipation United States, black landownership grew in the post‐slavery Reconstruction period of 1865 to 1877 (Green, Green, and Kleiner, 2011, pp. Kindle 1150‐1157). The number of black farms in the United States peaked in 1920, with one‐quarter of all farms owned and operated by blacks at the national level (Green, Green, and Kleiner, 2011, pp. Kindle 1165 ‐ 1168). Through the early system of economic cooperativism, black farms maintained their existence during this period (Green, Green, and Kleiner, 2011, pp. Kindle 1264‐1270). Cooperatives have remained a strategy for black farms in the U.S., which are now less than 1% of total farms (Green, Green, and Kleiner, 2011). The Great Migration of African descended populations from the American south, Caribbean and Latin spaces at the turn of 20th century to 1970 was integral in precipitating land loss. Migration occurred for variety of reasoning, including domestic terrorism of blacks in the American south to environmental issues that affected the economic stability of agriculture. But these migrated populations sustained their entrepreneurial and internal community development traditions as a strategy for survival (Brown, 2014; Posmentier, 2012).

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Marcus Garvey established the Universal Negro Improvement Association in Harlem, NY in 1917. The organization combined race nationalism and political militancy to create a self‐sustaining, Pan‐ Africanist economic order (Marable, 1999, pp. 146; Dalrymple, 2014; Jacques Garvey and Essien‐ Udom, 1977; Jacques Garvey, 1978; Hill, 1983). The UNIA not only entered into ventures such as the Black Star Line Shipping Company and Negro Factories Corporation, but also engaged in agricultural commerce with black farmers in the American South and Caribbean. Under the direction of U.S. Poston, Minister of Labor and Industry, UNIA established a trade in agricultural produce that sold directly into New York and New Jersey markets (Walker, 1989, pp. 38‐39). The commercial operation traded transnationally with oranges and grapefruits from Florida and limes from the Caribbean (Walker, 1989, pp. 40). Inheriting the Black Nationalist and transcultural character of Garveyism, The Nation of Islam (NOI) intersected black unity, black centered education, and economic pursuits similar to the UNIA’s economic ventures that accumulated to “real estate holdings in a number of states, fish markets, [and] farmland” (Showers Johnson, 2006, pp. 122). Founded in 1930 by Master Fard Muhammad in Detroit, Michigan and led for decades by Elijah Muhammad, black sovereignty and community building within the realms of food, land and health are defining features of the Black Nationalist Islamic organization. In addition to entrepreneurial ventures by members in low‐income communities of color vis‐à‐vis establishing grocery stores and selling door to door food items such as bean pies, Nation of Islam’s Ministry of Agriculture is currently developing “a sustainable agricultural system that would provide at least one meal per day, according to the teachings of the Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad for the 40 million black people in America” (Nation of Islam, Ministry of Agriculture.< http://www.noimoa.com/about‐noimoa/>). This endeavor is connected to the organization purchased over 1,556 acres of rural South Georgia farmland in 1994 (McCutcheon, 2011, pp. Kindle 3822‐3829). Elijah Muhammad’s teachings about food, depicted in his books How to Eat to Live 1 and 2, and the social enterprise endeavors of NOI had an important influence on Black Power organizations such as the Black Panther Party. The Black Panther Party for Self‐Defense's community survival programs politicize inequities within the food system advocating for oppressed and disenfranchised communities. The political organization was cofounded by Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale in Oakland, CA in 1966 advocating revolutionary socialism through grassroots organizing and the implementation of community‐based “survival programs” (Heynen, 2009, pp. 410). The Free Breakfast for School Children Program was initiated at St. Augustine’s Church in Oakland in September 1968 with the support of Father Earl Neil and Ms. Ruth Beckford (Heynen, 2009, pp. 407). In late 1969, Seale and Newton sent out a directive to make the Breakfast Program a mandatory initiative for all BPP chapters. The program allowed political power, hope, and possibility to be actualized through the reproduction of black communities at the level of individual children in alternative ways that were local and autonomous from the state (Heynen, 2009, pp. 407). 4.

Case study

Used widely in anti‐oppression teach‐ins and social justice trainings to push for movement based policy changes, Alexander’s “The New Jim Crow” is a progeny of Elijah Anderson’s “Code of the Streets” (1999) – an ethnographic examination of co‐existing values of “decent” and “street” in inner city communities as a response to systemic underdevelopment. Anderson explains that “when jobs disappear and people are left poor, highly concentrated, and hopeless, the way is paved for the underground economy to become a way of life” (Anderson, 2000, pp. Kindle 5457‐5460). The human capacity and entrepreneurial aptitude employed in the underground economy of poor

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communities, such as the illicit drug trade, facilitate entry points of the Prison Industrial Complex. Through his discussion of Philadelphia community activist Herman Wrice’s support of the entrepreneurial pursuits of formerly incarcerated young men, Anderson provides an example of a critical community based intervention intersecting food system markets, community development, entrepreneurship and community reentry. He writes: “[Herman] knew they had been drug dealers, whom he sees as businessmen ‘but with a terrible product,’ and wondered whether they might become entrepreneurs. Could they sell fruit on a local street corner instead of drugs? Could this then grow into a larger market, contributing eventually to revitalizing the community?” (Anderson, 2000, pp. Kindle 4918‐4921). The work of Alison Hope Alkon and Julian Agyeman advocate for the inclusive participation of low income communities of color in food justice activism and in the creation of alternative food system markets. This departs from neoliberal green economic strategies that foster social change through market behavior and away from the public sphere (Alkon, 2012, pp. Kindle 305‐312; Alkon and Agyeman, 2011). Alkon and Agyeman’s perspective is supported by Andrea Freeman, who describes food oppression as “a form of structural subordination that builds on and deepens pre‐existing disparities along race and class lines… [which is] difficult both to identify as a social wrong and to redress, because it stems from a combination of market forces and government policy” (Freeman, 2007, pp. 2245). Freeman specifically addresses the close relationships between the United States government with processed food industries – such as dairy, meat, and fast food – that support food assistance programs and promote malnutrition (Freeman, 2007, pp. 2246) through the proliferation of food deserts and swamps. Although the administration’s Let’s Move campaign, spearheaded by First Lady Michelle Obama in 2011, addresses food deserts and swamps, poverty, and malnutrition, the focus of the initiative is childhood obesity (Obama, 25 October 2011. <http://www.whitehouse.gov/the‐press‐office/2011/10/25/remarks‐first‐lady‐mayors‐summit‐food‐ deserts‐chicago‐illinois>).This emphasizes the role of choice, minimizing the socioeconomic influence on food access and control of distribution. Intersecting just sustainability with community development and increased economic opportunities will address layered issues of food access, unemployment and hyper‐incarceration at the root of systemic underdevelopment. As religious organizations such as the Nation of Islam are still present as an example of entrepreneurship and communal uplift through the creation of alternative and culturally specific food markets, there has been a recent increase of social enterprise businesses and nonprofit advocacy organizations that are intersecting food system advocacy with critical interventions addressing race and class based systemic oppression rooted in the U.S. criminal justice system. Haley House, The Food Project, Fresh Food Generation, The BLK ProjeK, Soul Fire Farm, and Drive Change are a small list of organizations leading the work to create conscious capital through impactful economic community development with food system markets.

4.1

The Northeast

The Northeast of the United States has played a critical role as a central destination for migrants of African descent. This historic cultural diversity expands the black Great Migration story of 1910 to 1970 from the American South to include black immigrants from Cape Verde (Africa), Jamaica, Cuba and Puerto Rico (Betty, 2013, pp. 24).2 Similar to the 6.5 million black migrants from the American 2

By 1930 there were 177,981 foreign‐born blacks and children of foreign‐born blacks in the United States, this figure constitutes 1.5 percent of the U.S. total population. Although the Immigration Acts of 1917 and 1924 and the anti‐Communist McCarran‐Walter Act of 1950 placed heavy restrictions on black immigration, US Guest worker programs initiated in the 1940 supported the consistent migratory flow of foreign born blacks. These th

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South, there has been significant land lost – whether sold, forgotten or stolen – for recent and generational immigrants of African descent. In addition to high incarceration rates in this region of the U.S., there are systemic issues with food insecurity and access to healthy and culturally relevant food, especially fruits and vegetables. This occurrence has led to the labelling of many neighbourhoods within these cities food deserts and food swamps. With many Afro‐descended immigrants settling in the Northeast, Boston and New York provide a significant perspective in the current and historical use of food in particular as a tool for socioeconomic community building and empowerment. 4.1.1 Boston The population of Massachusetts is close to 7 million. Although black and Hispanic communities consist of 17% of this population, they account for 50 % of Massachusetts’ total prison population (U.S. Census Bureau, <http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/25000.html>; Prisonpolicy.org, <http://www.prisonpolicy.org/profiles/MA.html>). This imprisoned population is rooted from Boston where 25% of residents are black/African American and 17% are Hispanic [Most of the Hispanic population is Afro‐Latino]– and 21 % of the population lives below the poverty line – some neighborhoods the poverty rate is close to 50% (City‐Data.com, <http://www.city‐ data.com/neighborhood/Dudley‐Square‐Boston‐MA.html#ixzz3nA5UUksu>; U.S. Census Bureau, <http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/25/2507000.html>). Boston communities, such as Roxbury, have been heavily impacted by the diversion and recycling of residents (especially young males) into the criminal justice system by war on drug policies and racially targeted policing – suffering the socioeconomic, familial and communal consequences of incarceration. Haley House Bakery Café, The Food Project, and Fresh Food Generation are examples of community supported, invested and led social enterprise initiatives countering these systemic issues with food advocacy.

4.1.2 Haley House Bakery Café Haley House Bakery Café is the social enterprise business of Haley House, a nonprofit Boston‐based organization founded in 1966 by Kathe and John McKenna. Haley House’s mission is to use “food and the power of community to break down barriers between people, transfer new skills, and revitalize neighborhoods… helping those made vulnerable by the harshest effects of inequality move toward wholeness and economic independence” (Haley House, <http://haleyhouse.org/who‐we‐ are/mission/>) Current Executive Director Bing Broderick explains that this is accomplished through initiatives such as a full‐service Soup Kitchen managed by a social justice orientated Live‐ In Community (1966), Elder Meal program (1974), Housing program (1972), Rural and Urban Organic Farming (1982), a Food Pantry (1998), and the Transitional Employment Program (1996) (Bing Broderick,Personal Interview; Haley House, <http://haleyhouse.org/who‐we‐are/history/>). The Transitional Employment Program (TEP) was established in 1996 in response to the intensification of the tragic cycle of addiction‐to‐prison‐and‐back experienced by many soup kitchen guests during the 1990s (Haley House, <http://haleyhouse.org/what‐we‐do/tep/>). Beginning as the Bakery Training Program through the Soup Kitchen, Bakery trainees learned how to bake bread which was sold to the South End community, “gaining invaluable practical skills and employment experience while bolstering the neighborhood community” (Haley House,

racially based immigration restrictions were lifted in 1965 with the Hart‐Celler Act, which has impacted black immigration to the United States from 1965 to the present period. th

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<http://haleyhouse.org/what‐we‐do/tep/>). In 2005 with the allied support of Dudley Street Neighborhood Initiative (DSNI), Haley House established the Haley House Bakery Café as a full‐service café, catering, and wholesale business in Dudley Square, Roxbury. Led by Bakery Manager and program graduate Jeremy Thompson, TEP provides paid work experience for participants producing wholesale bakery products for the café as well as core community reentry supports to facilitate the full transition of TEP men and women (Melvin Civry, YouTube, <https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=FpapoTv_y2Q >). As of 2013, only 2 out of 24 participants experienced recidivism (April Brown, PBS News Hour, < www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/lunch‐with‐a‐story‐on‐the‐side/>.). 4.1.3 The Food Project With three urban farming spaces and their Boston headquarter office stationed in the Dudley neighborhood, The Food Project serves as an important collaborator with Haley House Bakery Café (as well as other community‐based organizations) in furthering food system advocacy initiatives in Roxbury (Food Project, <http://thefoodproject.org/our‐farms>). Established in 1991 by Ward Cheney, The Food Project is one of the largest regional farming and food access organizations in Massachusetts with approximately 70 acres of land on three suburban farms, four urban farms, and two greenhouses throughout Massachusetts with distribution of produce through farmers markets, subsidized farm shares, and to hunger relief organizations (Food Project, <http://thefoodproject.org/our‐farms>). Through a national model of engaging young people in personal and social change through sustainable agriculture, The Food Project works with 120 teenagers and thousands of volunteers each year. To date, more than 1,400 youth have participated in leadership development programs since 1991 (Food Project, < http://thefoodproject.org/what‐we‐ do). In addition to selling reduced priced sustainably sourced food, purchasers are able to buy food with Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits at farm locations and the local Farmers’ Market (Food Project, <http://thefoodproject.org/community‐programs>). The Food Project’s partnerships with Dudley Street Neighborhood Initiative (DSNI) and City of Boston have supported the continued access of food harvested from farm sites to community members through the Dudley Town Common Farmers Market and several local hunger relief organizations in the neighborhood. In 2010, The Food Project partnered with DSNI to operate a 10,000‐square‐foot Dudley Greenhouse in Roxbury, the greenhouse functions as a community space and year‐round learning center for local residents and gardeners (Food Project, <http://thefoodproject.org/our‐ farms>). 4.1.4 Fresh Food Generation Fresh Food Generation (FFG) is a farm‐to‐plate food truck and catering business founded in 2013 by Cassandria Campbell and Jackson Renshaw. FFG is committed to serving the entire Greater Boston Area with a focus on underserved neighborhoods that have limited access to quality foods. Through their relationships with local farmers and food organizations, such as The Food Project and City Growers, Fresh Food Generation makes low‐cost meals influenced by Latin American and Caribbean cuisine. The food truck hires young adults in the local community as team members with the “hope to inspire a generation of young leaders who are excited to eat well and work towards creating a better food system” (Fresh Food Generation, <http://www.freshfoodgeneration.com/>). The FFG food truck is notably stationed in the Dudley street neighborhood across from a multitude of sub and pizza shops.

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Campbell and Renshaw first connected at The Food Project where they were trained in an anti‐ oppression model with focus on food system inequity and community advocacy (Fresh Food Generation, <http://www.freshfoodgeneration.com/#!our‐team/cs5f >). When Campbell finished graduate school of MIT in urban planning, she came back to her neighborhood in Roxbury and found that she was traveling to other communities to get healthy food (Dewey, Bay State Banner, April 8 2015). She connected with Renshaw on the idea of a community‐based healthful food truck in Roxbury. Serving as a healthy alternative to over‐processed foods sold at corner stores and fast food chains, FFG aims “to make affordable cultural relevant food, support local farms and engage in sustainable business practices that allow the communities they serve to ‘thrive’” (Fresh Food Generation, <http://www.freshfoodgeneration.com/#!our‐philosophy/c18k6>).

4.1.5 Boston analysis Haley House Bakery Café, The Food Project, and Fresh Food Generation have created conscious capital in the Dudley neighborhood of Roxbury, Massachusetts. With focus on alternative economic spaces and high levels of community support and collaboration, these social enterprise organizations have created critical interventions in employment opportunity, training and entrepreneurship support specifically for the low‐income community in Dudley. In addition to pushing for important community based resources through policy changes and community development initiatives, these organizations have aligned interventions addressing systemic issues connected to hyper‐ incarceration, unemployment and youth development with food system advocacy and healthful food access – a strategy with historical and cultural relevance for Boston’s communities of color. As a part of the growing number of social enterprise community based resources in the Boston area, Haley House Bakery Café, The Food Project, and FFG are locate in the Dudley neighborhood. The Dudley Street Neighborhood Initiative (DSNI), a nonprofit community‐based planning and organizing entity established in 1984 with the mission of community “development without displacement,” has been an impactful and supportive resource in connecting these three enterprises with community support and collaboration (Dudley Street Neighborhood Initiative, <http://www.dsni.org/dsni‐ historic‐timeline/>). Through the creation of the Dudley Neighbors, Inc. community land trust in 1988, DSNI gained eminent domain authority, purchased vacant land, and protected affordability and family stability in the Dudley neighborhood – which transverses Dudley street spanning 1.3 square miles through Roxbury and north Dorchester areas (Dudley Neighbors, Inc., <http://www.dudleyneighbors.org/land‐trust‐101.html>). Although the DSNI is a proven source of empowerment and community control with support from local and national political leaders, gentrification is an impending cause of disempowerment in the Dudley neighborhood. The ever present threat of the expansion of higher education institutions is compounded with the proximity and convenience to Boston proper which brings real estate developers and high‐income interlopers. The positives of redevelopment are contradicted with the insertion of priorities of multibillion dollar corporate entities over community empowerment efforts and local entrepreneurship (Casey Ross, Boston Globe, March 30 2014). 4.2

New York

New York State’s population is close to 20 million with large portions of residents concentrated to the boroughs of New York City. Although black and Hispanics account for 34% of the total population in New York state, they are 75% of the imprisoned population (53% for blacks and 22% for Hispanics) (Prison Policy Initiative, <http://www.prisonpolicy.org/profiles/NY.html>). The incarceration rates of

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New York City borough residents correlate with area demographics on race and poverty. These incarcerated populations are from communities in the South Bronx, East Harlem and Brooklyn (Marks, Gothamist.com, May 1 2013). Similar to the challenges of Boston’s inner city, communities within New York have been affected by war on drug policies of the Rockefeller drug laws and racially targeted policing. The BLK ProjeK, Soul Fire Farm and Drive Change are examples of social enterprise initiatives impacting systemic underdevelopment driven by the criminal justice system through food. 4.2.1 The BLK ProjeK The BLK ProjeK (pronounced “Black Project”) is a Bronx‐based nonprofit organization that seeks to address food justice and economic development by channeling the local, good food movement and creating small business and career opportunities for underserved women and youth of color (The BLK ProjeK, <http://www.theblkprojek.org/our‐story/> ). Established in 2009 by activist and mother of five Tanya Fields through the support of community‐based organization Mothers on the Move, TBP aims to strengthen the overall mental and public health of community members, creating viable pathways out of poverty while supporting local growers elevating the collective self esteem of the larger community (The BLK ProjeK, <http://www.theblkprojek.org/our‐story/>; Andrew Leonard, Grist.org, April 24 2012) The organization implements culturally relevant education, beautification of public spaces, urban gardening and community programming to enrich “the lives of women who are routinely overlooked and overburdened yet serve an important and critical role in the larger fabric of society” (The BLK ProjeK, <http://www.theblkprojek.org/our‐story/>). Fields passion for social justice and inclusive economic development is gauged from her perspective as a low‐income single mother. The BLK ProjeK engages the Bronx community through two‐tiered programming called Holistic Hoods and Healthy Hoods. Holistic Hoods supports community building with Bronx Grub, a quarterly meal series that brings Bronx community residents together for a sustainable low‐cost/free meal, serving as a vehicle for base‐building and civic engagement (The BLK ProjeK, <http://www.theblkprojek.org/our‐story/>). Healthy Hoods is initiated through The South Bronx Mobile Market, an itinerant market that moves through South Bronx neighborhoods selling responsibly grown, high quality food from local producers; and Libertad Urban Farm initiative, through gardening of public spaces and vacant lots.

4.2.2 Soul Fire Farm Soul Fire Farm (SFF) is a Certified Natural Growing family farm serving as a community resource and vessel for education in dismantling oppressive structures that misguide the food system (Soul Fire Farm, <http://www.soulfirefarm.com/>). Founded by Leah Penniman and Jonah Vitale‐Wolff and located in upstate New York outside of Albany, the farm is committed to raising “life‐giving food and act in solidarity with people marginalized by food apartheid” (Soul Fire Farm, <http://www.soulfirefarm.com/meet‐the‐farmers/>). Penniman began her career in farming and food activism as a teen participant of The Food Project based in Boston, Massachusetts. The husband‐wife duo met later in their careers, forming Youth GROW, a year round urban agriculture‐ focused youth development and employment program for low‐income teens in Worcester, Massachusetts (REC Worcester, <http://www.recworcester.org/#!youth‐grow/c1thu>). In addition to SFF’s activities as a functioning farm, the organization contributes to the movements for food sovereignty and community self‐determination through education initiatives that include the Black and Latino Farmers Immersion program, Volunteering program opportunities, Farming

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Apprenticeship, Youth programming, International Solidarity activities and Activist Retreats. With initiatives in Haiti, Ghana and Brazil, SFF is a part of an international community of small farmers connecting anti‐oppression work with food system advocacy. In 2014, Soul Fire Farm partnered with the Freedom Food Alliance supporting the Victory Bus Project3 with produce and providing a place to work and learn for young people enrolled in Project Growth – Albany County’s new restorative justice program (Penniman,YesMagazine.org, Jan 28 2015). Youth convicted of theft would elect to take on an internship with SFF as an alternative to incarceration paying restitution to their victims while gaining farm skills. With a program curriculum that explores the connections between mass incarceration and food injustice, the youth are trained in farming and social justice. 4.2.3 Drive Change Founded by Jordyn Leyton, a former high school English teacher at Riker Islands correctional facility in New York City, Drive Change is a social enterprise aiming to broaden opportunities for young people coming out of adult jail and prison through a fleet of locally sourced food trucks. With New York being one of only two states that prosecute 16 and 17‐year‐olds as adults – sending them to prison instead of juvenile detention – re‐entry programming is key to supporting youth branded by the criminal justice system (Kamin, Huffington Post, March 20 2013). Formerly incarcerated youth are trained to handle the cooking and business affairs of Snowday, Drive Change’s first food truck. Drive Change embraces social enterprise model to lower recidivism rates for youth with evidence‐ based practices and holistic approaches in an effort to transform lives. The organization’s re‐entry program aims “to lower the recidivism rate for program graduates from 70% to 20%, and to place 100% of program graduates into full‐time employment or educational opportunities” (Kamin, Huffington Post, March 20 2013). Roy Waterman is the Director of Program for Drive Change. A common fixture at the Snowday food truck, he serves as Mentor and Head Chef to the 24 young people employed and empowered per year. Waterman’s background as a formerly incarcerated entrepreneur, owning his own Caribbean soul food catering company, is fundamental not only in providing experience based support to youth in the program but as an example of success in social justice and entrepreneurship. 4.2.4 New York analysis Collectively, The BLK ProjeK, Soul Fire Farm and Drive Change serve a critical role in addressing systemic issues of poverty, hyper‐incarceration, and community underdevelopment with food system interventions. Located in The South Bronx, upstate in Grafton, NY, and Manhattan respectively, each organization has acquired important gains within the specific microcosm of their region in New York. These three organizations are not necessarily partnered, in comparison to similar Boston‐based organizations. The BLK Project is the personal mission of Tanya Fields, based on her experience as a Bronx community member receiving food stamps and not having the economic and geographical resources to access adequate food for her family. Fields was “saving my own life… 3

Freedom Food Alliance was established by Jalal Sabur, black farmer and prison abolitionist, in 2009 as a collective of farmers, political prisoners, and organizers in upstate New York who are committed to incorporating food justice to address racism in the criminal justice system. One of the Freedom Food Alliance’s central efforts is Victory Bus Project, a program that reunites incarcerated people with their loved ones while increasing access to farm‐fresh food. th

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[because] I know what [the community goes] through. This resonates with me and I want to do something to help them, and to help me” (Leonard, Grist.org, April 24 2012). As an African American woman, Fields entered food advocacy with negative reception. She states, “if my name was Lauren and I was from Wesleyan, and I was living in Brooklyn, there would be people coming out of the woodwork to help me” (Leonard, Grist.org, April 24 2012). Soul Fire Farm has gained a reputation as an incubator and healing space for anti‐oppression activists and exploited members of society. The organization is unapologetically positioned within the space of Black Liberation with revolutionary rhetoric infused into farm training through food sovereignty. The farm’s location in Grafton, NY is an important feature to create the tranquility and space needed to run a 6 acres farm – land availability is not an issue as it is for urban agriculturalist Tanya Fields. Although SFF serves the needs of the immediate Albany community4 and internationals partners, the farm’s location separates the organization from the communities within the boroughs of New York City affected intensely by systemic oppression. Drive Change is an important fixture in the social justice community in New York City. The organization has partnered with Black Lives Matter activist organizations geared at transforming the criminal justice sector. The mission of the organization is in direct alignment with the political push to “Raise the Age” in New York State, ending the practice of trying 16 and 17 year olds as adults. Although the farm‐to‐truck theme does address sustainability, the food truck’s role does not directly speak to community food access issues. Drive Change is a supporter of food justice initiatives, but the organization’s fundamental mission is to serve as a pragmatic re‐entry program focused in breaking down barriers to create opportunities for formerly incarcerated teens.

Conclusion

As I am in the preliminary stages of this research project, I seem to have more questions than a firm conclusion. My focus on pragmatic Pan Africanism in community development and food system markets engage the importance of race, class, marginalization and autonomy in addressing the systemic underdevelopment of low income communities of color. Regarding my case study organizations: How are race, class, and gender dynamics addressed in organizational leadership and community engagement? How does the nonprofit industrial complex inhibit the creation of real change and autonomy for communities of color? Are there smaller community‐food base social enterprise initiatives that are impactful but functioning under the radar? The six organizations outlined have a profound impact on low income communities of African descent, but only three of the six organizations (Fresh Food Generation, BLK ProjeK, and Soul Fire Farm) are headed by African Americans – specifically women. These same three organizations also overtly engage with the historical and cultural aspects of Pan African communalism. But all six organizations function under an anti‐oppression model of community building and engagement connecting with key themes of Revolutionary Intercommunalism and economic cooperativism. The three organizations founded and lead by white individuals are cross cultural, racial, class and gender with people of color and impacted communities members serving in important leadership positions (Board members, Managers and Directors). 4

Albany, 300,000 residents, 20 % black and Hispanic (14% and 6% respectively) 13.7% in Poverty , U.S. Census Bureau; generated by Lisa Betty; using Quick Facts; <http://www.census.gov/quickfacts/table/ INC110213/00,36001,36005,36061>; (9 September 2015); Alice P. Green, “What Have We Done? Mass Incarceration and the Targeting of Albany’s Black Males by Federal, State, and Local Authorities” (Albany, NY: The Center for Law and Justice, Inc., October 2012), Web. 9 Sept 2015 <http://www.cflj.org/cflj/what‐have‐we‐ done.pdf> th

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My engagement with the dynamics of race, class and gender will be important features of my analysis, but community engagement, impact and economic growth will also serve an integral role in my exploration of social enterprise and entrepreneurship from communities that have been “locked up and locked out” (Alexander, 2012,pp.260). 6.

References

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Levine, C.A., 2003. “Mediating the model: Women's microenterprise and microcredit in Tobago, West Indies.” PhD Diss, University of South Florida. Newton, H., 1980. “War Against The Panthers: A Study of Repression in America.” PhD Diss, UC Santa Cruz. Newspaper/Articles Agnew, M., 2014. “The Farm‐to‐Street Revolution Is Almost Here” Modern Farmer, October 28 2014. Web. 9 Sept 2015 <http://modernfarmer.com/2014/10/farm‐street‐revolution‐almost/>

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Brown, A., 2013. “Former Incarcerated Staff Serves Up Lunch, With a Story on the Side” PBS News Hour (Boston, MA) 15 January 2013 <http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/lunch‐with‐a‐story‐on‐the‐side/> Web. 9 September 2015. Canne, K., 2015.“Highland Park residents oppose plans for new Dunkin' Donuts” UniversalHub.com, September 28 2015. Web. 29 Sept 2015 <http://www.universalhub.com/2015/highland‐park‐community‐oppose‐plans‐ new‐dunkin> Dewey, E., 2015. “Dudley food truck rolls out: Local duo focuses on affordability, sustainability” Bay State Banner, April 8 2015, Web. 9 Sept 2015 <http://baystatebanner.com/news/2015/apr/08/dudley‐food‐truck‐ rolls‐out/?page=2> Hufeb, W., 2014. “Fresh Produce Comes to the Bronx via a Veggie Mart on Wheels”New York Times, February 27 2014 Web. 9 Sept 2015 <http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/27/nyregion/fresh‐produce‐comes‐to‐the‐ bronx‐via‐a‐veggie‐mart‐on‐wheels.html?_r=0> Kamin, S., 2013. “Drive Change: Delicious Advocacy on the Move in NYC” Huffington Post, March 20 2013, Web. 9 Sept 2015 <http://www.huffingtonpost.com/heritage‐radio‐network/drive‐change_b_2904708.html> Leonard, A., 2012. “Tanya Fields: Breaking locks and planting seeds in the South Bronx” Grist.org, April 24 2012 Web. 9 Sept 2015 <http://grist.org/urban‐agriculture/tanya‐fields‐breaking‐locks‐and‐planting‐seeds‐in‐ the‐south‐bronx/> Marks A., 2013.“These 5 Neighborhoods Supply Over A Third Of NYC's Prisoners” Gothamist.com, May 1 2013. Web. 9 Sept 2015 <http://gothamist.com/2013/05/01/these_interactive_charts_show_you_w.php> Penniman, L., 2014. “Tractors, Ritual Baths, and Dismantling Racism: Welcome to Black and Latino Farmers Immersion” YesMagazine.org, August 14 2014, Web. 9 Sept 2015 <http://www.yesmagazine.org/peace‐ justice/welcome‐to‐black‐and‐latino‐farmers‐immersion> Penniman, L., 2015. “Radical Farmers Use Fresh Food to Fight Racial Injustice and the New Jim Crow” YesMagazine.org, Jan 28 2015, Web. 9 Sept 2015 <http://www.yesmagazine.org/peace‐justice/radical‐ farmers‐use‐fresh‐food‐fight‐racial‐injustice‐black‐lives‐matter> Ross, C., 2014. “Dudley Square’s comeback tied to historic structure: Overhaul of Ferdinand Building spurs business, development plans” Boston Globe, March 30 2014. Web. 9 Sept 2015 <https://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2014/03/30/retail‐resurrection‐dudley‐ square/Yum2wcS2kAT0MDkqVtEuoK/story.html>

Interviews Bing Broderick (Haley House, Executive Director). Personal Interview. 8 February 2015 Websites Boston Redevelopment Authority. “2007‐2011 American Community Survey, BRA Research Division Analysis” May 2013 cityofBoston.org, n.d. Web. 9 Sept 2015 <https://data.cityofboston.gov/dataset/Roxbury‐ neighborhood‐American‐Community‐Survey‐200/hr8h‐d4cv> City‐Data.com. “Dudley Square, Boston MA” City‐Data.com, n.d. Web. 9 Sept 2015 <http://www.city‐ data.com/neighborhood/Dudley‐Square‐Boston‐MA.html#ixzz3nA5UUksu> Drive Change. “Homepage” DriveChange.org, n.d. Web. 9 Sept 2015 <http://drivechangenyc.org/https/jordyn‐ lexton‐ol98squarespacecom/config/modulecontentcollectionid523aef28e4b0f0c5f10b5542/> Dudley Neighbors, Inc. “Land Trust 101” DudleyNeighbors.org, n.d. Web. 9 Sept 2015 <http://www.dudleyneighbors.org/land‐trust‐101.html> Dudley Street Neighborhood Initiative. “DSNI Historic Timeline” DSNI.org, n.d. Web. 9 Sept 2015 <http://www.dsni.org/dsni‐historic‐timeline/> Dudley Street Neighborhood Initiative. “Sustainable Economic Development” DSNI.org, n.d. Web. 9 Sept 2015 <http://www.dsni.org/sustainable‐economic‐development/> Fresh Food Generation. “Homepage” Freshfood generation.org, n.d. Web. 9 Sept 2015 <http://www.freshfoodgeneration.com/> Fresh Food Generation. “Our Partners” Freshfood generation.org, n.d. Web. 9 Sept 2015 http://www.freshfoodgeneration.com/#!our‐partners/c1x8

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Fresh Food Generation. “Our Team” Freshfood generation.org, n.d. Web. 9 Sept 2015 <http://www.freshfoodgeneration.com/#!our‐team/cs5f > Fresh Food Generation. “Our Philosophy” Freshfood generation.org, n.d. Web. 9 Sept 2015 <http://www.freshfoodgeneration.com/#!our‐philosophy/c18k6> Haley House. “Who was Leo Haley” Haley House.org, n.d. Web. 9 Sept 2015 <http://haleyhouse.org/who‐we‐ are/history/who‐was‐leo‐haley/> Haley House. “Mission” Haley House.org, n.d. Web. 9 Sept 2015 <http://haleyhouse.org/who‐we‐are/mission/> Haley House. “History” Haley House.org, n.d. Web. 9 Sept 2015 <http://haleyhouse.org/who‐we‐are/history/> Haley House. “Transitional Employment Program” Haley House.org, n.d. Web. 9 Sept 2015 <http://haleyhouse.org/what‐we‐do/tep/> Haley House. “History” Haley House.org, n.d. Web. 9 Sept 2015 <http://haleyhouse.org/who‐we‐are/history/> Melvin Civry, “Food With Purpose: A Portrait of the Transitional Employment Program at Haley House Bakery Café” YouTube, n.d. Web. 9 Sept 2015 <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FpapoTv_y2Q > Nation of Islam, Ministry of Agriculture. “About NOIMOA” NOIMOA.com. n.d. Web. 9 Sept 2015 < http://www.noimoa.com/about‐noimoa/> Obama, Michele. “Remarks by the First Lady at Mayor's Summit on Food Deserts, Chicago, Illinois.” Mayor's Summit on Food Deserts, Chicago. Walgreens Store, Chicago, Illinois. 25 October 2011. Keynote Address. Whitehouse.gov, n.d. Web. 9 Oct 2014 <http://www.whitehouse.gov/the‐press‐ office/2011/10/25/remarks‐first‐lady‐mayors‐summit‐food‐deserts‐chicago‐illinois> Peoples’ Food Sovereignty. “Homepage” foodsovereignty.org, n.d. Web. 9 Sept 2015 <http://www.foodsovereignty.org/> Prison Policy Initiative. "50 state incarceration profiles: Massachusetts profile." Prisonpolicy.org, n.d. Web. 9 Sept 2015 <http://www.prisonpolicy.org/profiles/MA.html> Prison Policy Initiative. "50 state incarceration profiles: New York profile." Prisonpolicy.org, n.d. Web. 9 Sept 2015 <http://www.prisonpolicy.org/profiles/NY.html> REC Worcester. “Youth Grow” recworcester.org, n.d. Web. 9 Sept 2015 <http://www.recworcester.org/#!youth‐grow/c1thu> Snow Day Food Truck. “The Food” SnowDayFoodTruck.org, n.d. Web. 9 Sept 2015 <http://snowdayfoodtruck.com/thefood‐2/> Soul Fire Farm. “Homepage” soulfirefarm.org, n.d. Web. 9 Sept 2015 <http://www.soulfirefarm.com/> Soul Fire Farm. “Meet the Farmers” soulfirefarm.org, n.d. Web. 9 Sept 2015 <http://www.soulfirefarm.com/meet‐the‐farmers/> Soul Fire Farm. “Food Sovereignty Education” soulfirefarm.org, n.d. Web. 9 Sept 2015 <http://www.soulfirefarm.com/food‐sovereignty‐education/> The BLK ProjeK. “About the SBMM” theblkprojek.org, n.d. Web. 9 Sept 2015 <http://www.theblkprojek.org/about‐the‐sbmm/> The BLK ProjeK. “Initiatives” theblkprojek.org, n.d. Web. 9 Sept 2015 <http://www.theblkprojek.org/initiatives/> The Food Project. “Our Farms” TheFoodProject.org, n.d. Web. 9 Sept 2015 <http://thefoodproject.org/our‐ farms> The Food Project. “What We Do” TheFoodProject.org, n.d. Web. 9 Sept 2015 < http://thefoodproject.org/what‐we‐do The Food Project. “Youth Programs” TheFoodProject.org, n.d. Web. 9 Sept 2015 < http://thefoodproject.org/youth‐programs The Food Project. “Community Programs” TheFoodProject.org, n.d. Web. 9 Sept 2015 <http://thefoodproject.org/community‐programs> The Food Project. “Dudley Greenhouse” TheFoodProject.org, n.d. Web. 9 Sept 2015 <http://thefoodproject.org/our‐farms> The Food Project. “From the fields, The Food Project's blog: Ninety‐Nine Year Lease given to The Food Project to farm land on West Cottage Street” TheFoodProject.org, n.d. Web. 9 Sept 2015 <http://thefoodproject.org/2015/8/10/West‐Cottage‐99Years>

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U.S. Census Bureau; generated by Lisa Betty; using Quick Facts; <http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/25000.html>; (9 September 2015) U.S. Census Bureau; generated by Lisa Betty; using Quick Facts; <http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/25/2507000.html>; (9 September 2015) U.S. Census Bureau; generated by Lisa Betty; using Quick Facts; <http://www.census.gov/quickfacts/table/INC110213/00,36001,36005,36061>; (9 September 2015) U.S. Census Bureau; generated by Lisa Betty; using Quick Facts; <http://www.census.gov/quickfacts/table/INC110213/00,36001,36005,36061>; (9 September 2015) U.S. Census Bureau; generated by Lisa Betty; using Quick Facts; <http://www.census.gov/quickfacts/table/INC110213/00,36001,36005,36061>; (9 September 2015) United States Department of Agriculture. “Agricultural Act Summary.” Agriculture.house.gov, n.d. Web. 9 Oct 2014<http://agriculture.house.gov/sites/republicans.agriculture.house.gov/files/pdf/legislation/Agricultura lActSummary.pdf>

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Jane Midgley, “Making food valued or the value(s) of food: a study of local food governance arrangements in Newcastle, England”, In: th Localizing urban food strategies. Farming cities and performing rurality. 7 International Aesop Sustainable Food Planning Conference Proceedings, Torino, 7‐9 October 2015, edited by Giuseppe Cinà and Egidio Dansero, Torino, Politecnico di Torino, 2015, pp 215‐225. ISBN 978‐88‐8202‐060‐6

MAKING FOOD VALUED OR THE VALUE(S) OF FOOD: A STUDY OF LOCAL FOOD GOVERNANCE ARRANGEMENTS IN NEWCASTLE, ENGLAND Midgley Jane

Keywords: new institutionalism, food policy, discourse Abstract: This paper charts some of the changes that have occurred within the city of Newcastle in northeast England regarding different actors perceptions and involvement with the potential creation of a holistic food policy for the city, between 2009 and 2015. The paper is informed by a range of qualitative data and adopts a new institutional approach, which focuses on the sociological and discursive institutionalisms, to help explore the evolution and constraints to the emergence of a food policy for the city.

Introduction

1.1

Background

There has been an increasing trend towards the development of local/city/municipal based food policies and strategies in recent years, particularly but not exclusively in the global north, but which collectively has marked ‘the rise of urban food planning’ as a practice (Morgan, 2013, p.1379; 2015). Such strategic engagement reflects the increasing political awareness of food that has promoted a growth in partnership working and civil society collaboration (Bedore, 2014; Morgan, 2013, 2015). One reason behind this may be the ‘convening power of food’ (Morgan, 2009, p.343) which given the multi‐functional character of the food system and its potential to intersect with a range of policy and communal interests facilitates their possible coming together, and which stretch beyond the traditional and often mandatory scope of local/municipal government actors such as public health to consider wider economic, social and ecological benefits from these connections (Wiskerke, 2009; Morgan, 2015). Although the motivations from local government have been questioned amidst austerity capitalism and pressures placed on local civil society actors responsiveness to overcome or relieve social problems while not impacting on economic growth or other policy agendas and imperatives (Mansfield and Mendes, 2013; Bedore, 2014). However, what is emerging is a growing wealth of detailed engagement with food policy, and the institutional arrangements associated with this, although with the exception of Halliday (2015) and her explicit application of new institutional analysis in studying five English initiatives, the institutional arrangements in the process of a policy’s possible creation and implementation are rarely expressly considered. 1.2

Aim

This paper’s aim is to offer an exploratory consideration of emerging food policy related initiatives in the city of Newcastle in northeast England, focusing particularly on the changing institutional involvement with food by different actors revealed through a discursive institutionalist perspective.

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Theoretical framework

2.1

New Institutionalism and the role of discourse

Institutions are about and reflect process. The body of literatures referred to as ‘new institutionalism’ emerged in the 1980s and recognized the importance of values, norms, rules, practices and structures and how these become internalised and institutionalised in everyday practice. Such institutions affected both daily life and individual and organisational behaviour, primarily with respect to political and policy situations and the distribution of power within these. There is no one singular approach but rather a body of work from social and political sciences that together has contributed to the development of what has often been referred to as new institutionalisms (Hall and Taylor, 1996; see also March and Olsen, 1984; 1989; 2006; DiMaggio and Powell, 1991a; Lowndes, 1996; 2002; Blondel, 2006). Three core strands of new institutionalism have been identified: rational choice, historical and sociological (Hall and Taylor, 1996). Rational choice approaches argue that actors respond to exogenous imperatives (whether crisis or some form of dilemma) by making strategic decisions motivated by self interest that pursue goals of utility maximisation and the institutions created are a reflection of this, whereas historical institutionalism suggests that actors will reflect on past behaviours and how these are interpreted will be used to inform future expectations and as such institutions develop and follow a routinized or path dependent trajectory within their specific setting (Hall and Taylor, 1996; Steele, 2011). Sociological institutionalism is concerned with how an individual’s or organisation’s behaviour is structured and defined as appropriate by social and cultural norms. Sociological institutionalism works with the idea that institutions occur by the internalisation and taken for grantedness of norms and practices, but as these are informed by cultural frames of reference and values they reflect a more practical and subjective reasoning than the other institutional strands (Hall and Taylor, 1996; Vigar et al., 2000; Steele, 2011). A process informed by social relations may reproduce or reinterpret the diversity of signs, symbols, discourses and framings with respect to wider economic relations and civil society hints at the possibility of continual institutional evolution (Hall and Taylor, 1996; Vigar et al., 2000; Steele, 2011). In turn through greater consideration of the creation, maintenance and possible change to institutions has led to an exploration of its impact on actor’s behaviours and influence local governance arrangements and practices, including planning (Lowndes, 2001; Cars et al., 2002; Davies, 2004; González and Healey, 2005; Fuller, 2010). New institutionalist approaches have been criticised for their apparent propensity for constraining behaviour and static situations rather than offer a capacity to initiate, encourage or explore change (Lowndes, 1996; 2002). For example within historical institutionalism there has been a tendency to focus on ideas within an existing policy area rather than how it may change especially with respect to different external ideas (Fuller, 2010). However, within sociological institutionalist approaches, institutions are recognised as embedded processes that are socially constituted and socially constructed. This recognition has enabled the ‘rules of the game’ to be subjected to wider scrutiny through specifically considering how social and cultural relations inform and shape the identities, expectations, interests and behaviour of individual actors within and outwith formal institutional settings. One such way has been through a focus on discourse and incorporating discourse analysis into sociological institutionalism and its focus on the ‘meaning structures and constructs’ of institutions (Schmidt, 2010, p.5). A distinctive policy discourse analysis drawing from sociological institutionalism has also been taken forward by Vigar et al., (2000) which focused specifically on the social relations that underpin the production and use of discourses as a frame of reference within specific policy settings to help identify how policies and other ideas are articulated, defined and

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positioned recognising the possible impacts of the discursive practice for power relations and wider context specific consequences. Schmidt (2008, 2010) has through her development of ‘discursive institutionalism’, and its potential to capture endogenous change and continuity, argues for it to be seen as an additional strand of new institutionalism that complements and bridges the other three approaches: ‘The ‘institutionalism’ in discursive institutionalism suggests that this approach is not only about the communication of ideas or ‘text’ but also about the institutional context in which and through which ideas are communicated via discourse. The institutions of discursive institutionalism, however, are not the external rule‐following structures of the three older institutionalisms that serve primarily as constraints on actors, whether as rationalist incentives, historical paths, or cultural frames. They are instead simultaneously constraining structures and enabling constructs of meaning which are internal to ‘sentient’ (thinking and speaking) agents whose ‘background ideational abilities’ explain how they create and maintain institutions at the same time that their ‘foreground discursive abilities’ enable them to communicate critically about those institutions to change (or maintain) them’ (Schmidt, 2010, p.4). In this paper I follow a new institutionalist approach that focuses particularly on sociological institutionalism and subsequent authors emphasis on discourse. This recognises that competing ideas and identities are commonplace as not everyone accepts the same rules or shares the same understanding. The discursive approach also enables the issue of power and position to be critically incorporated into analyses of change. Rather than equating power with position, discursive institutionalism recognises that powerful discourses may be also owned and presented by those deemed to be in the least powerful positions. Indeed ‘institutions are simultaneously structures and constructs internal to the agents themselves’ (Schmidt, 2008, p.322). By following a discursive approach tensions and conflict between institutions can also be more fully explored and addresses a further criticism of new institutionalism (Vigar et al., 2000; March and Olsen, 2006; Torfing, 2001). As discourses are ‘embedded in institutional practices’ that guide and pattern behaviour (Hajer and Laws, 2006; p.261), this approach enables the ‘how’ engagement with food and the idea of a food policy has emerged with regard to the nuances of local actors and the local policy and political context of the city of Newcastle. As the focus is on an emerging food policy in the city it is useful to consider from a new institutional perspective the possibility of path dependent or path shaping responses to the advent of the idea of a food policy for the city. 2.2

Path dependent or path shaping?

Different actors responses are to the appearance of a new issue, event, problem or even new actor have a tendency to adopt one of two approaches: path dependency or path shaping behaviours (Torfing, 2001; Davies, 2004). As previously noted path dependency is commonly associated with historical institutionalism based on the premise that the extent of past investments and interests will pre‐dispose and structure the individual to follow previous behaviour, and so the trajectory that they follow in their daily practice is based on a logic that is contextualised and dependent on past paths (Davies, 2004). Therefore, existing practices and norms become internal and informal constraints on current and future behaviour. Although it is possible that external actors may directly influence path dependent decisions by holding funding, assigning roles and responsibilities (Davies, 2004).

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However, from a more sociological and discursive institutionalist perspective the actor’s own discourses within which they construct and present any potential change are important. Torfing (2001, p.288) notes that policy paths possess: ‘a certain elasticity; in most cases it can account for, and cope with, new and unintended events by means of mobilizing its discursive resources, stretching its interpretative schemes, and modifying its rule governed practices. However, the structured coherence of the policy path also imposes a limit to this elasticity.’ Once the limit of the discursive strategy is reached established rules, norms and practices start failing to provide a structure that can absorb the new issue/event/problem/etc. This changes the possible path taken from one of dependency to shaping; as an opportunity for change emerges through the discursive resolution of possible tensions and conflicts. But, elements of past practices may be incorporated into new responses, resulting in no clear or radical break in behaviours and something more akin to an evolutionary process occurs (Torfing, 2001). Consequently, a discursive perspective can help explore the possible path junctures in participants’ discourse and practice as they negotiate food as a new political and policy issue around which a multiplicity of actors and interests are organised and the possible impacts on local institutional and governance arrangements. 3.

Methodology

The original empirical data informing this paper draws from a range of sources, these include; interviews with key actors, observations from attending public meetings and publicly available documents, all generated between 2009‐2015. Initial interviews conducted during 2009/10 when analysed highlighted varied involvement with local governance arrangements (local policy and/or policymakers and/or service delivery) concerning food issues at a time of political and economic uncertainty (expecting a change in national and potentially local government and still recoiling from the 2008 economic crisis). Since June 2013 through various events and organisational and political developments a food charter has been created for the city and the city is one of the six lead cities for the Sustainable Food Cities network running in the UK, although as yet the city does not have a published discrete food policy. Further interviews were conducted in 2015 with key actors concerning the changes occurring with respect to food policy developments and the institutional landscape. The analysis presented in the following section emphasises the discursive logics identified following a sociological and discursive institutionalist approach. 4.

Analysis and Discussion

4.1

Food as a discursive fix

During the 2009‐10 phase of research many of the participants reflected on the growth of food as an issue and how it was becoming a feature of the governance landscape. It was generally commented on that there was a background but disconnected central government influence to the growth of what one participant termed the “food agenda” (grower/consumer organisation, 2010); the same participant dismissed central government food strategy with the comment “why have we bothered waiting” and viewed that policy had not caught up with personal politics. [This comment relates to the publication in early 2010 of the UK Government’s Food Strategy (Defra, 2010). This strategy

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offered no incentive for local level cross‐cutting food policy, and following a change of Government in May 2010 was no longer followed.] The underpinning central influence on the food agenda was deemed by participants not to occur through the then UK Government’s food strategy (as many were not aware of its development or publication) but through a pre‐existing set of national indicators (begun 2004) around which local government with a range of local strategic partners together attempted to deliver common goals for the area based on local priorities chosen from the national indicator set and subsequently agreed with central government (Local Area Agreements), upon which future central funding was tied. This meant that competing background central government policy discourses (such as health inequality reduction to tackling climate change) and their translation into practice through the indicators and area agreements (some of the organisations were involved in such partnerships) was seen as the main influence on food governance arrangements. This also meant that without a dominant or coherent central government policy discourse on food to influence local government actors, participants tended to ascribe power and control in food policy related developments to local government/agency actors, as the following extracts show: “I think it goes in phases, there was a period in the 80s where everybody had a food policy, because that was all to do with heart disease reduction. And now everybody’s got a food policy because it’s all to do with climate change. It comes, it goes, and yes, one of the ways that we would sell it to anybody who was interested is to say, yes, doing food will help you tick all these boxes that you have to tick.” (National advocacy organisation participant, 2009) “Well, the National Indicators are about outputs, so they are about changing specific things, obesity in children, independence in older adults, and they’re nothing about food … but those indicators, for loads of them, you could say: ‘Oh, you could do something about food for that’ … And I think the clever councils have worked out that food is a cross‐council thing, and if they use food as a theme, they can drive an awful lot of work. … what’s in and what’s out simply depends on what that council is interested in and there is no guidance anywhere, that says, if you’re going to do a food strategy across your council, you have to include X, Y and Z, so they can put in what they want. And to be honest, that’s the idea, it’s local, it’s what’s important to you and your electorate and your communities and if they’ve told you that these are the five things in your food strategy that should be the most important things, then that’s what you have in, so they are going to be different.” (national quasi‐public sector actor promoting food strategy initiatives, 2009) One reading could construct food as a discursive fix to appease a number of different tensions and pressures from different sources at the local level. This could account for the growth in food strategies and local governance arrangements that were then being seen with some local government actors potentially using a discursive fix and mobilising their discursive resources to engender change and/or find an alternative route to delivering and steering behaviour. Such arrangements may be a radical change from previous practice but they are undertaken within the confines of expected and permitted practice (appropriate behaviours) by central as well as local policy actors. It may be within the context of, and active utilisation of, existing and dominant policy discourses relating to child obesity, community cohesion, climate change, etc., that emerging practices were being negotiated and are evolving into an overarching food discourse that is being reflected in more formalised food governance arrangements (such as cross‐cutting strategies and partnerships).

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However, the above account relates to national perspectives on food policy and strategies. Based on the participants accounts there was little evidence to suggest that local authorities or agencies within Newcastle had reached the point of discursive stretch, and were working along traditional parameters and activities. Some networks and partnership arrangements were found regarding food but often related to sectoral policy arrangements (i.e. focused on obesity and linking across public health teams and third sector organisations working on health issues and delivering particular services). Indeed, the possibility of an overarching food policy or a food discourse leading to changing practice was directly dismissed by some participants. For example, one growing/consumer organisation representative was dubious of food policy arrangements and particularly at local level, commenting: “…The local authority’s not, food’s not its agenda. School meals, public health, you know, it’s so bitty. So when you drill down you can’t get a kind of coherence. And there’s some local authorities have had a bash at it but again, there’s so many partners, so many potential partners involved, we end up with another bland statement.” Continuing: “ … maybe we’re trying to force a coherence that is probably not going to work at that sort of level, … my experience is as much to do with a political buy‐in, political with a big and small p, and all these policies are only good if there’s buy in to them, as opposed to an exercise in, you know, ticking a box, which I suspect that some local authorities get involved in. I mean you’d think somewhere like Newcastle, for instance, having such high environmental credentials, sustainability credentials, might have a go at this sort of thing, but I’ve no recollection of Newcastle doing anything on the food side. It’s been talked about, but not really addressed. So if there’s not a coherence of local authorities trying it, then it’s not a policy priority.” The participant is also hinting at the growth of food strategies and food governance arrangements being a form of mimetic isomorphism (DiMaggio and Powell, 1991b); where actors, particularly in times of uncertainty begin to model themselves on others, with a local food policy or strategy becoming a ‘tick box’ exercise. 4.2

External values and expectations

The timing of the first interviews coincided with a grant making scheme that promoted a range of food activities, this national charitable funding programme’s existence began to reveal tensions between local actors involved in food‐based actions at this time. This particularly highlighted the differences and distrust between those organisations who had been active for a lengthy period in the city and those newly responding to the food issues. For example: “… I just don’t know where the food agenda’s going to go, because there’s a hell of a lot of people getting in on it ... I mean, we’ve been doing it [food] for thirty years, because that’s what [organisation name] is, that’s what we do. But there are other organisations who are kind of getting involved in it and you think: “Is it mission drift, or is it a genuine desire to engage in this particular agenda?” Only time will tell.” (grower/consumer organisation participant, 2010) “Jumping on the bandwagon, because they’re not, you know food isn’t part of their remit at all but funding for food is …” (producer/consumer organisation participant, 2010)

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During interview with a representative of the funding programme (administered by one national charity, working in connection with another four with diverse interests) it became apparent that such external stimulus was focused on the development of local level food policy. The funding representative (interviewed 2009) commented: “if it’s not community‐led then we don’t fund it … so we really don’t want a sort of top‐down approach at all ... That being said, we do want projects to be connected to the places that they’re working in. So on our form, we do ask if they have a contact at the local council and that kind of stuff to make sure that are sort of not just working in isolation ...” Continuing later: “… there’s another section in the application form that asks how a project will complement or contribute to any local, regional or national strategy and that sort of section you find out about all these different things that areas are doing ... there are all kinds of local strategies and action plans … an allotment action plan … but some of them are very local and some of them are wider than that, but they do all have to evidence how they are connected to, or at least be aware of and tie in with some of the local strategies … but we’re trying to encourage it to happen if it’s not already happening.” This funding programme provided an opportunity for organisations to continue and develop their activities. However, the application process exerted a pressure on all applicants to engage with local policy actors and promoted the idea of local level food‐related strategies. This reflects the practice of coercive isomorphism, through pressure and expectation placed on applicants to engage with local policy (although as to what the extent of this engagement was/expected to be was not discussed) and which also holds elements of mimetic isomorphism through trying to create standard approaches for ease of evaluation purposes (DiMaggio and Powell, 1991b). This latter aspect is important if we jump forward to 2015 and the existence of a food charter for Newcastle and its membership through the organisation Food Newcastle, and its funding by the Sustainable Food Cities Network (SFCN is itself funded by a major charitable donor, and administered through three leading food campaign organisations). The SFCN aims to inspire 50 cities in the UK to develop sustainable food initiatives (see Morgan, 2015). A representative of Food Newcastle (interview 2015) commented how their relationship with SFCN was somewhat “vague” and while there were no prescriptions regarding their activities they had “funding obligations to campaign on key issues” that were promoted by SFCN. In turn, cities (or rather member organisations) were encouraged to apply for awards from SCFN to externally validate their activities and show the extent of partnership working and local level change and actions achieved on key factors. Newcastle had been awarded a Bronze Sustainable Food City award in recognition of the work happening across a range of food and health related areas, and Food Newcastle was considering when to submit another award application in the hope of achieving a higher level award. The rationale from Food Newcastle’s representative being while recognising the evaluation element it also provided a useful “engagement tool” and means of communication so that they could show to those involved in the initiative and those beyond “the work taking place” in the city by the organisation and around food. 4.3

Uncertainty about the policy process

Traditionally the linkage between local level policy actions and food have focused on public health outcomes (see above extracts). This historical way of working and lead policy area informed participants actions both in 2009 and 2015, with the local public health authority funding both the

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Healthy City initiative (part of the World Health Organisation’s network) and more latterly Food Newcastle, funded jointly with SCFN. However, there was a shift overtime regarding what was deemed possible regarding a food policy over the time period studied. The issue of what was within local public sector actors control dominated participants’ constructions during 2009‐10 of what was possible through local action (see Hadjimichalis and Hudson, 2007), and as such local government powers, rules and practices were seen as both a constraint on, and opportunity for, action (at least within the known regulatory environment), but also a key site which organisations and groups had to independently attempt to link into. This is illustrated over the following extracts: “... we don’t shout loud enough to the right people about what we’re doing. So it gets up to a certain level, but it’s getting higher than that level into the sort of strategic and policy sort of areas, that’s where we fall down. So we’re trying to address that now ... But in the longer term, our aim is to get much more embedded into where we fit into the policy, or make a policy become written to fit into with what we’re doing, if you like ... Often these people who are writing policies haven’t a clue about what’s been going on on the ground. And it’s frightening. And they all say: “What a great idea!” …But to some extent we have sort of tenuous links with a few people, but we want really, to be seen to be the vehicle for a lot of food access projects to happen...’ Continuing: ‘We’ve always had loose connections with PCTs [Primary Care Trusts] across the region ... The longer term hope is that we would get service level agreements with PCTs to actually deliver work that we actually want to do, but within their particular areas ... it’s just getting that sort of message known to the policymakers. I mean I don’t know enough about policy people to be honest to be sort of definite. I don’t know how it works, it’s a sort of black magic, isn’t it?” (social enterprise, 2009) However, by 2015 this ‘black magic’ and uncertainty still reflected the challenge to food related policy however by this latter date through the emergence of a food charter and the range of organisations signed up to it and the activities of Food Newcastle the power relations and momentum for change had subtly shifted, yet ultimate control of the food policy agenda was deemed to lay with the local city authority. This is perhaps best illustrated by an open Council meeting held in the city on sustainable and affordable food in June 2014 (Newcastle City Council, 2014) however while clearly subscribing to the values of the Charter there was no publicly evident change in the approaches to food policy from the Council following the meeting. The position relayed by an actor within Food Newcastle was that: “there was no rhyme or reason about how a [policy] decision is made” and “who makes policy is unclear”. Thus, while they recognised the local authority “as crucial partners to this work” they were “via Cabinet trying to develop a formal relationship between Food Newcastle and the Council” this needed someone on the Council to take the lead, as to date they had been highly dependent on “the integral support of [a few] Councillors” to help take forward the food charter’s objectives and specific initiatives. However, not all Councillors were aware of their existence and aims. The organisation was also alert to the fact that they had been supported by consecutive Directors of Public Health but that they were aware of “the tensions in relationships between Council departments” that they were working with. Even

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though their funding “had not been prescriptive in generating public health outcomes” there was a greater awareness of the “multifunctional nature of health” as much as food as a facilitator of health outcomes by respective Directors. Moreover, the participant reflected a strong level of frustration that they were not able to feed into key debates or approached as consultees, even though they were in discussion with the Council on different issues. This reaffirms the political nature of food policy development and the challenge of working within pre‐existing remits and structures. 4.4

Communication

Throughout Food Newcastle’s documents it was stated that they were “a voice for food”. The importance of “being a creditable, recognised voice” was constantly reiterated throughout interview with the organisation’s representative and in public meetings and documents. While stating that they “had a long way to go” to achieve this the participant reflected that “they needed to have buy in” and credibility to have trust placed in them, but to achieve this they were in constant “two way conversations” with a range of actors, the problem being how much attention to give to one issue could mean “letting something else slide” and in turn disengaging possible partners and individuals if they were to attempt to “support all those voices”. The publication of Newcastle’s Food Charter was a “public declaration” of what a food policy looks like. However, Newcastle “still haven’t got the Council taking a strategic approach to food policy so [we] can’t feed in”. Thus once, again there is the issue of finding the right arena or space within which to voice the aspiration of a food policy, but also to change the perceived institutional structures and boundaries as a participant from Food Newcastle stated that it was difficult because the actors they were trying reach perceived that “responsibility lies elsewhere” and so they had to become “more vocal”. This issue being that while they needed ‘top‐down’ support they also required additional support and demands to be made by the general public to help “bring it [food policy] up the agenda”. The most recent development at the time of writing was in July 2015 the recommendation by the Director of Public Health for Newcastle to “Develop an effective full city food policy” (DPH, 2015, p.38) and that the “city as a whole needs to have a more coherent approach to food and healthy eating, particularly for the most vulnerable” (ibid, p.37). Hence, while the idea of a food policy has been raised and the recommendation subsequently adopted, it remains embedded within public health and particularly obesity and healthy eating concerns and associated discourses, even though local sourcing and procurement were considered alongside this primarily for hospital food. The Council’s Wellbeing for life Board in relation to the Director of Pubic Health’s recommendations had “Discussed the recommendations, nothing that they had now been adopted by city council as part of its approach to wellbeing and public health improvement in the city” (Newcastle City Council, 2015). Consequently, there remains a constraint on the potential discursive stretch (Torfing, 2001) and broader linkages that may be needed to initiate change and creation of a food policy for the city, that reaches beyond public health areas. 5.

Conclusions

The paper and its exploratory focus on activities by actors within the city of Newcastle has identified the following points of interest: 1. The role of external actors (e.g. funding, government targets, SCFN network, evaluation mechanisms) in stimulating local food‐related policy initiatives, even through the external

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actors may change over time the appropriateness and awareness of food may be more continuous than at first appears. The past paths and linkages to existing policy areas and associated support (i.e. public health) appear to be initial facilitators of food policy debates within existing policymaking structures but also potentially act to constrain the frames of reference through their association with other more powerful discourses of obesity and the associated actions food‐based policy measures. This may be a further reproduction of the taken for grantedness and internalised discourses of food and policy issues and arenas associated it. A discourse of food policy and its associated breadth has not yet stretched the existing health related discourses to generate further change, but this may be part of a gradual as opposed to radical evolution of food policy in this particular urban context which may act as a basis for further change. This may reflect the logic of appropriateness as well as path dependency associated with sociological and historical new institutionalism. However, the use and associated practices of discourses can offer a means of investigating the possible change and evolution of policy developments.

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Melika Levelt, “Creating space for urban farming: the role of the planning professional”, In: Localizing urban food strategies. Farming cities th and performing rurality. 7 International Aesop Sustainable Food Planning Conference Proceedings, Torino, 7‐9 October 2015, edited by Giuseppe Cinà and Egidio Dansero, Torino, Politecnico di Torino, 2015, pp 226‐237. ISBN 978‐88‐8202‐060‐6

CREATING SPACE FOR URBAN FARMING: THE ROLE OF THE PLANNING PROFESSIONAL Melika Levelt, MSc 1 Keywords: urban farming, governance, participation, planning professional Abstract: Urban farming projects often involve the (temporarily) redevelopment of urban space by local co‐productions of citizens and/or entrepreneurs. To realize their ambitions these coalitions often need support of public (government) resources such as time, money, space and regulation (Green Deal Stadslandbouw, 2013). This paper asks the question to what extent the development of urban farming projects can be understood as an example of planning through direct citizen participation/ participatory governance (e.g. Cornwall, 2004; Roberts, 2004) and what this means for the role of the municipal planning professional or civil servant in making these projects successful. Literature on the role of the municipal planner or civil servant in urban farming projects mainly concerns the role as enabler of projects given the many difficulties for projects. However, when looked at the development of urban farming as an example of citizen participation/ participatory governance and the transfer of social functions towards society other roles and tasks of planners seem to be important to make urban farming successful. This discussion paper looks to the role of planners and civil servants in some related government domains such as landscape (e.g. Van Dam et al. 2008, 2010, 2011) and neighbourhood development (e.g. Frieling et al., 2014) to complement our understanding of the role of planners in making urban farming projects successful. With this analysis the paper sets the scene for further research into tools for the planning professional or civil servant to support urban farming. In the paper the situation in Amsterdam serves as an example.

Introduction: urban farming and bottom‐up planning

In 2014 a successful fruit‐grower in a Dutch agricultural area, moved to a plot belonging to the municipality of Amsterdam. There he started a new business‐concept: ecological growing of fruits for consumers to harvest them on location. First the idea for this business grew in his mind, then he turned to different municipalities to find a location for his business. This wasn’t an easy search but in the end Amsterdam could offer the best possibility. Summer 2015 his ‘harvest‐garden’ is open to the public. Bare land has been developed into a garden full of fruits. On top of that, the garden ‘employs’ several disabled and mentally ill people as a social service. As the owner says: he doesn’t expect them to really add to the productivity of the garden but wants to give something back to society with his garden. To realize his ambitions, help of the municipality has been very important. Being a fruit farmer and a chicken farmer and a health care provider and a catering facility in the same time make things complicated regulations‐ and authorizations‐wise. The ambition to also have lodges on the farm where researchers in biology or entomology or other fields could stay for field work, even make things worse. Ideas simply do not fit into existing plans and regulations. Luckily enough the Amsterdam municipality helped him out with many issues popping‐up in the process of realizing his ambitions. In the centre of Amsterdam, close to Amsterdam RAI convention centre, a chicken‐farm operates. 200 chickens are kept ecologically. Their faeces are used to fertilize community gardens next to the chicken farm. Before the economic crises in 2006, a chicken farm and community gardens were the 1

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latest thing to think about as use for this excellent location. The start of the building of a musical theatre was planned for the end of that year (Gemeente Amsterdam, 2006). But things turned different. Several years later, a movement of citizens, entrepreneurs and civil servants that worked on sustainable energy since 2010 (‘Wij krijgen kippen’(we will get chickens)), looked for a place to keep chickens and produce sustainable energy. Together with the municipal department that develops the office location to the south of Amsterdam (Zuidas) they found this place near the RAI Station. In 2014 the chicken farm Minirondeel started its business and got a license to operate for two years (Minirondeel, 2015). Today, this license has been expanded in anticipation of further development of the area. The two examples above show the importance of ideas of entrepreneurs and entrepreneurial citizens for the development of urban farming. The examples also show urban farming competes with other uses of space. Lastly, the examples show the importance of government: both needed the help of the municipality to realize their ambitions. Urban farming has gained more and more attention from governments as they are seen as important for the strategic issue of quality of live in the city (green, health, clean air), liveability of neighbourhoods (integration, participation) and often perform social services (e.g. day care for mentally ill and disabled). For example, the municipality of Amsterdam sees urban farming projects as a means to achieve goals with respect to re‐integration into society, social goals, educational goals, awareness with respect to food and issues of health and sustainability, and attractiveness of the city (DRO 2014, pp. 11‐12). Given the goals municipalities have with urban farming projects, it is important that projects take place at all. The difficulties urban farming projects find on their way has gained much attention from urban farming researchers. These are for example: finding a way through rules and regulations and getting cooperation of local authorities, for example to find a site for the project (e.g. Green Deal Stadslandbouw i.o., 2013, Miazzo & Minkjan, 2013). Other hurdles mentioned for urban farming projects in particular are (idem) to: ‐ obtain enough funding (subsidies, gifts); ‐ obtain enough knowledge (growing techniques; marketing; sales; finance; legal) (especially unlock local available knowledge); ‐ get the project within regulations; ‐ find sites for development of urban faring; ‐ get enough scale; ‐ diversify to strengthen the project (as most urban farms draw on various sources of revenue (Denckla, 2013); ‐ be able to make a business case and to be able to achieve funding; ‐ develop entrepreneurship; ‐ to find enough volunteers. Many municipalities and planners seem to be aware of the role they can play in enabling projects and share their experiences with this (for example Miazzo & Minkjan, 2013; URBACT/Sustainable Food in Urban Communities, 2015). However, some more roles for urban planners in making urban farming projects successful seem to be of relevance. We can become aware of these roles when we see how urban farming projects represent two important characteristics of contemporary planning and policy in the Netherlands and Europe.

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A first characteristic of contemporary planning visible in urban farming projects is the movement towards citizen and private initiative for the delivery of welfare state services. The last decade – in reaction to the crisis of the welfare state – has shown this turn in planning and policy away from big government. Started in the UK with the Blair government, it has had impact in other countries such as The Netherlands (Raad voor het Openbaar Bestuur, 2012; Van Zuydam et al., 2013). More and more governments expect citizens to take greater responsibilities for wellbeing and social services previously organized by the state, such as care for elderly, sick, and disabled people and for neighbourhood development (Aarts & During, 2006; Hurenkamp et al., 2006) . The second characteristic of contemporary planning which is relevant to the planning of urban farming is the importance of direct citizen participation that grew in the second part of the 20th century (Roberts 2004). It is part of a turn to local communities as units of planning and action (Chaskin, 2003) to, as Taylor (2007, p. 299) describes “improve public services and to re‐engage citizens with the institutions of government”. Direct citizen participation in planning can take many forms but has one thing in common: it is a form of planning in which citizens participate more directly than through the voice of elected representatives. As such, it can be understood as a form of deliberative governance (e.g. Van de Wijdeven and Hendriks, 2010) which following Metze (2010) ‘promises at least two democratic improvements: first, reflectivity in individuals, conversations and decision making for more informed and supported decision making, and then, more credible decision making’ (Metze, 2010, p. 20). This is part of the shift from government to governance (De Wilde et al., 2014). Thus, planning for urban farming seems to fall in two planning debates: a turn to society for delivering services that have previously been organized by the state, and direct citizen participation in planning. Taking the situation in Amsterdam as an example, this paper explores what role planners have in urban farming projects looked at it from the viewpoint of the turn to citizen and private initiatives and direct citizen participation in planning. As such it supplements what already is written on the role of planners in (case study) literature on urban farming projects. The paper should be read as a discussion paper. It is a first attempt to bring the issue of urban farming within the discourse of direct citizen participation and citizen initiative. The last section the paper discusses the relevance of bringing urban farming into this discourse and proposes a way forward to use the insights developed in the paper for the development of tools for planners to better enable urban farming. 2.

Direct citizen participation in urban farming

Participation democracy can take different forms and levels of activity of citizens. Roberts (2004, p. 320) describes citizen participation as “the process by which members of a society (those not holding office or administrative positions in government) share power with public officials in making substantive decisions and in taking actions related to the community.” She calls it direct participation “when citizens are personally involved and actively engaged” in the decision process and indirect participation “when citizens elect others to represent them in the decision process”. Van Dam et al. (2011, p. 17) give an overview of different classifications of the role of citizens in planning and policy and pay special attention to the classification of Pröpper and Steenbeek (1999) in which six levels of participation of citizens are recognized (see table 1).

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Table 1. Levels of citizen involvement in policy making Level 6 5 4 3 2 1 0

Role of citizen Initiator Cooperation partner Co‐decision‐maker Advisor Consulted person Target group for research or information No role

Source: Van Dam, Salverda and During, 2011, p. 17, translation my own. This classification adds categories to that of Roberts (2004): direct participation seems to be levels 4‐6, levels 1‐3 seem not to be part of Roberts’ definition, and indirect participation of Roberts is not in the Pröpper and Steenbeek classification. Cornwall (2004) makes a distinction between invited spaces and popular spaces. At the highest level of participation, citizens take the initiative for developments and, by doing that, create a popular space or arena for action. However, a citizen can also be the initiator of a project in response to an invitation of government. When government is in the lead, Cornwall (2004) speaks of invited space. Besides an invitation to start an initiative in a specific domain or for a specific plot of land, government can also invite citizens to be a cooperation partner, co‐decision‐maker, or advisor in a policy arena. When citizens only get a role as co‐decision‐maker, advisor or consulted person, the role of the citizen becomes quite passive and seems to fit better in the description of Frieling et al. (2014, p. 38) of participatory planning in which “residents are involved merely as clients and consumers rather than coproducers of neighborhood liveability”. Frieling et al. (2014, p. 38) mention that in this form, participatory planning does not increase residents’ own initiative. As a target group for research or information the role of the citizen is even more passive.

When we take Amsterdam as an example, urban farming projects seem to fit mostly in levels 5 and 6 of Pröpper and Steenbeek as these are mainly private or citizen initiated projects. Furthermore, projects in Amsterdam take place in invited as well as popular spaces. Map 1 shows professional urban farms in Amsterdam. All of these farms are initiated by entrepreneurs. Most of them have a social function besides the production of food. Map 2 shows volunteer‐driven urban vegetable gardens in Amsterdam. Here we see five categories of initiators: citizens; professional non‐profit developers of urban vegetable projects; welfare organizations; housing corporations; neighbourhood foundations, and, sometimes, the municipality. For 69 of the 120 projects shown on maps 1 and 2 it was easy to find out through an internet search who initiated the project. It turned out that entrepreneurs, foundations and associations, and citizens are responsible for 56 of these projects. In 9 of these projects housing corporations or a community development organization is involved. Thus, the municipality of Amsterdam, to reach its strategic goals with respect to urban farming (not including school gardens) almost entirely depends on citizen and private initiative. Given the fact that citizen and private initiative is so important for urban farming, it seems to be of relevance to understand the role planners play in citizen initiatives like these.

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Map 1: Professional urban farms in Amsterdam, source: http://maps.amsterdam.nl/stadslandbouw/, viewed July 17th 2015

Map 2: Volunteer‐driven urban vegetable gardens in Amsterdam (existing and in development, not including school gardens), source: http://maps.amsterdam.nl/stadslandbouw/ , viewed July 17th 2015

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The roles of planners in direct citizen participation

3.1

Roles of planners

What role then do planners have in direct citizen participation? As mentioned earlier, literature on urban farming has much to say about what urban farming initiatives need to enable them to develop. Proposed actions in this literature to be taken by cities or planners are: help with regulations (remove restrictions and obstacles) (Vermeulen, 2013; Denckla 2013), encouragements to enrich initiatives towards multi‐purpose solutions and economy of scope when possible (Vermeulen, 2013), help to generate cross‐fertilization between projects (Vermeulen, 2013); make available land for projects, eventually to reduced land prices (Vermeulen, 2013; Denckla, 2013) but also to map which plots are potentially interesting for urban farming (De Graaf, 2013), to help city farms with reduced taxes (Denckla, 2013). Looked at urban farming as an example of citizen initiatives yet other roles become important. Summarizing literature on direct citizen participation Roberts (2004, pp. 326‐327) describes six dilemmas of direct citizen participation which I paraphrase here: 1. Dilemma of size: how can numerous groups and individuals participate in direct democracy? How to organize deliberations? 2. Dilemma of excluded or oppressed groups: how to include all groups in deliberations and who will speak for future generations? 3. Dilemma of risk: how to be able to make decisions about risky affairs by including all people exposed to these risks but at the same time still enable decisions to be made. 4. Dilemma of technology or expertise: how to make the voice of citizens as strong as the voices of administrative and technical elites who have much more knowledge? 5. Dilemma of time and crisis: how to be able to make quick decisions (as sometimes needed) through direct citizen participation? 6. Dilemma of the common good: how to realize thoughtful deliberations that make people think more seriously and fully about public issues? From these dilemmas I distil two roles for planners or civil servants to make direct citizen participation for urban farming work. They are related to points 1, 2, 4, and 6. Points 3 and 5 do not seem of much relevance for urban farming projects2. 3.2

Planners role to engage citizens and include voices: choir director

This role of planners is related to the first two dilemmas. If direct citizen participation is seen as a (new) form of democracy, an important question is whether or not everyone’s voice is heart in the process of planning and development. This issue is often raised in literature on direct citizen 2

Although point 3 might be of relevance in a discussion on high‐tech and large scale urban farming in agro‐ parks. See Metze & Van Zuydam (2013) for a discussion on the different framings of agro‐parks (which they call a boundary concept) in deliberations on these parks. Facilitators and governmental actors have a role to invite participants to “reflect on conflicting frames and engage in reflective governance “(p. 1) with respect to these parks as to enable participants to cross their conflicting and taken for granted views on these parks (of which seeing them as harmful because of all kinds of emissions and the large inputs needed is one which seem to relate to the dilemma of risk) and bridge those. This role is to a large extent in line with the roles of planners that are discussed in this paper but Metze & Van Zuydam add to this the insight that boundary concepts can be used as a tool in such a discussion. th

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participation (e.g. Aarts and During, 2006; Chaskin et al., 2012; Frieling et al., 2014; Gaventa, 2003; Roberts, 2004). It is a matter of technically being able to facilitate deliberations with a large amount of people but also of getting people involved (motivate and empower people to be involved) and keep them involved. The latter two have an important relation to trust. A communicative approach to planning might fail to include all voices when actors do not trust the new planning instrument, for example because they feel it does not serve their interests or that it is not trustworthy because in the end, government will take over the initiative (see Levelt & Metze, 2014, p. 2373 for a discussion of this argument of non‐participation at the regional policy level). Also Frieling et al. (2014, p 39) point to the fact that coproduction “requires some form of initial motivation among individuals to invest in the participatory process”. Planners have an important role to play in making citizen initiatives trustworthy. Planners should be cautious with bringing their own (policy) agenda’s into citizen initiatives. They first and foremost should listen to what initiatives have to offer and what they ask from government (Salverda et al., 2014). This is in line with observations made on engagement of actors at the regional level where the ‘shadow of hierarchy’ can make or break the ability to become credible and successful as a governance network (Levelt & Metze, 2014). For planners who create an ‘invited space’ for urban farming or other projects, these insights mean they have to be aware of the difficulty to get people involved especially when they have limited room for manoeuvre to offer to the public. Thus, planners have to open the invited space as much as possible to new insights and ideas from citizens and private initiatives. On the other hand, when planning for urban farming starts in popular space, planners role to include voices would be much more to enable fellow citizens to join the initiative as to make it trustworthy to not only the first initiators. 3.3

Planners role to cater for the common good: common good guardian

Care for the common good is very closely related to the previous point. An important question for planners involved in urban farming, much discussed in general in literature on direct citizen participation, is to what extent government stays responsible for the realization of policy goals related to them (Aarts & During, 2006; Van der Steen et al., 2013). Many authors point to the fact that government still is responsible for making explicit and evaluate the public interest of spatial plans (Van der Krabbe et al., 2014; ). Aarts and During (2006) raise the issue of citizen initiative in spatial development which should not result in ‘a series of free states with own rules and regulations’ (p. 43, translation mine). Government should ‘ensure citizen initiatives stay connected to government and the rest of society’ (idem, translation mine). Basic qualities in the spatial domain also include looking after and develop central design challenges (idem, p. 44). This is relevant for urban farming as these projects often demand support from government and thus governments (planners, civil servants) have to evaluate these projects to decide which ones to support: it is a question about evaluation of plans, which “is central to the planning process” (Alexander, 2002, referring to Khakee, 1998). How can planners evaluate plans and make sure they serve the common good? In line with a communicative approach to planning, “the common good depends on deliberation and not just assurance of political equality or the capture of public opinion” (Roberts 2003, p. 327). The participatory and deliberative models of democracy believe “a common understanding of the good life can and will arise when individuals participate and deliberate in public life” (Häikö, 2007, referring

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to Barber, 1984 and Dryzec, 2000). Following this line of reasoning, local citizen initiatives should not be used as a way to realize policy goals at a higher level since this presupposes that outcomes of deliberations around these initiatives are pre‐set. Citizen initiatives then, should be seen as ways in which in the public domain values are created (Salverda et al., 2014). Planners first and foremost should listen to what initiatives have to offer and what they ask from government (Salverda et al., 2014). As Durose (cited in Verhoeven en Oude Vrielink, 2012, p. 63) states, planners have a role to play in enabling citizens with their ‘thoughtful deliberations’: “Citizen initiatives need support to increase their democratic potential. This is possible when civil servants and social welfare professionals have a focus on citizens. [..and when they] show how to enter into debate with fellow citizens” and to “help citizens to connect to each other […] to harmonise different priorities of citizens and prevent as much as possible unequal relations between citizens with participation”. Thus, one could say, for urban farming projects, whether or not initiated in invited or popular space, planners should play a role as facilitator of thoughtful deliberations between citizens to make sure the common good becomes known. Furthermore, as not everyone is always involved in deliberations, Van Dam et al. (with respect to citizen initiatives in landscape development) point to the fact that civil servants and citizen initiatives have to convey the initiative and their role in shaping the public space within their own institution (towards politicians and other domains of government) and fellow citizens respectively (Van dam et al. 2011, p. 97). In other words: they have to legitimize the initiative towards different constituencies. One way to do this, might be by referring to the common good that is served by the initiative. This is not only a question of knowing the common good in a project but also of showing it. Here again connection to fellow citizens seems to be important here (Verhoeven en Oude Vrielink, 2012) but also making the project visible to politicians. Sometimes, showing the common good happens in action once a project has started, like in the case of the foodscapes project in the Schilderwijk (neighbourhood in the Dutch city The Hague): “although each emerging location is met with scepticism, within one year of completion each Foodscape Schilderwijk site has been adopted, accepted and appreciated” (Solomon & Van den Berg, 2013, p. 83). Another aspect of the common good seem to be related to the dilemma of technology and expertise and the use of knowledge. More in line with a technocratic view on planning is the idea that local or situated knowledge of citizens is not enough to find the common good. Planning professionals and experts have a role to play to bring‐in knowledge about technical possibilities and broader societal goals and interests of future generations. This is in line with what Rydin (2007) and Alexander (2008) conclude with respect to the role of knowledge in planning: “expertise has an important role in planning to complement democratic discourse”(Alexander, 2008: 210). Even stronger is the claim that the planner / politician stays a decision‐maker when opposite interests are at stake (the shadow of hierarchy as described by Fritz Scharpf (1997)) and free‐riders have to be forced to participate in spatial developments, also when these developments have been started as a bottom‐up citizen initiative (Van der Krabbe, 2014, referring to Ostrom, 1990). For urban farming projects, these insight are of relevance because they are just one option for the use of space. Planners have to deal with conflicting (and sometimes changing) claims from citizens and politicians. They are not only there to help urban farming projects develop but also to make sure decisions on support of projects are made after thoughtful deliberations, including voices and ideas of citizens and experts to really arrive at the common good. This might also mean that sometimes urban farming projects will not get support.

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3.4

Planners role to ensure basic qualities and levels of services: the backup

A last point to take into account seems to be the quality of the projects once they are in operation: for whom are they created and do they reach the groups that depend on the services they deliver? With respect to urban farming this issue is especially relevant in the discussion of the transfer of welfare state services: when urban farms offer social services government does not organize anymore. Some critics to citizen initiatives say, in the end, government is responsible for the realization of a minimum service (van der Steen et al., 2013, p. 34) and for basic qualities: if projects fail with respect to safety or other problems arise, in the end, it is government who is responsible (idem, p. 38). Thus, a planning professional should make sure projects are in line with basic quality needs and make sure basic service levels are reached when no citizen initiative takes place. In line with this, planners should monitor how citizen‐initiated projects work in practice and ensure action is taken by government when projects fail. 4.

Conclusion and further research

In The Netherlands, an increase in reliance on private, small scale initiatives is recognizable in spatial planning. In the Netherlands government has turned to a role of facilitator of processes in the new Law on Spatial Planning (WRO) and turned to ‘invitational planning’ (uitnodigingsplanologie) where government waits for bottom‐up initiatives from the market once opportunities for developments are laid‐out by government (Van der Wouden, 2015). This development is also relevant for urban farming. Most urban farming projects in Amsterdam are initiated by entrepreneurs or citizens. As noted earlier, the city of Amsterdam expects urban farming to help forward all kinds of policy goals. To foster the development of urban farming, the municipality: ‐ Assists with finding suitable plots or empty buildings for urban farming; ‐ gives information on the needed permissions and operating zoning plans; ‐ has developed a ‘Food Information Point’: a central point of call and website that informs initiators of urban farming about the previous two points; ‐ helps to create a website where initiators and interested people can find and inform each other; ‐ and, will realize some of the urban farming parts of the Floriade3 2022 bid book (which did not go to Amsterdam) (DRO, 2014, pp. 27‐28). Furthermore, in its master plan for the development of agricultural land in Amsterdam West the municipality has earmarked some plots for urban farming. Also an interactive map has been created that plots existing urban farming projects (https://maps.amsterdam.nl./stadslandbouw). One could say, the focus of Amsterdam is very much on the side of facilitation of urban farming. However, as this paper has discussed, other roles are also of importance when urban farming initiatives – in invited and in popular space – are to be taken seriously as a use for much contested space in the city. First, planners should be facilitators of thoughtful debate that is inclusive, connects citizens and politicians, and keeps open the possibility that, given restrictions of space and/or budget, other uses than urban farming are deemed as best serving the common good. Although this might seem counter‐productive for those who like to foster urban farming, following the literature on citizen initiatives, it seems to be necessary to have such a debate to strengthen the argument for urban 3

Floriade is a world horticulture expo that is organized in the Netherlands once every five years. th

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farming. An urban farming project that gains government and public support after thoughtful debate seems to have a much stronger position vis‐à‐vis other uses of space than a project that has received support quite opportunistically without much deliberation and connection to the neighbourhood and larger policy goals. Second, planners who like to foster urban farming could help its development by making visible benefits of it for achieving policy goals or the common good. This not only would help the deliberations on specific urban farming projects but could also help continued support once projects have started. As suggested in this paper, visibility of benefits might develop in action when projects have started and citizens find‐out benefits for themselves or when politicians are invited to projects. Visibility might also be fostered by having evidence of the relation between urban farming and the common good as stated in policy‐objectives. Planners could play a role in finding funds to research this evidence. This also is a task for the urban farming research community. Another way forward to increase visibility of the common good in projects (and also for the evaluation of plans), might be by using business concepts as a tool. Business concepts describe how value will be created, how it will be delivered and how it is captured. Business concept literature has a strong bias towards for‐profit businesses (the so called ‘red business models’ (for example the Canvas model of Osterwalder) but can also be used for not‐for‐profit organizations (Osterwalder & Pigneur 2010) where value creation might not only be private value but also the common good. In its essence they describe what is done, for whom and with what investments (activities, money, agreement) by whom. This possibly could make the rationale for a specific urban farming projects very clear. Further research could develop this idea more with more rigor. To conclude, to support the development of urban farming and make sure projects get continued support also when other market conditions arrive in cities or politicians change, it is important that more is done than facilitation of projects. Very important seems to be to link these projects to communities (citizens) and politicians and the common good through facilitation of debate and visibility of the benefits of urban farming projects. 5.

References

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Steen, M. van der, M. Van Twist, N. Chin‐A‐Fat & T. Kwakkelstein (2013) Pop‐up publieke waarde. Overheidssturing in de conext van maatschappelijke zelforganisatie, Nederlandse School voor Openbaar Bestuur. Taylor, M. (2007) Community Participation in the real world: opportunities and pitfalls in new governance spaces, Urban Studies, 44 (2): 297‐317. URBACT/Sustainable Food in Urban Communities (2015) Handbook Creating space for sustainable food systems in urban communities. Practical approaches and examples for cities, Strategic Design scenarios Publishing. Verhoeven, I. & M. Oude Vrielink (2012) De stille ideologie van de doe‐democratie, in C. Montfort e.a. (eds.), Stille ideologie. Onderstromen in beleid en bestuur. Boom Lemma: Den Haag, pp. 55‐66. Vermeulen, P. (2013) Food‐steps: creating regional food chains, in: Miazzo, F. & M. Minkjan (eds.) (2013) Farming the city. Food as a tool for today’s urbanisation, Trancity* Valiz/CITIES, pp. 22‐27. Wijdeven, T. van de en F. Hendriks (2010) Burgerschap in de doe‐democratie, Nicis Institute, Den Haag Wilde, M. de, M. Hurenkamp & E. Tonkens (2014) Flexible relations, frail contacts and failing demands: how community groups and local institutions interact in local governance in the Netherlands, Urban Studies, 51 (16): 3365‐3382. Wouden, R. van der (ed.) (2015) De ruimtelijke metamorfose van Nederland 1988‐2015, Rotterdam, PBL Uitgevers/ nai010 Uitgevers. Van Zuydam, S., B. van de Velde, B. & M. Kuiper (2013) Leren van vermaatschappelijking in het Verenigd Koninkrijk & Scandinavië, Den Haag, Raad voor het Openbaar Bestuur.

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Nadia Tecco, Federico Coppola, Francesco Sottile, Cristiana Peano, “Adaptive governance or adjustment for planning and management the urban green spaces? The case of communal and community gardens in Turin”, In:Localizing urban food strategies. Farming cities and th performing rurality. 7 International Aesop Sustainable Food Planning Conference Proceedings, Torino, 7‐9 October 2015, edited by Giuseppe Cinà and Egidio Dansero, Torino, Politecnico di Torino, 2015, pp 238‐245. ISBN 978‐88‐8202‐060‐6

ADAPTIVE GOVERNANCE OR ADJUSTMENT FOR PLANNING AND MANAGEMENT THE URBAN GREEN SPACES? THE CASE OF COMMUNAL AND COMMUNITY GARDENS IN TURIN Nadia Tecco1, Federico Coppola2, Vincenzo Girgenti3, Cristiana Peano4

Keywords: urban gardens, adaptive governance, urban transition, urban ecology Abstract: Urban gardens take on different forms and meanings, which vary depending on the socio‐ economic context where they located/used and how it evolves over time. This makes a garden comparable to a micro‐social ecosystem, different from other gardens and ever changing. Starting from the analysis of two gardens in Turin, the article investigates the plurality of meanings and representations related to the “urban garden” and offers insights about the relative processes of governance and integration with the many features of the current urban agriculture. Despite being all areas with a limited extension, the complex nature of the relationship between gardener and the assigned plot and within peers and with the citizenship, makes it clear that the attempt to govern/manage the phenomenon by the local government / promoting associations, often represents a real challenge in terms of adaptability and response/adjustment to a phenomenon in constant evolution and fully inserted in the processes of the urban transition, characterized both by internal and conservative resistance and pressures asking for change and innovation from the outside.

Introduction

In its broad definition, different studies converge in framing urban agriculture through some common categories: a) diversity of involved spaces (urban or peri‐urban, legal or illegal); b) diversity of the involved actors involved (citizens, administrators, associations, professional farmers, ...); c) diversity of activities and practices. In the same way there are common categories to frame urban gardens; although with some fixed elements (arable areas, service elements, irrigation systems, fences) they can assume forms, meanings and functions very different among them, often even far. By assuming the perspective of human ecology, the specificity of each garden can be considered as an ecosystem in its own. This depends on the interaction among these elements, including the environmental and socio‐economic component, on the conditions which discipline the use and management of resources at the level of individual and collective spaces, on the exchange flows with the surrounding environment. This perspective allows us to look beyond the rhetoric that often trivializes the complexities surrounding the functioning of these micro‐systems. The creation of an urban garden by itself does not guarantee functions of socialization. At the same time in the garden, the assignees did not always assume rights of "property" on the use of land according as “they were growing their own backyard." 1

Dipartimento di Scienze Agrarie, Forestali e Alimentari dell’Università degli Studi di Torino, nadia.tecco@unito.it 2 Studente del Master in Sostenibilità Socio Ambientale e delle reti agroalimentari, Università degli Studi di Torino, federico.coppola2@gmail.com 3 Dipartimento di Scienze Agrarie, Forestali e Alimentari dell’Università degli Studi di Torino, Vincenzo.girgenti@unito.it 4 Dipartimento di Scienze Agrarie, Forestali e Alimentari dell’Università degli Studi di Torino, cristiana.peano@unito.it

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This point of view, in continuity with the work of Moore (2008) and Pike (1954) allows us to look at the urban garden not as a category of analysis but rather "as a category of practices". As a consequence, urban gardens have to analysed with different temporal and spatial dimensions Urban gardens become a dynamic process, in which they have settled practices and behaviours result of certain socio‐economic contingencies, often trapped (in the case of the public allotments’ management, in too static regulations. In the garden different functions can coexist synchronously or they may overlap or come in succession, with all the consequences that a change in functionality assumes for the biological community inside and out of the ecosystem (Guitart et al., 2012). It also seems interesting to observe the garden’s cycles. The garden from the ecological point of view can be considered a closed system inside the modern city, a system that instead is incomplete since it depends on large areas for the energy, food, fibers, water and other materials, so much as to be called by the ecologist Odum (1983) "the parasite of the rural environment". However, if we consider the garden as a social space taken away from the city, it can be observed how its resilience is also determined by the degree of openness that gardeners are able to get and dosed with the outside. The creation of formal and informal networks of exchanges settle the garden in the district and transmit to the gardener a greater sense of belonging to the territory, which is reflected into an increased attention to the broader urban context (D’Abundo et al., 2008; Glover et al., 2005). Urban garden as a dynamic ecosystem is a proxy of the transition state that a metropolitan context is experiencing. It can also can become a strategic laboratory where experiment and test new forms of governance, which will hopefully become future prototypes of sustainability for the metropolitan area. How institutions are aware of and are able to pursue this challenge considering the different stakeholders? How have they been able to adapt or adjust? 2.

Aims and method

The aim of the study is to investigate how over time the different roles and meanings attributed to urban gardens in the context of the metropolitan area of Turin influenced their process of governance. The institutions faced on one side a strong push and demand for innovation from the citizens who would like to have a garden but with new features and the other side they faced a force of the same intensity, but opposite that was trying to maintain unchanged the status quo from those that owns a urban garden since many years. Insights from the paper arise from the analysis of the experience of urban garden in the context of the city of Turin and its suburbs since the early seventies and more specifically from the analysis of two case studies, the regulated urban gardens della Bela Rosin in the Mirafiori district of Turin and the communal urban gardens in Grugliasco, a municipality in the first belt of Turin. The analysis of the context was performed by the reconstruction of the official records and interviews with witnesses, participants to the evolution of the phenomenon. The analysis of the case studies, beyond the participation of some persons who work directly in the management / governance of these two experiences, has involved more than 40 gardeners, that in the period from June to September 2014, were interviewed with a semi structured questionnaire. The gardeners were interviewed within the space of their assigned garden, usually during the work in the plot. The sample of respondents’ gardeners was made of men and women, people of different age groups, old and new gardeners.

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Urban garden in Turin: yesterday and today

In Turin, urban gardens find their origins in the 70'. They are small areas of spontaneous occupation, which are located near water courses. The phenomenon is concomitant to the population increase and it is the result of the wave of migration that characterizes the city in the years of the economic miracle. Between the years 50 and 60, the overall balance of migration of the city counts 433,000 inhabitants; Turin in 1975 reached its maximum population of 1,203,000 inhabitants (Mela, 2011). Among immigrants, prevail those from rural settings and among them those from Southern Italy (Bagnasco, 1986). For the immigrant metalworker, the garden owns a productive function of income support, a form of occupation of the time outside the assembly line, “an antidote to escape from the binary factory‐ apartment", which allows coming back to land, to the origins. From the perspective of Turin, the spontaneous gardens, commonly referred to as "the garden of the poor", are the manifesto of the situation of marginalization of immigrants. Until the 80 'the phenomenon grows without being defined any attempt at regulation by the City of Turin and the surrounding municipalities of his first belt (Collegno, Grugliasco, Venaria, Nichelino ..). It has estimated that the phenomenon only in the area of the city of Turin has come to count 2,000,000 abusive plots , around which gravitated 20,000 families5. The first act of discipline allocation and management of urban gardens comes in 1986 with the Municipal Regulation n. 164 (approved by resolution of the City Council on July 23, 1986 ‐ mecc. 86 00125/46 ‐ Executive from 21 August 1986). This measure was followed by the adoption of more specific measures by the different districts of the City of Turin and regulations from the peri‐urban municipalities, always with the aim of ruling the illegal side of the phenomenon by setting up a system for the allocation of gardens to applicant citizens. This attitude from the institutions is almost unchanged for the duration of the nineties and early 2000. Only after 2010 and with the manifestation of the effects of the economic crisis, the Civic Administration sees in the urban and peri‐urban horticulture a mean to: ‐ enhance the value of areas that are taken away from the degradation and the marginalization and give them the status of "areas for agricultural use," against the consumption of land and for environmental protection and the improvement of the quality of urban places; ‐ support the sociality and citizen participation and its possibility to aggregate, promoting social cohesion and the social presidium; ‐ teach and disseminate cultivation techniques; ‐ support the organic food production and traditional local varieties; ‐ promote educational activities for young or those who wish to approach this type of activity (prevention and environmental education); ‐ promote supportive health care processes of physical and psychological therapy. Urban gardens, as one of the possible forms of urban agriculture takes on a new significance within the urban green management measures included in the Territorial Plan for Provincial Coordination Plan (P.T.C.P.)6, as evidenced by the project TOCC7, Turin city to be cultivated proposed by the municipality in 2012. 5

Resolution of the City Council of the City of Turin of March 25, 2013. This document call for the promotion of peri‐urban area, as the contact area between the rural and urban world, through actions for the protection and development of an agriculture, not only devoted to food production of food, but also as a mean for the overall improvement of the urban quality and soil conservation. 6

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TOCC not only represents an ambitious plan of analysis, census, upgrading and management of urban and peri‐urban green areas, but it aims also at changing the way of management of these spaces. The challenge is to strengthen the relationship between the city and the gardeners, by contracting out, through a series of public announcements, entire agricultural areas / green and manufactured to collective bodies (associations, citizens' committees, cooperatives) that are able to create a link between people and the institutions following a bottom‐up approach. Urban and peri‐urban agriculture and horticulture can become a valuable support for the solution of food and ecological problems, which can also contribute, particularly in the metropolitan area of Turin, to reduce the cost of managing urban green areas and to introduce alternative forms of management. The new regulation for urban gardens management of 20138 has been included as a part of the larger project TOCC. The main innovations compared to the previous version of 1986 include the possibility for citizens to use regulated gardens in a different way (collective and family gardens) and the use of green areas (up to 2500 m) by associations and cooperatives to implement horticulture and education activities. Close to the institutional "pro‐garden" movement in the context of the city of Turin and its outskirts there was the development of several informal gardens. Not only the demand for allocation of public gardens by new categories of people was rising, but a number of spontaneous experiences of individual and collective management9,, undivided surfaces given in concession to private managed by committees of citizens, associations flourished. Where there are already urban gardens, additional services such as education, a library room, areas for aggregation are provided. The purposes are distinct from those that characterized the gardens colonization of 60‐70 years that could be called "second generation gardens". Here, the gardener is a young person in the age group of 20‐40 years (young families, students), who look for in the work of cultivating a means of socialization, "of doing the community" and approach the garden as the intermediary for a healthier life. There is a growing interest in how to make a garden, districts and associations organize courses in gardening, be it the garden on the ground, on the roof or on the balcony. 4.

The cases study

4.1

The regulamented gardens of the district Mirafiori Sud in Turin

The regulamented gardens of Strada Castello di Mirafiori belong to thr area of competence and management of the District 10 of the city of Turin. The entire zone, near the river Sangone, was transformed in gardens since the early industrial development of the area of Mirafiori becoming part of a historical process / social / economic result of the great migrations from the South of Italy during the '60s. The reclamation of this area was part of a larger project to upgrade the urban and environmental area between the stream Sangone and the Mirafiori South district, promoted in the year 2004‐2005. The area was the birthplace of the first regulated gardens from 2007. 7

Resolution of the City Council of the City of Turin of March 5, 2012, http://www.comune.torino.it/consiglio/documenti1/atti/testi/2012_00758.pdf 8 Rules for the allocation and management of Urban Gardens, approved by resolution of the City Council on March 25, 2013 (mech. 2013 00113/002), executive from 8 April 2013. 9 Among these the design of the Bunker in 2013. th

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After the reclamation work, there were obtained 102 regulated parcels from the pre existing 230 ‐ illegal. Every garden has an area of 100 m2, an internal structure for the maintenance of the tools for cultivation and a water supply, according to the rules of the District 10. Since 2010, this area became part of "Miraorti" a process of research/action and of participatory planning in support of the urban government, aim at the creation of the Agricultural Park of Sangone. A number of initiatives of animation have been promoted with the aim of raising awareness among gardeners in sustainable practices andencourage them to take care of common areas through aggregation practices open to the district such as the realization of collective composters, recreational events and convivial activities with schools ,creation of purchasing groups for plants and fertilizers; physical improvement of the fences and common areas through the planting of 200 linear meters of mixed hedges. The direct knowledge of issues related to the technical management and governance of the gardens led to the creation of a committee of gardeners and pushed Miraorti to propose changes to the Regulations for the management of gardens in the District 10. In May of 2012 the district has approved a new regulation, improving several anomalies that does not allow a proper use of the area. The process has also proposed changes to the old regulation of the Gardens of the City of Turin of 1986, which were accepted in the new regulation of 2013. These changes have favoured the inclusion in the regulation of measures that favour the functional and social mixité in the garden, in the single plot and in the garden. Urban garden has not only to be used by retired workers, but it has to be more open to citizens of the district with different uses to meet the different needs and express fully the multifunctionality of the garden.

4.2

The communal gardens of Grugliasco

In 1984 the Municipality of Grugliasco, decided to tackle the problem of illegal occupation land for agricultural purposes (mainly concentrated in the area of Gerbido), setting up a special area dedicated to the creation of gardens to be given in temporary concession to its citizens. Citizens, which initially are the same owners of the abusive gardens; in exchange for a parcel “official” they leave that they first occupied. The area is localized first in Via Leonardo da Vinci, then it will be moved to Strada del Gerbido. It is made of 347 parcels of 63 m2 (9m x 7m) each. Today, the management of such areas is ruled determined by a resolution of the city council n.20 of 19/03/2012. Each plot is provided with an external enclosure, running water and a shed for tools.

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The area was equipped with a structure ‐ "house of gardeners" ‐ useful for common assemblies, common management and recreational moments among gardeners and families. Each assignment has a duration of five years, renewable one time. Each gardener is responsible for his lot and all the related operation and maintenance activities. The gardener can cultivate his plot only with the cooperation of the family (made up of people just living together). Only more recently (in this case from 2012), from a final destination mainly oriented to welfare and socialization for elderly pensioners, the regulation issued by the City Council in 201410, has been opened to younger people in order to "stimulate a collective consciousness in developing a new image of Grugliasco, able to recover a positive relationship with the environment and to engage citizens in the construction of a modern city, less alienating, more humane."

The 80% of the lots is for pensioners, 20% for other categories of citizens. The Regulation also sets as a necessary condition for the allocation of the plot, the membership to the Association of all grantees. In addition to the association, as a body of management, there is a municipal committee of management made up of six members, including two councillors, the commissioner of reference, an official of the municipal sector, a Representative of gardeners, a representative of the municipal police. The functions of the Commission mainly concern the management of the list for the allocation of the new or empty gardens and everything related to the technical, administrative and relationship with the gardeners (including disputes). There is also the assembly of grantees and a board of directors (elected by the gardeners themselves) with the task of promoting issues and proposals for a better management of the gardens and report any irregularities to the commitee of managment. Since March 2014, the management of all the garden and the relationships with and among the beneficiaries, has been outsourced to the Company Le Serre, who made a special information desk for users following the implementation of the resolution of the City Council. In 2015, thanks to the completion of the expansion, were created 120 additional lots, of which 10 are reserved for the unemployed under the current regulation.

10 Resolution C.C n. 72 of 22/12/2014.

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A firt insights from the analysis of the case studies in scale 1: 1

The analysis of two case studies show how the relative public administrations are trying to adapt/ adjust the system of management and governance of urban gardens, facing a reality (internal but especially external) that has changed dramatically over time. In particular, the latest evolution of the cultural framework that has characterized the issues of environment and agriculture in the context of Turin, has made necessary to change the regulatory framework at the municipal and the metropolitan city level to actively involve groups of population that until now cannot access to urban gardens and with ever more insistence are requiring to do so. The two case studies under analysis are therefore in the wider framework of Turin two mature experiences, constantly changing over time, but more recently they undergone a radical change. A change, that was already in progress and that the regulatory process has sought to incorporate, in some cases forced into practices, with a more or less effective results. The two cases, in fact, though quite close from a spatial point of view (at a distance of 10 km from each other), both in the southwest of Turin metropolitan area belong to two different municipalities that have chosen to position themselves differently towards change. The experience of the gardens of Bela Rosin at Mirafiori, as well as the larger program for regulated gardens in regulated Turin, showed a greater degree of openness towards the new demands that are emerging around the garden. The regulation allows to citizen of any age to apply for a garden, either alone or associated and establish a percentage in each district to gardens with features other than those exclusively productive (educational, pedagogical, therapeutic). The regulation maintains a degree of openness to a partial adaptation with respect to future developments, "This Regulation is subject to changes which may be adopted subsequently by the Civic Administration on the basis of experience gained during the period of initial application, and according to standards and suggestions. Any innovations must be fully accepted by beneficiaries. " It has also been left open the question of renewal of the allocation, which is not an automatic renewal, but it is not excluded. The case of the Gardens regulated at Mirafiori, also shows an higher degree to openness toward the presence of third parties such as associations, cooperatives that promote the associations’ between the gardeners and have an intermediary role with the administration. The change to be accepted more easily was accompanied by building a transition phase based on relationships of trust built between the gardeners and the project Miraorti. The autonomy of the association of gardeners and the feeling of common space, however, is still fragile. The management of the common areas is still problematic with regard to the degradation of the areas used as landfills, unused common areas, lack of maintenance, use of inappropriate materials in the gardens, low sensitivity ecological sustainability in gardens, lack of functions and actions of control leading to irregularities in the conduct and abandoned plots where no steps were taken to a new assignment, despite the long waiting list. If instead we look at the gardens of Grugliasco, the feeling is much more ordered. All the plots are allocated, the maintenance is good, and the common spaces are used. The change, however, has been included in the regulation and practices in a more timid way, providing fewer degrees of freedom for the gardeners and a minor multifunctional use of the gardens. They have created new plots, but only 10 will be allocated to the unemployed. Access is restricted to persons at least of 45 years old and with certain income criteria. It was preserved and guaranteed assignment to pensioners. Changes have been made regarding the degree of renewal of beneficiaries and the duration of assignments, but at the same time there remain a number of exceptions that preserve the status quo (or that is often bypassed with assignments handled within the family, so changing formally the assignee, but the substance remains the same). The level of socialization is strong, but

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exclusive and limited to older gardeners (in the sense of ownership and length of the assignment) and there are barriers to entry to the opening relational against the new grantees. This aspect is also reflected in what is the representativeness of the Committee of the gardeners. The outsourcing of service to the company Le Serre, is a change in the entity that manages the service, but it is not represent a decentralization of managing functions. The compulsory participation of the association of gardeners, otherwise they need to pay a greater amount for the assignment, is perceived more as an top‐down imposition and not as an attempt to create a botton‐up participation of gardeners. In Grugliasco, moreover, given the lower level of decentralization than in Turin, where are the districts that manage the service, it is much felt the theme of cronyism. The garden can be a significant pool of votes in a reality of 38,000 inhabitants and it is definitely easier to make political promises to gardeners still keeping their parcel, than to those who request it. 6.

Conclusions

The two case studies demonstrate the extent of the challenges for the administrations in trying to govern the delicate boundary between the pursuit of the common good through the use of a public space and the use of a parcel as a private good, especially for those gardeners who live the garden with a strong sense of ownership and embeddedness and that still belong to the generation of the first spontaneous settlers. The two case studies show two attempts to submit different answer, one more oriented towards a process of adaptive governance, though still incomplete as that of Mirafiori, and the other more oriented adjustment as evidenced by the case of Grugliasco. In terms of innovation, this highlights a trade‐off between the level of change obtained / granted freedom and the status of order‐ rigidity maintained which has implications on the level of ecosystem resilience garden 7.

References

Bagnasco, A. 1986, Torino. Un profilo sociologico, Einaudi, Torino. D'Abundo, M. L., Carden A., M. 2008, Growing wellness: the possibility of promoting collective wellness through community garden education programs, Community Development, 39(4), pp. 83‐94. Glover, T. D., Shinew, K. J., Parry, D. C., 2005. Association, sociability, and civic culture: the democratic effect of community gardening, Leisure Sciences: An Interdisciplinary Journal, 27(1), pp. 75‐92. Guitart, D., Pickering, C., Byrne, J., 2012. Past results and future direction in urban community gardens research, Urban Forestry & Urban Greening, 11, pp. 364‐373. Mela, A., 2011, Turin: the long transition, space, society, In: Brizzi, M., Sabini, M., The new Turin, Alinea Editrice, Firenze, pp. 11‐24. Moore, A., 2008. Rethinking scale as a geographical category: from analysis to practice. Progress in Human Geography, 32 (2), pp. 203–225. Odum, P.E., 1983, Basic Ecology, CBS College Publishing, New York. Pike, K.L., 1954. Language in relation to a unified theory of the structure of human behavior, vol. 1. Summer Institute of Linguistics, Glendale, CA.

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Gaston Remmers, “Cracking codes between the health care and the agrofood system: the development of a food supplement for prostate th cancer in the Netherlands”, In: Localizing urban food strategies. Farming cities and performing rurality. 7 International Aesop Sustainable Food Planning Conference Proceedings, Torino, 7‐9 October 2015, edited by Giuseppe Cinà and Egidio Dansero, Torino, Politecnico di Torino, 2015, pp 246‐260. ISBN 978‐88‐8202‐060‐6

CRACKING CODES BETWEEN THE HEALTH CARE AND THE AGROFOOD SYSTEM: THE DEVELOPMENT OF A FOOD SUPPLEMENT FOR PROSTATE CANCER IN THE NETHERLANDS Gaston Remmers1

Keyword: food, health, patient movement, prostate cancer, food supplement, short supply chains Abstract: Both the agrofood system and the health care system are known for their sector specific rules and routines. These routines in general do not favour innovations that transgress the borders of the sector. In earlier documents, Remmers (2014a, b) highlighted the role of patients as emerging and potentially powerful change makers, who cross borders without hesitation, linking the health care and agrofood sector in new organizational arrangements. Patients seem to be to the health and agrofood systems what citizens are in spatial planning: a category whose engagement makes new design (of chains, of products, of areas) more locally adapted, innovative, useful and used. Core of this paper is a case study of the development of a food supplement for prostate cancer, in which patients play a crucial role. The case study is contextualised by a brief review 1) of the core challenges actors in the health and agro‐food system are facing to make food really count for health, and 2) of the emergence of patient movement on food in The Netherlands, to which the author contributes in various roles as a patient advocate, researcher, facilitator and project initiator. The food supplement for prostate cancer has become available on the market in September 2015, after years of stagnation, through the collaboration between patients, researchers and producers. The paper reviews the process that has led to this sudden acceleration. As a follow‐up, the food supplement is now being translated into new, fresh‐food based food routines for men at risk of prostate cancer, including the growth and home‐delivery of specific crops for prostate cancer. The food supplement is hence paving the way for a new type of producer‐consumer relations and short supply chains. The case study suggests that multistakeholder collaboration, geared around a clearly defined and demanding consumer group, is very supportive to make food really count for health, and impact the health and agro‐food system.

introduction

Both the agro‐food system and the health care system are known for their sector specific rules and routines. These routines in general do not favour innovations that transgress the borders of the sector. In earlier documents, Remmers (2014a, b) highlighted the role of patients as emerging and potentially powerful change makers, who cross borders without hesitation, linking the health care and agro‐food sector in new organizational arrangements. Patients seem to be to the health and agrofood systems what citizens are in spatial planning: a category whose engagement makes new design (of chains, of products, of areas) more locally adapted, innovative, useful and used. The paper will first introduce the core challenges that need to be bypassed in order to speed up the incorporation of good food for good health, and align both the healthcare, agro‐food sector and the patients movement in their efforts. It then reviews briefly the emergence of the patients movement on food in The Netherlands, singling out the birth of the Dutch Platform Patient and Food. The paper follows with a more detailed case study on the development of a food supplement on prostate 1

Director, HABITUS | enabling healthy habitat development. Co‐founder, Platform Patient and Food Netherlands. E: g.remmers@habitus.nu

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cancer. It describes the health promise of the food supplement and the development of the coalition that has made its introduction on the market possible, in September 2015, after years of stagnation, through the collaboration between patients, researchers and producers. In the closing chapter, the potential of the established coalition around the food supplement will be assessed as to impact also the uptake of fresh food for health. The methodology that supports this paper is participant observation and action research, throughout the development process of the supplement for prostate cancer. The author was chair of the working group on the food supplement, and co‐founder of the Platform Patient and Food. All meetings of the working group and of the Platform Patient and Food were carefully documented and accorded in each new step in the process, and a logbook was kept. 2.

The challenge: how to make food really count for health?

In recent years, there is abundant attention for the role food plays in maintaining health. On the one hand, a wealth of projects are developed to increase awareness on the need to raise intake of especially vegetables and fruits. Most of these projects are aimed at segments of the population that are most likely to become overweight, in The Netherlands mainly people in lower economic income classes and / or of Moroccan or Turkish descent. These projects are based on conventional notions of ‘good food for good health’, meaning that they depart on the consensuated scientific knowledge on healthy food pattern, condensed in e.g. the ‘Food Guide Pyramid’ in the UK, or the ‘Schijf van Vijf’ in The Netherlands. This consensuated notion is at the same time under attack from a number of “food‐ guru’s”, who, in a true tsunami of books make a plea for a food pattern that put a different emphasis, either on a much stronger increase in vegetables, or a different perspective on fats etcetera. Whatever may be the exact argument, most approaches coincide in their promise for public health. Given the load of public attention for food and health, it is remarkable that there is still very little attention, within formal healthcare institution such as hospitals, for a more precisely defined role for food in the process of maintaining or recovering health. Food, so far, is not part of their ‘primary care process’, and hence more subject to budgetary constraints than to medical considerations. This is remarkable, as a recent Dutch survey concluded that dietary intervention for elderly persons in hospitals could save between 15 and 78 million Euros a year (Scholte et al, 2015). A positive exception is the recent initiative of Hospital Gelderse Vallei (Netherlands), who on purpose provides specific food recommendations for patients during hospital stay, to avoid that people receive treatment while being undernourished. These recommendations are based on consensuated notions on the right balance of proteins, carbohydrates, fats etc. Very slowly it becomes evident that this consensuated balance should even be further individualised, as the same food may trigger a very different response in people. A recent Israelian study (Zeevi et, 2015) pointed this out very clearly in relation to the maintenance of sound blood glucose levels. Consensuated knowledge holds that especially food containing fast sugars should be avoided, yet in some people blood glucose peaked more after eating sushi than after ice cream, and in one person the consumption of tomatoes yielded extreme glucose levels. Given the lack of attention for food in formal health care institutions, the focus on generic recommendations on food for health as part of public health, and the multitude of alternative takes on food present in public media, it is not strange that confusion among consumers is growing. The

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question that emerges ever more urgently is: what food does really work for ME? In 2014, an appraisal on the business potential of personalised food was conducted, and established more clearly some of the current possibilities, dilemma’s and challenges to make food really count for the health of an individual (Remmers, 2014b). One of the promising developments is that, parallel to the incipient initiatives within the health care sector as above described, patients are massively experimenting with food to sustain their health. A study from 2004 estimated food experimentation by cancer patients on 50% (Meijer et al, 2004), while a survey in 2014 measured that up to 75% of patients (of all kinds) experiment with food and food supplements (Meijer et al, 2014). Patients do so in the absence of any formal support from their doctors, who, at best, do not obstruct the patients when experimenting with food. Their food experiments draw on a large variety of health paradigms (Ayurvedic, Chinese Traditional Medicine, homeopathic, paleo, orthomolecular, hand‐picked scientific evidence etc), food sources (organic, local, conventional farming) and a mixture of whole foods and food supplements. The results of these home experiments are not documented, neither by the formal health sector, nor by any independent research. Judging from the claims of the patients themselves, successes and failures are both present. At the same time, there is a massive amount of nutrition research being performed, trying to pinpoint evidence based causality relations between the consumption of a certain food item with a certain chemical substance, and a health effect. For some areas, the evidence is mounting, as for example with regard to the role of turmeric (from Curcuma lunga, mainly grown in India and Pakistan), which is reported to have a positive effect in the control of certain types of cancer2. Bitter Gourd (Momordica Charantia) is reported to lower the symptoms of Diabetes Melitus type 23. For other areas, the solidity of the evidence is under debate, as is pointed out by Prof. Kampman and collegues (Wageningen University), who have developed a website where lay people can find out what evidence is available regarding food and cancer (www.voedingenkanker.nl ). The problem that emerges time and again is that the knowledge on what food works and what not, is heavily contested even by academic scholars themselves. Hence, it is very difficult for patients to get their doctors back‐up their own home experiments. At the same time, food producers cannot claim that their fresh products have a certain health effect, procedures of the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) regulating food claims being very lengthy, strict and costly. Hence, producers are reluctant to invest in development of crops with enhanced concentration of compounds with specific health effects. Taken all this together, we witness a paralysis in the uptake of food as a recognised medical intervention and prevention strategy, and even more so as a strategy that can be individualised. Both the biomedical sector, the food producing sector and the patients have legitimate questions to each other as regards the role of food for health (see fig 1.). In fact, uncertainty prevails: either scientific uncertainty if a certain relation between a plant compound and health is solid enough; uncertainty 2

http://www.tegenkanker.nl/onderzoek/kurkuma/onderzoeksnieuws‐kurkuma/ The Amsterdam Medical Centre is currently performing in‐depth research as to combine turmeric in combination with a so‐called photo‐ dynamic cancer therapy https://www.amc.nl/web/Het‐AMC/Nieuws/Nieuwsoverzicht/Nieuws/Geelwortel‐ tegen‐tumoren.htm 3 See e.g. Fernandes et al, 2007, and www.bitter‐gourd.org th

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on the side of food producers if the investment in new crop development will be paid off by the expected sales; and patient uncertainty as to what food really matches their health condition. The core challenge, hence, is to develop a collaborative structure in which these uncertainties can gradually be tackled. The prostate cancer coalition on a food supplement is one such collaborative structure that is being developed, and will be dealt with in detail in paragraph 4.

Figure 1. The core actors in health and food, and some of the questions that need to be solved.

The emergence of the patients movement on food in The Netherlands

At present, the Netherlands are home to over 400 organisations for people with a specific disease. These diseases concern both physical, mental and psychological/psychiatric diseases. The core areas of work of these organisations are as follows: providing information about the disease, organizing contact between patients that deal with the same disease, and defending the interests of patients with the disease (Smit and De Knecht‐van Eekelen, 2015). The organisations are very different in their way of working. Smit and De Knecht (op cit: 15) distinguish patient organisation 1.0 as the traditional organization, working on the core areas with traditional tools; patient organisation 2.0 as the one that involves much more heavily social media; and patient organisations 3.0 as those who deliberately and pro‐actively establish collaborations between researchers, patients and business and societal third parties. From the 1.0 to the 3.0 organisation, militancy and focus on patient empowerment increase. The patient’s interest and dedication to food, as highlighted in the previous chapter, contrast quite strongly with the fact that there seems to be hardly any coordinated effort to generate a common patient’s perspective on food. Most patient’s organisations deal with food only in relation with to their own disease, and when they do it, food is just one of the many items they pay attention to. In 2013, a first attempt to generate a common agenda was formulated in the context of a project born out of the collaboration between two EU patient groups, namely the European Patient’s Forum (EPF) and the European Genetic Alliance Network (EGAN). These groups joined forces with the European Nutrition for Health Alliance (ENHA), a multistakeholder group involving dieticians, doctors, food and

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pharma industry, working especially on a screening process for malnutrition (Gill’ard, Green and Smit, 2013). Their agenda gathered views of 8 different patient organisations throughout Europe, and is called ‘patients perspectives on nutrition’. The agenda includes several recommendations. The focus is on nutrition, not so much on (fresh) food, and pays predominantly attention to (functional) food for assisting recovery, and little to food as a tool to prevent people from getting sick at all. Using this agenda as a point of reference, a brainstorm was conducted in the course of the Personalised Food project in June 2014. The brainstorm led to the formulation of a series of key issues and recommendations on food and health, summarized here as follows (Remmers et al, 2014): 1. Actors in the health and food sector should collaborate as to empower food to become an acknowledged individualised medical prevention and intervention strategy, tuned to the stage in the treatment process and the phase of life one is in (see figure 2). 2. Improve early diagnostic methods, as to be able to design an adequate food strategy as quickly as possible, and to this purpose use DNA analyses, if possible at birth. 3. Monitor and systematize the experience based knowledge born out of the food experiments of patients and citizens 4. Take serious and validate alternative visions on food and health from other health traditions, e.g. Ayurveda 5. Food is not a single but a multiple drug. Food research should focus on the synergistic health effects of food 6. Healthy food is generated by a healthy food system. Actors should focus on creating a healing environment in all dimensions: natural cropping methods, healthy food offerings where groups are vulnerable and easily seduced (schools, sport canteens etc.), a green and inspiring built environment etc. 7. Make healthy food attractive and tasty. Food is not only medicine, it also enjoyment and social contact. Don’t medicalise food. The momentum gathered in the appraisal on Personalised Food led to the establishment, in October 2014, of the Platform Patients and Food, an NGO whose mission is ‘to empower food as an acknowledged medical intervention and prevention strategy’. The organization is still very young, but at the same time is attracting quite some clout, with patients and patient organisations of different diseases supporting it: cancer, heart failure, ME/cvs, muscle dystrophy, kidney malfunctioning, lung, immunesystem, to name but a few (www.patientenvoeding.nl). The main topics that the Platform has been working on so far is first, establishing a structure that enables patients wisdom and experience with food to be taken serious and validated, and second, to establish coalitions between health care, food sector and patients as to accelerate the development of good food for good health. Of note is that while food is the focus of this Platform, the agenda is much broader; food provides merely a prism, that enables to review the integral nature of human health. 4.

The development of a food supplement for Prostate Cancer

Food supplements are not equivalent to fresh food as a source of health, but an approximation to it. They form a ‘bridge’ between medicinal drugs on the one hand, and whole foods on the other. Due to the availability of underpinning biomedical research and an accidental match between the researchers and patients, the development of the food supplement for prostate cancer has become an interesting showcase of the challenges that need to be addressed in order to incorporate food as

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part of the primary process of health care on the one hand, and product innovation in the fresh food producing sector on the other. Recovery and care after treatments

Unborn child

End of Life

Prevention

Figure 2. Food should fit both the stage of treatment and the life phase one is in

As part of the appraisal on Personalised Food, in 2014 a coalition was established between researchers and clinicians at the Rotterdam Medical Centre of Erasmus University in Rotterdam, a Dutch producer and wholesaler of food supplements, and the cancer patient movement Inspire2Live. Source of the collaboration was the research by Erasmus MC on the recipe for a food supplement for prostate cancer. This research had been conducted since 1998, partly autonomously by Erasmus MC, and partly in collaboration by Nutricia and Danone. The elements of the food supplement were based on epidemiological research on the prevalence of prostate cancer in East Asia in relation to diet. In East Asia, the prevalence of prostate cancer is much lower than in Europe or the United States. Lycopene (found in tomatoes), flavonoids found in soya and vitamin E, were the most important components of the supplement, together with a number of accompanying substances. Two types of research had been conducted. First, the supplement was supplied to men which had undergone radical prostatectomy (chirurgical intervention taking away completely the prostate) or radiation. The supplement showed to slow down the doubling time of the PSA‐levels (Prostate Specific Antigen, a biomarker that is a measure for the activity of the tumor) with a factor 2.6, as compared to men who had not taken the supplement (Schröder et al, 2005; Kranse et al, 2006). Second, a combination of lycopene and vitamin E was supplied to mice with prostate cancer. Their tumors grew also statistically significant slower (factor 2.6) than in mice who had not been supplied with lycopene and vitamin E (Limpens et al, 2005). These two studies allowed for the assumption that the intake of the food supplement slows down the development of the tumor in humans too. For a 72 year old man, the development of the tumor could be delayed with about 3 years. These scientific results were available in 2005. The recipe for the supplement was even patented by Nutricia. Yet, it never led to the actual production of the supplement, the main reason being a th

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business reorientation by the Nutricia. This was much to the frustration of the leader of the research at Erasmus MC, Prof. dr. Schröder, who argued that his patients could not get hold of a soundly researched instrument to manage their health. The situation is quite similar to that of promising, but not yet completely research drugs for patients. Patients who have no other options left, may sometimes use those drugs, known as ‘early access to drugs’. This ‘early access’ almost invariably must be conquered, as the mechanisms as to not allow such use work strongly against it: financial, academic and burocratic4. In the case of the prostate cancer food supplement, the supplement was promising not only for the researched group of men who had undergone radical prostatectomy or radiation, but also for men who show to have an elevated level of PSA, but without further signals that would warrant immediate medical action. Those men follow a so‐called ‘active surveillance’ protocol, including regular check‐ups of the level of PSA (pers com Prof Schröder). In similar vein, the supplement was possibly of use in a preventive fashion for men over 55 years of age with a history of prostate cancer in their family. Prof. Schröder’s frustration was picked up by Inspire2Live, a cancer patient organisation group based in The Netherlands, advocating strongly for breakthroughs in cancer research, clinical practice and health policy (www.inspire2live.org ), and urging for intense collaboration between researchers, clinicians and patients. Their insistence on ‘nothing for the patients, without the patient’ resembles the advocacy for farmer based research in the 80‐ies, when ‘Farmer First’ became proverbial (Chambers et al, 1989; Scoones and Thompson, 2009). Inspire2Live is composed of so‐called ‘patient advocates’, usually well‐educated patients who are primarily interested in advancing the state of the art concerning their disease (patient organisation 3.0). To this end, Inspire2Live differs from many other patient organisation, whose primary concern is to put patients of a certain disease in contact with each other (see chapter 3). Three patient advocates of Inspire2Live, including the author of this paper, established a working group with Prof Schroder and colleagues, that was further complemented by a producer of food supplements (Ars Pro Pharma) and a whole sale company of phytotherapeutic products (Holisan). The Business Development Agency of the province of Flevoland (OMFL) was instrumental in connecting with Ars Pro Pharma, who subsequently connected with Holisan. These partners (Erasmus MC, Inspire2Live and Ars Pro Pharma / Holisan) form the core of a working group, that, since its first meeting in april 2014, has met until, September 2015, approximately every 6 weeks. In retrospect, the development of the working group has gone through a series of phases, unravelling in a parallel mode several issues. Table 1 gives a concise overview of the different issue that needed to be addressed. 4

Recently, the case of the drug ‘olaparib’ made the news in The Netherlands. Olaparib is a drug developed for women with ovary cancer with a specific genetic mutation (BRCA). It happens to provide also excellent results for women with breast cancer with the same genetic mutiation, as praxis has showed. Yet, it will not be covered by health insurance, as the research that underpins its effectiveness, has only been tested in the context of ovary cancer. Result: a potentially curing drug is not available for women, that without it will die. Patient Advocay groups such as Inspire2Live are active in cutting through the obstacles. (http://www.volkskrant.nl/wetenschap/‐dit‐medicijn‐moet‐er‐komen~a3944132/ th

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Table 1. Phases and issues related to the development of the food supplement for prostate cancer Phase

Issue

Activity

Milestone

Getting connected

Phone calls, email

Connecting (March‐April 2014)

Build up of trust

Getting to know each other

Meetings, exchanging views

Build up of trust, identification of the core collaborators (Aug 2014)

Establishing trust Calculating the potential number Holisan says ýes’ and places an order in the potential of beneficiaries of the supplement with Ars Pro Pharma (Sep 2014) market

Resolving issues re patent

Getting information on the status of the patent

Decision of the group not to establish new patent, and rely on the built partnership for marketing purposes (Aug 2014)

Getting the Defining a supplement on the marketing market strategy

Discussing how the supplement Decisions regarding the characteristics of could overcome currently blocking the stakeholder collaboration, the mechanism composition of the supplement, etiquette and research (Aug 2014 – June 2015)

Developing additional research

Establishing type of research, finding funding

Fund raising

Search for grants for research and Funding for production of the for production of the supplements supplement for research purposes secured (Aug 2015)

Establishing the final recipe

Discussions on what would be wise Decision to go for the original recipe, scientifically and what business without newly promising ‘add‐on’s’ wise (June 2015)

Defining the text Consultations with KAG‐KOAG on the etiquette about name and further text on etiquette

Establishing a user community

First proposal submitted for funding (Jan 2015), denied, larger proposal submitted (July 215)

PROSTAPREV choosen as name for the food supplement (June 2015); supplement available on the market (Sep 2015)

Finding exposure through patients ongoing organisations such as Prostate Cancer Foundation, Inspire2Live etc

Elaborating a fresh Sensing the Talks with a new consortium of food variant of the interest among pioneering horticulturalists supplement new stakeholders (food producers) in a fresh food variant

Project proposal ready (Oct 2015)

4.1

Getting connected

The main stakeholders got connected through the Appraisal on the Business Potential of Personalised Food (Remmers, 2014). This appraisal was commissioned by the Amsterdam Economic Board and Chamber of Commerce, the Province of Flevoland and CAH Vilentum Almere, a University of Applied Sciences, who was able to secure funding through the so‐called Centre of Expertise

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Greenports, a collaborative network between different Dutch Universities of Applied Sciences. The work was supervised by a Steering Committee, that was staffed, in addition to representatives of the funding organisations, by the Dutch Knowledge Centre of Plant Compounds, Fytagoras (a private research centre on biomedical and plant issues), the Dutch Central Veterinary Service, the project lead of the Green Health Consortium (a collaborative network of a series of Dutch universities of applied science and Small and Medium Enterprises geared towards validating the medical potential of promising plants and cropping techniques), the University of Amsterdam/VU (Prof. H. Westerhoff) and two members of Inspire2Live, a Cancer Patient Organisation. The appraisal was led by Gaston Remmers, in a double role as a professor at CAH Vilentum Almere, and as a patient advocate for Inspire2Live, assisted by the Flevoland Development Agency for Business Development (OMFL). The first connection was established in January 2014, between Inspire2Live and Prof. Schröder, who had long been a supporter for patient empowerment in cancer care, and an advocate for reducing cancer incidence. The idea of the food supplement was then pitched at a business venue organised by the Dutch Centre of Plant Compounds early March 2014. Later that month, OMFL established a connection with supplement producer Ars Pro Pharma form the city of Lelystad. Several phone calls and emails yielded finally a group of stakeholders, that first met early May 2014. 4.2

Build up of trust

4.2.1 Getting to know each other A number of meetings was held between May and August 2014. Purpose of these meetings was to figure out the issues to be tackled, the order of actions to be taken, the partners to work with and to gain trust in each other’s commitment and capacities. The first session was organised by Prof Schroder in a Rotterdam restaurant. The coming‐into‐being of the business coalition was first publicly announced a little later on a seminar on Personalised Food (May 2014), organised by the author of this paper, who offered to coordinated the follow‐up of the development of the supplement. Meetings were thoroughly documented. About 10 different stakeholders showed interest; by August 2014, the core collaboraters were identified: Erasmus MC, Inspire2Live, Ars Pro Pharma and Holisan, with OMFL on the background. 4.2.2 Establishing trust in the potential market In order to establish trust in the potential market, it was necessary to become very clear about the potential beneficiaries. On the one hand, this implied a clear identification, by the biomedical researchers, of the target group. Based on the research conducted earlier, the supplement showed results in men having undergone radical prostectomy, a chirurgic intervention taking out the prostate. These men were in principle ‘clean’, meaning that they had no detectable tumor growing, and were under an ‘active surveillance’ protocol, following regular check‐ups by their doctors. However, the scientists argued that by force of logic, it was very reasonable to conclude that also men who showed to have an elevated level of PSA but without a prostate cancer diagnosis, and men with a so‐called ‘benign tumor’, and who were under active surveillance too, were also likely to benefit from the supplement. These categories sum up for about 3000 men yearly, in The Netherlands alone. Additionally, in general men over 50 years of age were indicated a potential beneficiaries. Prostate cancer will almost invariably develop in men, and most men die with the presence of prostate cancer, without it being the cause of their death. Hence, all men over 50 years of age could potentially benefit from it by means of prevention, although there is no research that

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underscores this assertion. The eventual number of potential beneficiaries was hence calculated by the group to be approximately 1.8 million men in The Netherlands, with a core focus group of 3.000. Another aspect of trust in the market, was the possibility to link the supplement with health claims and the interest in the product by patients. As a vendor of phytotherapeutic products, Holisan had ample experience with products that are not formally regulated as medicine, and knew about the troublesome nature of acquiering health claims. So Holisan was not backed off by the absence of a formal health claim. For Holisan, the solidity of the research and the reputation of Erasmus MC were more important. Also the establishment of the working group, and the promise of active patient involvement, were favourable to its decision to produce the supplement. This decision was crucial. Between April and September 2014, the working group had met on several occasions, and had at length discussed the potential market and the accompanying activities to further strengthen the biomedical underpinning by additional research. The moment came near that Holisan needed to give a clear signal it was serious with going to market with the product – otherwise the whole exercise was useless. Finally, Holisan said ýes’ in the autumn of 2014 and placed an order with Ars Pro Pharma to acquire the composing substances for the supplement by October 2014. 4.2.3 Resolving issues on patent The recipe for the supplement was under patent by Nutricia. In the spring of 2014, Nutricia was considering releasing the patent, which it eventually did in September 2014. The coordinating group considered for a few months whether it would be fruitful to buy the patent from Nutricia, the argument being the potential marketing benefits. However, after considerable deliberation, it was decided not to buy the patent, first because of the cost involved, and second because of the limited protection it would provide. If a large company would assemble the supplement without permission, the working group would never have sufficient means to win a legal case against such a company. Hence, the working group would produce a supplement with a recipe that would be available to all. 4.3

Getting the supplement on the market

4.3.1 Defining a marketing strategy The decision not to work under the ‘protection’ of a patent was crucial, as it highlighted the necessity to find other ways to profile the supplement against other prostate supplements in the market. After all, benchmarking showed that there were a number of supplements available on the shelves of drugstores, that had a some resemblance with the supplement of the working group, that was provisionally named Prostaprev. The benchmarking also raised the question if it was necessary to produce a new supplement at all. The working group considered this to be the case. Main reasons were: a) the already available supplements showed some overlap with Prostaprev, but with considerable variation regarding the concentration of the substances, that were furthermore not very clearly defined; b) the exact effect of these supplements could not be warranted by scientific back‐up. The group then established that the core selling strategy should follow four lines: a) Prostaprev is the first supplement on prostate cancer backed up with a clear line of research behind it; b) the introduction on the market would be accompanied by additional and complementary research as to

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even more firmly establish its effectiveness, including also the uptake of promising new ingredients in a follow‐up of the supplement; c) the composition of the recipe would not be altered as to enable a reference to ‘prostate’ on the label; d) the build‐up of a community of end‐users and urologists and oncologists that would be informal promotors of the supplement. In the upcoming paragraphs these issues will be elaborated. For the three patient advocates involved in the coordinating group, the crucial factor to support the supplement actively was the solidity of the already established research on the supplement, and the promise of the development of additional research accompanying market introduction. The communities of urologists and oncologists were expected, by the Erasmus MC team, to be bit harder to convince, as they were thought to be harnessed more thoroughly in their habitual treatment protocols. In essence, the working group established that its own partnership was the main guarantee to realize a successful market introduction and to develop research. 4.3.2 Developing additional research Two types of additional research were deemed important. First, research repeating the already established research among men, but with a larger scope. In fact, it concerned a so‐called ‘phase 4’ research, the label given to research on drugs that are already available on the market. The second type of research aimed to identify the potential contribution of newly found substances in e.g. pomegranate that might strengthen the effectivity of the supplement. A research proposal for the first research goal was elaborated in January 2015, but was not granted. In July 2015, a larger research proposal combining both research goals was submitted (decision to be expected December 2015). The leadership of these research proposals lies with Erasmus MC, under the supervision of Prof. dr. Bangma, dr. M. Roobol and dr. W van Weerden.

4.3.3 Fund raising Funds for the research above stated could relatively easily be identified – which doesn’t mean that the procedures to receive a grant were easy. The development of phase 4 research on the supplement introduced another issue. Habitually, it is the manufacturer of the drug who provides the drug without costs for the purposes of the research. Usually, these manufacturers are large pharmaceutical companies. However, in this case the manufacturer was a small player, and by no means capable of providing the supplements for free. Hence, additional funding was needed, and finally found in the form of a grant of the province of Flevoland (August 2015). In this, the OMFL, the Flevoland Development Agency for Business Development, played a crucial role.

4.3.4 Establishing the final recipe The original recipe that was patented consisted of over 10 different compounds. There were two issues that made a closer look at the recipe necessary. First, it was clear from the outset that the supplement could not have any reference to prostate cancer based on the patented recipe alone. To acquire such a health claim meant submitting it to the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), implying a lengthy and costly procedure, demanding most probably a lot of additional research. And that was precisely what was meant to be avoided. Yet, there were other substances, already approved of by EFSA in previous decades, that would allow for a reference to a general functioning of the prostate – not to prostate cancer. The exact wording of these health references on medicines

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and health products is supervised in The Netherlands by the KOAG‐KAG Council5. ‘Saw Palm’ (Serenoa repens) and ‘Nettle (Urticae radix) would qualify for ‘for the maintenance of a normal prostate’ and ‘good for the prostate function’; Saw palm in addition may assert that it is ‘good for the urinary tract of men above 45 years’. What both plants exactly do is not mentioned; they do neither affect the development of a prostate tumor. Zinc is another element that is often incorporated in supplements, allowing the statement ‘contributing to the maintenance of healthy cells and tissues’. The working group argued back and forth if inclusion of one of these substances would a) affect the working of the recipe that had been researched, and b) if the communicative advantage of a generic referencing to the prostate would outweigh the fact that research had not included such substances. The group finally concluded that although it was not very likely that additional ingredients would interfere negatively with the original ingredients, it could not be excluded either. Second, in terms of public and academic credibility and transparency, it would probably be wiser to stick to the original recipe. These arguments also applied to substances that, in research conducted between 2005 and 2014, to be potentially effective in controlling prostate cancer, such as pomegranate and others (Lin et al, 2015). So, finally, in June 2015, it was decided to stick with original recipe, take it as a reference to on the one hand build additional research, and on the other for product development in the future.

4.3.5 Defining the text on the etiquette Having decided upon the list of substances, the road to mention on the etiquette an explicit reference to prostate cancer was blocked. Two options were finally left: the name of the food supplement, and a reference to SWOP, the Foundation for Scientific Research on Prostate Cancer, that was a long standing initiative of the Department of Urology of Erasmus MC, aimed at providing funds for scientific research on prostate cancer in particular, and cancers of the urinary tract in general (www.prostaatwijzer.nl ). Hence, Holisan designed an etiquette, and submitted it for approval to the before mentioned Dutch KOAG‐KAG supervisory council. The name PROSTAPREV was accepted, and also the inclusion of a statement on the etiquette that a part of the sales revenues would be transferred to SWOP. This last option is very interesting, as it also establishes a circular relation between research and product, and guarantees that research is ongoing. Having resolved the issues regarding recipe and etiquette, the supplement could now be introduced in the market, and was launched early September 2015.

4.3.6 Establishing a user community Establishing a user community forms a corner stone to the successful introduction of the supplement. They are, in fact, the only actors that are legally allowed to link a product to a health claim without the need for a formal approval by EFSA or KOAG‐KAG. The vendor of a product has to refrain from any unwarranted claim, and medical scientists and clinicians are to avoid even the least 5

KOAG stands for “Keuringsraad Openlijke Aanprijzing Geneesmiddelen” (Council for Public Commendation on Medicines) and KAG for “Keuringsraad Aanprijzing Gezondheidsproducten” (Council for Commendation of Health products). Both are foundations, established in 1926, and founded by branche organisations in health care and pharmaceutical industry. In practice, both foundations work closely together in one Council, and are meant to separate false from true public claims (or acceptable from unacceptable claims) by way of self regulation. Source: http://www.koagkag.nl/ See Kasteren et al (2010) for an insightful discussion on European and Dutch regulatory mechanisms around health claims for food, and their dilemma’s and paradoxes. th

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suggestion of a health claim that is not considered to be fully ‘evidence based’. So end users are a crucial group that can in fact make or break a product. The idea was hence to gradually build exposure for the supplement by organising meetings with patients, linking with other patient organisations for prostate cancer, such as the Dutch Prostate Cancer Foundation (PKS), use of social media etcetera. A more comprehensive programme is now being formulated. As a first step, Prostaprev was formally presented at the November 2015 ‘ProstateDay’, a multi‐topic conference for prostate cancer patients, clinicians and researchers, organised by a network of specialised prostate cancer treatment centres in the South‐West of The Netherlands. All in all, the development of Prostaprev as a food supplement, has turned out to be as expected: a twisted road with uncertainties on the side of both producers, patients and researchers. The success will depend on the one hand on funding for additional biomedical research, and on the other on the effectiveness with which the user community of prostate cancer patients can be reached.

4.4

Elaborating a fresh food variant of the supplement

As stated earlier, a food supplement is kind of in‐between a medicinal drug and healthy food. As such, it is a convenient way for people to sustain their health without changing drastically their food pattern or lifestyle. However, a food supplement, nor a formal medicinal drug, won’t help much if the lifestyle is not corresponding. It is obvious that a food supplement that forms part of a diet of fast food and no exercise comes very close to ridiculous. By adopting a healthy diet alone many health problems can already be avoided, no supplement nor drug is needed for that. The case on Diabetes Melitus 2 provides a good example for that. In the context of the food supplement for prostate cancer the question thus emerged: what if it would be possible to translate the supplement ‘back’ to a healthy food pattern? Hence, parallel to the development of Prostaprev and with its market launch at hand, an inventory was started to see if the horticultural sector could be interested in producing and delivering specific products for prostate cancer patients. Could a specific ‘prostate cancer food basket’ be developed? Such a basket would not only include a variety of fresh food commonly available on the market, but also products with higher contents of specific plant compounds, such as lycopene‐rich tomatoes. The basket would moreover include a series of cooking recipes and cooking techniques, as the ‘food matrix’ impacts the uptake and effectiveness of micro‐ and macronutrients. And it would probably also include some recommendations regarding physical exercise and stress management. When offered in a comprehensive coaching programme, it is expected to yield considerable benefits, as recent research shows (Bourke et al, 2015). Developing such a prostate cancer specific food basket would be a novel development in The Netherlands, and would possibly inspire the horticultural sector to invest more in the development of higher quality products. When combined with home delivery of the food basket including personal preferences, it would take the development of personalised food and personalised logistics a step further. A whole new short supply chain would be born, based on an intense collaboration between patients, biomedical scientists and horticultural producers. The inventory showed that leading Dutch horticultural firms in the Westland production area close to Rotterdam are indeed interested, and at this moment (November 2015), a project proposal is being elaborated.

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Cracking codes in the health care and food sector: stepping stones

This paper started off with the assumption that patients are possibly to the health care sector what citizens are to formal spatial planning or farmers to dominant agricultural research. Both citizens and farmers have been long neglected as important sources for innovation. Over the past 2 to 3 decades, their involvement has enabled both spatial planning and agricultural technology to become more meaningful and adapted to local ecological, socio‐economic and cultural‐historical conditions. Patients may do the same for the health care sector, and, as far as food is concerned, also for the agro‐food system. The case study on prostate cancer discussed here departed from the notion that a collaborative approach would be most promising in order to invigorate food as an accepted intervention strategy towards health, while at the same time enabling innovations in horticultural production and providing patients with products they want. In this collaborative approach, uncertainties of all stakeholders could gradually be resolved and institutional barriers could be circumvented. The prostate cancer case has shown that it is indeed possible to find ways to bypass issues on health claims, ánd at the same time to undertake biomedical research to further increase the credibility of the claim. It has also shown that when patients back up an issue, product development and market launch may be accelerated considerably. Note that the recipe for the supplement had been gaining dust for 10 years, before it was ‘awakened’ by the working group. Finally, the case showed that the collaborative network on the food supplement has paved the way to now venture into fresh food as a source for health. With this, suddenly a whole new set of urban‐rural linkages emerge, driving farmers to produce vegetables with specific qualities, and demanding them to develop logistic solutions in order to deliver individualized food baskets. It will take some time before the codes of the health and agrofood sector are cracked to the extent that food can be produced and prescribed for health purposes specifically. We are witnessing a niche innovation, that provides hints as to in what direction future development of short supply chains may go, and where innovation in health and agro‐food is to be expected. It is by no means common standard. It seems that the most important thing to do now is to persevere in delivering hands‐on successes, gradually engaging dedicated actors from within and outside the dominant health and food regimes. 6.

References

Chambers, R. A. Pacey and L.A. Thrupp (eds), 1989: Farmer First: Farmer Innovation and Agricultural Research. London: IT Publications Bourke, L. S. A. Boorjian, A. Briganti, et al, 2015: Survivorship and improving Quality of life in Men with Prostate Cancer. Eur Urol. 68 (2015): 374‐383. Avail. at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.eururo.2015.04.023 Fernandes, N.P., C.V. Lagishetty, V.S. Panda, S.R. Naik, 2007: An experimental evaluation of the antidiabetic and antlipidemic properties of a standardized Momordica charantia fruit extract. In: BMC Complement Altern Med 7(29). doi: 10.1186/1472‐6882‐7‐29 Kasteren, J. van, H. van der Mheen and T. van Asseldonk, 2010: Medicijnen uit de kas: een verkenning naar de mogelijkheden voor nieuwe teelten on de (glas)tuinbouw voor de markt van kruidengeneesmiddelen. InnovatieNetwerk en SIGN. Rapportnr. 10.2.20141. Utrecht. Pp 50 Kranse R, Dagnelie PC, van Kemenade MC, et al, 2005: Dietary intervention in prostate cancer patients: PSA response in a randomized double‐blind placebo‐controlled study. Int J Cancer. 2005 Feb 20;113(5):835‐40. Limpens J, Schröder FH, de Ridder CM, et al, 2006: Combined lycopene and vitamin E treatment suppresses the growth of PC‐346C human prostate cancer cells in nude mice. J Nutr. 2006 May;136(5):1287‐93.

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Lin, PH, W. Aronson and SJ Freedland, 2015: Nutrition, dietary interventions and prostate cancer: the latest evidence. BMC Medicine (2015) 13:3 DOI 10.1186/s 12916‐014‐0234‐y Meijer, L., E. Schaap, J. Langius and M. Lantinga, 2004: Het gebruik van voedingssupplementen door oncologische patiënten: een inventariserend onderzoek. Ned Tijdsschr Dietisten 59(4): 92‐96 Meijer, L., N. van der Wel and G.G.A. Remmers, 2014: Public interest in Personalised Food: first outcomes of a survey among patients, (semi‐)top athletes and health citizens. In: Remmers, 2014b: 39‐41 (in Dutch). Remmers GGA, 2014a: Personalised Food: the role of patient organisations as critical change agents in the food system. In: Roggema, R. and G. Keeffe (eds), 2014: Finding spaces for productive cities. Proceedings of the 6th AESOP Conference on Sustainable Urban Food Planning, Leeuwarden, The Netherlands, 5‐7 November 2014. Pp 730‐743 Remmers, GGA, 2014b: Appraisal of the Business Potential of Personalised Food. Final report. Project commissioned by the province of Flevoland, Chamber of Commerce Amsterdam / Amsterdam Economic Board, Centre of Expertise Greenports/CAH Vilentum. Pp 67. ISBN 978‐90‐807712‐0‐8 (in Dutch) Remmers, G.G.A., C. Gill’ard, C. Smit and N. van der Wel (2014): Wat willen Patiënten: opmaat voor een Patiëntenagenda Voedsel en Gezondheid. In: Remmers, 2014b: 31‐38 Schröder FH, Roobol MJ, Boevé ER, et al, 2005: Randomized, double‐blind, placebo‐controlled crossover study in men with prostate cancer and rising PSA: effectiveness of a dietary supplement. Eur Urol. 2005 Dec;48(6):922‐30; discussion 930‐1. Epub 2005 Oct 17. Scholte, R., M. Lammers en L. Kok, 2015: DE waarde van diëtetiek bij ondervoede patiënten in het ziekenhuis. SEO Economisch onderzoek. SEO rapport nr: 2015‐04 ISBN: 978‐90‐6733‐774‐8 Scoones, I and Thompson, J, 2009: Farmer First Revisited: Innovation for Agricultural Research and Development, Oxford: ITDG Publishing Smit, C. and A. de Knecht‐van Eekelen, 2015: De macht van de patiënt: baas over je eigen ziekte. Sanquin bloedvoorziening, Amsterdam. Pp 192. ISBN 978 90 5267 035 5 Zeevi et al, 2015: Personalised Nutrition by prediction of glycemic response. Cell 163: 1079‐1094 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cell.2015.11.001

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DO AN URBAN FOOD POLICY NEEDS NEW INSTITUTIONS? LESSON LEARNED FROM THE FOOD POLICY OF MILAN TOWARD FOOD POLICY COUNCILS Andrea Calori 1

Abstract: The Food Policy of Milan is one of the first European experiences that is managing an entire process that is articulated on an assessment of the whole urban food system, a public consultation phase to share a common vision and specific priorities, the definition of a document for an integrated policy and a number of projects that are implementing the priorities. This experience is the result of the cooperation between Fondazione Cariplo, the major Italian philantropic actor that has been playing from a long time the key role of co‐promoter of most part of the local bottom‐up social experiences concerning food, and the direct commitment of the municipality, that now is asked to play a different regional role due to process of the definition of the new Metropolitan Area. The paper will be focusing on the constraints and the opportunities that the institution has to take advantage of the wide social basis that has been consolidated in many years of activities of a number of social actors and networks connected to food issues. One key question concerns the capability to support institutional changes through the consolidation of these new political arenas and not simply to support projects that are already well done by a lot of bottom up experiences. The observation of the Milan experience gives the possibility to verify how the capability to set the issues of the public debates are connected to the availability of different data and informations that could be crucial to shift from ideological approaches (local‐global; small‐big; collective‐private; etc.) to a more aware public dialogue and decision making process. A lot of actors and processes, in fact, are being developing not only outside the field of the public action, but also “under” the level of visibility of the most diffused analysis that are avalilable. The paper will discuss the problems and the opportunities that the Milan experience is facing in creating a common and verified knowledge on urban food issues.

The context of the Urban Food Policy of Milan

At the beginning of 2014 the Municipality of Milan has launched a series of activities to define an urban food policy that integrates in a comprehensive framework many issues that are directly and indirectly connected to the whole food cycle (production, processing, distribution, trade, consumption, waste and recycling) and to the social, economic and environmental issues that are affected by the food cycle: demographics, welfare, connected economies, input and output of stocks and energy, ecological footprint, etc. From the point of view of the actions that are outlined by the urban food policy of Milan, the geographical context refers particularly to the municipality and its administrative boundaries but, when considering the scale of reference of the analysis, a lot of issues have been considered at the

1 EStà (Economia e Sostenibilità) ‐ www.assesta.it, www.foodcities.org , andrea.calori@assesta.it ESTà is a non profit think tank that works to promote the culture of a socially and enviromentally sustainable economy. ESTà collaborates with institutions, as well as social and economic actors by providing strategic support, researches, training, coaching, communication and networking services. ESTà operates with a local approach to development an sustainability, supporting small communities as well as international organizations and institutions.

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metropolitan o regional scale. This is because a lot of food issues that related to a city like Milan can only be analyzed and understood at a larger scale. The Milanese context is a complex system of very dense settlements and, secondly, the territory is characterized by elements of excellence in agricultural production. The City of Milan is part of the Parco Agricolo Sud Milano (South Milan Agricultural Park), that includes 88 municipalities, that is the largest agricultural park in Europe as well as being the first to be founded. Beside this, the Milan area is now experiencing an important institutional change that is associated with the process of establishing the Metropolitan Area, replacing the previous Provincia (district) and that, potentially, could bring some institutional changes concerning the policies connected to food. In the following pages the experience of Milan is used as a background reference to contextualize ideas and approaches that are carried on and observed in a lot of other experiences al local and global level within the context of social movements and local citizens initiatives. 2.

New public arenas for new policies

The elements that can be used to build an urban strategy linked to food are declined in different ways depending on the context, because the food cycles are intimately connected to each place; depending on environmental conditions, on the territorial feature and on the peculiarities of social organizations and the economies. This activity of contextualization covers both the specific contents of an urban food policy, and the institutional forms that these policies may have in a local perspective. Therefore it is crucial to consider not only the general contents of the policies that are related to food (productivity, prices, nutrition, etc.) or to consider the peculiarities of the "urban needs," but also to decline this contents and these needs within the system of actors that are part of a particular context. The definition of policy issues ‐ environment, production, nutrition, welfare, etc ‐ depends, in fact, on the types and configuration of the actors moving on the scene around the food issues and not only on the initial setting that is proposed by the promoter of the policy. In other words, the possibility of the city government to effectively influence the urban food system depends on its capability to mobilize those actors who brings contents at the urban level, to work on their perception of the relevance of the food needs and on their interests. Finally, it depends also on the capability to define new public spaces for dialogue to transform these perceptions, these interests and these needs into shared choices that can be referred to the local context. This is particularly important in all the policy areas that are not consolidated in the existing institutional systems, including those that are related to urban and regional food system. These policy areas, in fact, requires a discussion and an integration process that has to affect a number of policies that currently are handled in a sectorial way (production, trade, environment, land, etc.) and various institutional levels. Beside this, most of the food policies do not consider the urban and metropolitan context as a specific object of interest, even if the global food system depends to a large extent on the urban ways of life that are shaping an urbanized world. The clearest example of the absence of urban issues in the discussions related to food is the “agricultural side” of the food system. Urban issues are not usually considered in agricultural negotiations at the international level and, in the European Union, agricultural policies are regulated, determined and managed at European, national and regional level and not at the local level. Beside this, there is a clear privilege for rural contexts more than having urban perspectives, and cities are usually considered as end markets and not as an object of specific actions. This approach depends on the fact that, before speaking about urban food policies, generally food policies does not exist, but only agricultural policies, trade policies, transport policies, etc.

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Using these considerations as baseline, the paper focuses on the observation of the dynamics between those actors who act in the context of Milan while elaborating their strategies of aggregation in an innovative way to manage issues that are related to components of the food system. The observation of these actors can facilitate the definition of some indications for a theoretical and methodological approach that can help to understand whether and to what extent such types of coalitions of new “food actors" can be a resource to manage the challenges connected to an urban approach to food. 3.

Grassroots actors and food movements

In recent years new “food actors" have emerged in the context of Milan, occupying and defining new cultural and public spaces in connection with food issues and working at the urban level. The most diffused type of these actors is a large galaxy of micro‐initiatives that refer essentially to the principles of solidarity economy and sustainable lifestyles. These initiatives have generated different forms of informal coalitions that focus on the enhancement of quality local food, the direct relationship between producer and consumer and the importance of human relations in economic exchanges. In Milan and its surrounding area, at the beginning of 2000s a lot of grassroots experiences begun to develop to promote direct links between production and consumption in which the relationship between town and country was an important factor. In 2002 was founded the first network of Gruppi di Acquisto Solidale (GAS – solidarity purchasing groups), which are groups of families (from 15 to 100 families for each purchasing group) who organize themselves to buy food directly from producers, defining features and price of the products referring on criteria of quality, sustainability and ethical production. The GAS are a phenomenon that was born in Italy in the early 90s and can be identified as the Italian declination of what is defined Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) in the Anglo‐Saxon context and something similar to the AMAPs (Association pour le Maintien de l'Agriculture Paysanne) in the French‐speaking world. In the city of Milan about 80 GAS are currently surveyed approximately and, at the metropolitan level, there are around 150 groups. While considering these data we have to compare them with the existing studies that have been made in different Italian regions and that estimate that, in each territory, the number of surveyed GAS (or belonging to any organized network) are about half of the real total. On the basis of the dynamics that have been briefly summarized above, for years a significant number of projects has been developed to create networks among these experiences of socioeconomic self‐organization and to upscale these experiences and in the perspective of stimulating new fields of public action. Most part of these initiatives have been significantly supported by Fondazione Cariplo, the largest Italian philanthropic foundation, that has the mission to support actions on culture, welfare, research and environment throughout the Lombardy Region, of which Milan is the capital city. Fondazione Cariplo has funded several researches and on field projects that are based on social networks, on other forms of self‐organized actions that are sometimes co‐promoted through partnership with local institutions (GAS networks, farmers markets, community gardens, social horticulture, etc). Currently, in the metropolitan area, there are dozens of farms that sell directly to GAS with stable partnerships. On this basis, since the mid‐2000s there was also a process to create the so called Districts of Social Economy (DES), which arise as coalitions of GAS, farms and other actors that are oriented to act under the principles of solidarity economy (ethical banks, microcredit actors, fair trade initiatives, etc.) with the purpose to promote new forms of local economy with solidarity

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principles. Their structure is often informal and they are characterized as networks connected to specific territories This is only a part of the experiences of informal public policies that, in the Milan area, have raised the attention of a significant percentage of the city population. Furthermore, starting from the first half of 2000s a series of action/researches that were conducted by research groups alongside social networks have produced some scenarios to support the development of local networks producers and consumers; trying also to highlight the potential effects of these networks on institutional policies to the metropolitan scale. These experiences were the veichle to facilitate the convergence between sustainable consumption practices, different cultural sensitivities, the effects of the economic and environmental crisis, the emersion of new forms of social relationship based on social and solidarity economies and other trends that show a real chance to connect a number of food issues with the social the urban context. After years in which these dynamics have been generated and fed into social processes, some institutional attentions are emerging in the process of changing the current state of substantial separation between territorial, agricultural and rural policies. 4.

From grassroots initiatives to public policies

In this rich and varied context, the “lacking connections” are usually the public bodies that have some difficulties to understand if and how to promote specific policies concerning citizens' initiatives. This lacking connections generates a great variety of experiments, events and pilot project that are promoted by public bodies. But what really happens is that those projects are often connected more to the political initiative of a local leader than to an ordinary and well structured policy with a real possibility to be sustainable in a medium‐long time. This situation is less evident in the contexts where the consolidation of public policies has been possible thanks to the combination between a good capability of public actors to innovate their processes of public interaction and a good organization of the social networks, but this lacking connection has to be considered as a very diffused status all over the world. We can say that a lot of the needs that are expressed in the citizens initiatives connected to food are: ‐ not yet adequately represented in public arenas; ‐ not often considered by institutional policies in their deep meaning. The combinations of all these actors and mutual dynamics brings out a general consideration concerning the capability of these networks to become objects of public policies. This universe of experiences is complex due to the fact that they manage unexpressed needs of different nature and involve very different actors that are hardly be defined in the traditional rigid “social” or “economical” frames that grew up in Modernity (e.g. omnicomprehensive mass associations, business actors, etc.). Consequently, the capability of the public bodies to work in the contexts of these networks is connected to the capability to recognize them in their specificities. From the point of view of the needs, a fundamental problem to draw and to implement public policies to support citizens initiatives is that all of them brings together something that could be defined as “cluster of needs”. In other words, these actions are carried on while managing together different issues and needs that are considered as a part of a whole and not as a sum of sectors or elements that are disconnected each other.

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For example in most part of the local solidarity partnerships among producers and organized consumers (like the GAS), the networks organize themselves to guarantee income to farmers, to protect the health of consumers, to educate the taste, to raise the transparency of supply chains, to increase the environmental sustainability, to reduce transportation costs and the resulting pollution, to ensure the existence of agriculture, to maintain the landscape, to characterize and differentiate agricultural products, to find guarantees to the workers, to share a more sustainable lifestyle, to live a wider concept of well‐being and much more. This cluster of needs represent, in some way, a sort of continuity with the past; even if there are significant differences both in the contents of the needs and, over all, in the way they are expressed, shared and satisfied. From the traditional forms of mutual assistance that have always been in the farms and in rural villages ‐ for example sharing tools for cultivation or the collective storage for the foodstuff – starting from the XIX century the sharing practices turned in different part of Western countries into more structured organizations. These organizations, gave legal form to a number of direct partnerships among producers and created cooperatives of production and consumption, as well as mutual aid societies and rural banks. All these forms of collective management had strong local roots and were the direct expression of the capacity of the population to set rules of coexistence in the society and in the economy. These rules were also mutually guaranteed by kind of job‐sharing (joint ventures and volunteer work), self‐help for the needs of health (mutual aid) and community controlled forms of savings and investment (local banks and collective lendings). 4.1

Shared values and practices

Considering the complexities of the values and the combined effects of these practices, it is important not to see them only as little experiences, even if connected in wider networks. Nevertheless, if we see in a deeper way how these practices develop themselves, it must not be underestimated certain risks that are associated with the small size of the cells that are the living elements these networks. Indeed, a proper assessment of the potential and limitations of these practices is necessary to understand if and how there are some opportunities to define public policies based on the empowerment of these practices with valuable effects in a long term perspective. The small dimension of many of these practices is also due to the fact that they were born and have grown despite public policies, in a substantial lack of financial support, without an adequate regulatory framework and in a more general lack of real assessment of the relevance of a local approach to development of which local food is an important part. This consideration is crucial to compare the potential of solidarity network with the “common market”, also not considering the great differences represented by the cluster of needs and by the immaterial values of these economies, but only to the pure economic values that are implied. The farmer who cultivates in periurban contexts of a large city tends to consider his work as a starting point to define in a broader sense the value of what he produces that is generated through the relation with conscious consumers, in the common search of a shared experience. This value is directly related to the intrinsic qualities of the foodstuff and to its fair remuneration, but includes also other types of intangible values associated with the farm work, such as the care of the land, the transmission of knowledge and the contribution to a well being context based on the daily consumption.

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To describe this space of shared identity that is created between producers and consumers, from the mid‐90s the concepts referred to the "consumer‐citizens" or to the "co‐producers" had begun to be used in Western countries, that in recent years have been diffused in wider contexts. These two definitions highlight four key aspects of local identity that are created in economic relations characterized by pacts that are developed within solidarity networks: ‐ the production and consumption patterns are transformed by incorporating elements of citizenship that put into evidence the importance of civic aspects of economic activities; ‐ this civic aspects are expressed in the participative construction of shared social rules that are considered as part of personal and collective daily life; ‐ this way of life is connected to a territorialized idea of well being that conceives the social relations as a part of a general care for the place of human life (culture and care of the land); ‐ in this perspective having care of the land tends to bring the farming activities (the material side of having care of the land) closer to the purchasing acts (the ideal side of having care); 5.

From food issues toward food councils

The reference to the context of the new "food actors" of the Milanese context and the interpretation of the dynamics and potential of their actions and in their developments highlights an interesting topic that can help to effectively address the urban food policies. The interpretation of the experiences suggests that the development of the potential that is connected to these actors can only happens if an adequate attention is given not only to the contents, but also to the ways in which these contents can be defined and implemented. This due to the fact that these actors are interested to propose ways of relating content as their action. The opportunity to learn positive lessons from these actors and to transfer their innovative potential within a public policy depends, therefore, on the ability to build adequate public arenas for these actors. The point that is proposed here, therefore, is not (or not only) to introduce new contents for food policy, but rather to ensure adequate space representation for the "new needs of the food." In order to get this, what is important is to have a public debate which includes also different actors compared with the ones that, traditionally, are involved in policies. With this premise, a key element to promote innovative urban food policies is not to go on with the usual division of sectoral policies, but to take advantage of the capability of those actors to connect people and issues; while creating a public space for debating that is more suited to take care of the these “cluster of needs”. This is a way to say that, what is important, is to represent these issues and these way of being in Local Food Councils. These Councils were originally widespread in North America and represent a context in which local governments discusses directly with civil society on a wide range of food issues. They, however, are relatively new in Europe and, after a first experience in London that was activated in 2004, one of the first references and recognized at European level is the food council established in Bristol in 2011. Indeed, this is not of a novelty in an absolute sense, because similar institutions were created in Norway and Finland, respectively, in the late '30s and mid‐50s. However, a more modern concept of food policy council has been developed in the early 80s in the United States under the pressure of different kind of social groups (well being, fight against poverty, nutrition, etc.) and has had a rapid diffusion across North America. In many contexts, Africa and Latin America there are also many other forms of institutionalization of social debate around food as it is around the themes of food that you have generated (or regenerated) various institutions of different levels. Some of the most striking examples in this sense

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are represented by public discussions that, starting from the level of the villages and small towns, have led movements and groups that follow the principles of the right to food and food sovereignty even to affect substantially the review processes national constitutions of several Latin American. Compared with the first cases, that are more focused on the issues of food security and the fight against hunger, the current food policy councils have a broader approach to policies that affect food, with a multidimensional view of the food. There is no definition or a unique pattern of food policy council because they vary depending on the local circumstances and the context that generated them. In general, we can say that the current food policy are groups of people who are variously involved in the food system (consumer associations, third sector actors, academics, business associations, institutions, etc.) The food policy councils act as real fora to enter the food issues in the institutional agenda, to animate the debate around the theme of food and to stimulate and policies at different levels. There are different models depending on their origin, composition and relationships with institutions: there are food council that are embedded in the City Council, others are independent from institutions and there is also a number of hybrid organizations. A food policy council is not the solution to the problems of food and not, in itself, it is not necessarily a guarantee that we can promote and implement an innovative policy. They, rather, should be seen as a way ‐ a precondition ‐ to include new actors in the public arena and new needs and to avoid the mechanisms of representation that implicitly reproduce the exclusion of actors and needs that are not represented and that play a significant role in social innovation and in the process towards a more sustainable world. 6.

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Della Porta D., The Global Justice Movements: A Cross‐National and Transnational Perspective, Boulder, CO, Paradigm 2007 Dente B., Le decisioni di policy. Come si prendono, come si studiano, Il Mulino, Bologna 2001. Desmarais, A. 2007. La Vía Campesina: Globalization and the Power of Peasants. Halifax, London, and Ann Arbor, Michigan: Fernwood Pub. Pluto Press. De Sousa Santos B, Garavito C.R.., Alternatives Conomiques: Les Nouveaux Chemins de la Contestation, in “Socioéconomie et Démocratie: L’Actualité de Karl Polanyi”, edited by Isabelle Hillenkamp and Jean‐Louis Laville, 127–148. Paris: Eres 2014 Feenstra, G., Creating Space for Sustainable Food Systems: Lessons from the Fieldm Agriculture and Human Values 19(2), 99‐106, 2002. Ferris, L. & B. Behman, Farmers and Consumers Unite in Community Shared Agriculture, in “Alternatives” 20(4), 9‐10, 1994. Fraser N., Can Society Be Commodities All the Way Down? Polanyian Reflections on Capitalist Crisis. Working Paper. Paris: Fondation Maison des Sciences de l’Homme 2012. Halweil, B. & Worldwatch Institute. 2002. Home Grown: The Case for Local Food in a Global Market,Washington, D.C.: Worldwatch Institute. Hart K. Jean‐Louis Laville J.L., Cattani A D., eds. 2010. The Human Economy, Cambridge: Polity Press 2010. Hughes, D.W. et al. 2008. Evaluating the Economic Impact of Farmers' Markets Using an Opportunity Cost Framework. Journal of Agricultural and Applied Economics 40(1), 253. Lamine, C. Settling Shared Uncertainties: Local Partnerships between Producers and Consumers, “Sociologia Ruralis”, 45, 324‐345, 2005. Lang T., Rayner G., Rayner M., Millstone E. e Barling D. (2005), “Policy Councils on food, nutrition and physical activity. The UK as case study”, Public Health Nutrition, 8, pagg. 11‐19. L. Laville, A. D. Cattani, Dictionnaire de l'autre économie, Desclée de Brouwer, 2004 Lockeretz, W. Urban Consumers' Attitudes towards Locally Grown Produce, in ”American Journal of Alternative Agriculture”, 1 (2) 83‐88, 1986. Lockie, S. 2002. The Invisible Mouth: Mobilizing 'the Consumer' in Food Production‐Consumption Networks. Sociologia Ruralis 42, 278‐294. Lyson, T.A., G.W.J. Gillespie & D. Hilchey. 1995. Farmers' Markets and the Local Community: Bridging the Formal and Informal Economy. American Journal of Alternative Agriculture 10(3), 108‐113. Magnaghi A., Rappresentare i luoghi. Metodi e tecniche, Firenze, Alinea, 2011. Martínez‐Torres M.E., Rosset P.M., La Vía Campesina: The Birth and Evolution of a Transnational Social Movement, in “Journal of Peasant Studies”, 37(1)149–75, 2010 Miller E., “Solidarity Economy: Key Concepts and Issues.” In Solidarity Economy I: Building Alternatives for People and Planet, edited by Kawano E., Masterson T., and Teller‐Ellsberg J., Amherst, Center for Popular Economics 2010. Morgan, K., Marsden, T. & Murdoch, J., Worlds of Food: Place, Power and Provenance in the Food Chain, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006. Mougeot L.(editor), Agropolis: The social, political and environmental dimensions of urban agriculture, Earthsan. London‐UK, 2005. Mundler, P., Les Associations pour le maintien de l’agriculture paysanne (AMAP) en Rhône‐Alpes, entre marché et solidarité. “Ruralia”, n.20. 2007. NGO/CSO Forum for Food Sovereignty. 2002. Food Sovereignty: A Right For All—Political Statement of the NGO/CSO Forum for Food Sovereignty. Ostrom E., Governing the Commons: The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press 1990. Pimbert, M. 2008. Towards Food Sovereignty: Reclaiming Autonomous Food Systems. London: International Institute for Environment and Development. K. Polanyi, La grande trasformazione. Le origini economiche e politiche della nostra epoca, Einaudi 2000 Pothukuchi K. e Kaufman J. (1999), “Placing the Food System on the Urban Agenda: The Role of Municipal Insitutions in Food Systems Planning”, Agriculture and Human Values, 16, 213‐224.

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Pretty, J. 1998. The Living Land: Agriculture, Food, and Community Regeneration in Rural Europe. London: Earthscan. Renting, H., T.K. Marsden & J. Banks. 2003. Understanding Alternative Food Networks: Exploring the Role of Short Food Supply Chains in Rural Development. Environment and Planning A 35, 393‐411. Sachs, W., (1992), The Development Dictionary, London, Zed Books E. F. Schumacher, Small Is Beautiful: A Study of Economics As If People Mattered, Harper and Row, 1973 Sen, A., Development as Freedom, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1999. Serio A. The Value of the Community Food Sector. The Economic Impact of Community Food Enterprises, Plymouth, Plymouth University, 2012 Steel C., Hungry City. How food shapes our lives, Vintage Books, Londra, 2006 Steering Committee of Nyeleni 2007. 2008. Nyéléni 2007: Forum for Food Sovereignty, Selingué, Mali: The Steering Committee of Nyeleni 2007. UN‐Millenium Assessment, Ecosystems and Human Well‐being: A Framework for Assessment, 2005 Utting P., Van Dijk N., MatheïSocial M.A, Solidarity Economy. Is There a New Economy in the Making?, United Nations Research Institute for Social Development, 2014 Van der Ploeg J. D., Oltre la modernizzazione. Processi di sviluppo rurale in Europa, Rubettino 2006.

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EXPLORING URBAN FOOD STRATEGIES: FOUR ANALYTICAL PERSPECTIVES AND A CASE STUDY (TURIN) Alessia Toldo1, Giacomo Pettenati 2 , Egidio Dansero3 Keywords: New Food Geography, Urban Food Planning, Urban Food Strategy, food governance Abstract: In Italy, the choices related to food and nutrition are mainly sectorial and only rarely characterized by a strategic, coordinated and coherent approach. Differently, in North America and in some Northern European countries many cities have implemented integrated Urban Food Strategies (UFS), which consider food, in its many dimensions, as a crucial theme of urban policy. In those cities UFS are part of a new food geography, which rediscovers the multifunctional nature of food and its deep relations with many urban dynamics and related policies. In general, we can refer to the UFS as a process of changing urban food systems, putting food at the center of urban political agendas, capitalizing on existing initiatives, creating relationships, between stakeholders, in order to achieve more sustainable, resilient and equitable food systems (Moragues et al., 2013). More generally this new approach, which can be translated as Urban Food Planning (Morgan, 2009), radically rethinks the concept of food, elevating him to a territorial issue in terms of relationships between places, actors, social processes and food chains The aim of this contribution is a comparative analysis of the main international examples of UFS with the purpose of identifying the main characteristics of each case, focusing on the process of policy making, on the stakeholders involved, scales of policy, considered dimension of food. The analysis will considered cities and regions, showing various geographical context, where the economic, cultural and social dynamics related to food are very different, as well as the problems and the potentialities of the food system that the UFS have to face. 1.

Introduction

In the last decade, there has been a gradual identification of the intrinsic urban nature of food related issues, firstly underlined and relegated to the rural sector (Pothukuchi e Kaufmann, 1999). The explanation for this innovation in paradigm has to be found in the rising negative externalities, spread from the globalized agro‐industrial system (environmental impacts, soil exploitation, biodiversity loss, diseases linked to diet, reduction of agricultural incomes, social inequality, etc.) (Wiskerke, 2009) which consequences, increased, mostly in urban areas (Sonnino, 2009). In order to face such serious issues, made worse by the recent changes (defined by the English debate in terms of “new food equation” – Morgan and Sonnino, 2010), cities are progressively obtaining back competences, skills and responsibilities in developing policies addressed to maintain high‐quality and accessible food, for consumers. In this regard, cities are recognized and identify themselves as new players in the food policies, especially through the planning of local food systems (Morgan, 2009 e 2013) that legitimates and strengthen public participation on the food and diet themes. 1

Interuniversity Department of Regional and Urban Studies and Planning, University and Polytechnic of Turin, alessia.toldo@unito.it 2 Department of Cultures, Politics and Society, University of Turin, giacomo.pettenati@unito.it 3 Department of Cultures, Politics and Society, University of Turin, egidio.dansero@unito.it

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The distinguishing figure of this new subject in comparison to the sectorial food policies – that cities already apply, needless to say, for example in food markets, in schools canteens, in urban vegetable gardens normatives – consists in an integrated approach to the food and diet system multidimensional aspects (Morgan 2014). The revival of the many relationships that food develops inside different urban strategies and related policies, implies a wider overview than the vertical approach (food intended only as a means of nutrients, an economic sector, a social and environmental issue, a cultural and identity element, a rural and productivity matter etc..) in favor of a complementary and systemic approach. At this point food is recognized to be a real territorial matter, linking economic, social and cultural aspects. This contribution is organized as follows: after a brief analysis of what Urban Food Strategies (UFS) are, the nexts paragraph presents the methodology of the analysis here reported. The following paragraphs analyze UFSs from different perspectives: as instruments of governance (reflecting about actors, processes of participation, integration); as tools for a systemic approach to food and to food systems; as instruments of relocalization of the food system and, finally, as means to increase the knowledge of food systems. 2.

Urban Food Strategies

Urban Food Strategies (UFS) effectively traduce into integrated and territorialized food policies, the awareness of the multifunctionality of food and of its deep relations within many urban aspects. This new approach brought forward innovative processes able to create interactions between players and single policies, developing shared and systemic views, integrating different planning strategies of the food supply chain. In the same way as the latter is related to different dimensions and actors of places. UFS set food as a core subject in the public political agenda, capitalizing existing experiences and practices, creating networks among different groups of stakeholders (private, public, associations and non‐profit, social community), with the purpose of having sustainable, resilient and fair food systems. Most of the times these processes produce and are supported by outputs like manifestos, vision documents, action and/or strategic plans, suggesting visions, actions and (in some cases) survey indicators and monitoring systems. Despite of their differences, because of local characteristics, most of UFS have in common a holistic approach to urban food systems, that includes players, policies and tools at all levels. This integrated vision of the food system can be read in three different perspectives: ‐ Horizontal: the different policy aspects that food sector possesses (environment, production, logistics, education and training, economic development and employment, tourism and culture, healthcare and assistance), ‐ Circular: the agro‐food chain on the whole (production, transformation, distribution, consume and recycle); ‐ Vertical: different geographic scales and related government levels on territory (from quarters to municipalities, to the extra‐local metropolitan areas or the city‐regions, the province, the region, up to the national levels); Usually, the UFS adopt integrated parameters of food governance (connection among subjects, policies and tools), environmental sustainability (air, water, soil, transports, waste, energy, relation city‐countryside, urban and periurban agriculture), economic development and employment (agriculture, agro‐industry, business, tourism and promotion of territory); public health, food

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education and quality of life (nutrition diseases, school programs, continuous training for adults), socio‐spatial justice (fight to the food deserts), cultural approach to food, etc. 2.1

Methodology

This paper presents the results collected after a first explorative research on Urban Food Strategies, drawn up through a comparative study of 16 urban areas4 aimed to discover good practices and process indications, potentially transferable to the Turin case. The choice on the models taken complies mainly with the criterion of existence and availability of downloadable written documentation, describing the food strategy. From this perspective have been taken into consideration different urban food strategies, in terms of localization, dimensions of the urban area, and peculiarities of food culture and food systems. Every document has been examined through four lenses: 1. UFS as a tool for the governance of the food system (analysis of subjects involved, participation and integration with other policies); 2. UFS as systemic tools (analysis on the approach to the multidimensionality and multidimensionality of food); 3. UFS as a mechanism to relocate food systems (analysis on the characteristics of the relocalization); 4. UFS as tools for increasing the knowledge of the food system (food system assessment, monitoring and indicators, where present); This kind of research encounters some limits, typical on the desk analysis. The information we could collect about the strategies is partial, as it comes from the study of reports and documents provided on the web by the local authorities of the studies urban areas. In spite of it, this survey has been central to start filling a gap on information about these themes, mostly in relation to the contribution that our group of research has been asked to conceive, in order to create a local food agenda on the Turin metropolitan area. 2.2

UFS as a tool for the governance of the food system

According to Rhodes (1997), governance represents a set of collective actions standards and government organizational forms, which features are (i) the interdependence among organizations; (ii) the interaction between members of the network; (iii) the definition of shared and agreed rules and (iv) a high level of autonomy of the network towards the public authorities. In governance actions, the results of policies do not reflect the effect of the actions of a single subject or the imposition from “above”, but they originate from the interaction between participants with different objectives and interests. In other words, if in the concept of government the role of public actors is fundamental, in governance the key roles involve a complex mix of players, based on flexibility, on partnership and free participation. In this view, the governance actions are set on the ability to exploit specific features of the human capital and local players’ networks (Kearns and 4

The involved cities are: Calgary, Edmonton, Toronto and Vancouver (Canada); Bristol, Brighton and Hove, Durham, and London (England), Belfast (Ireland), Edinburgh (Scotland), Malmo (Sweden); Los Angeles, New York, Philadelphia and Seattle (Usa). th

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Forrest, 2000). Taking for granted that Urban Food Strategies will be the new food governance tools (Sonnino and Spayde, 2014), it is interesting to notice which are the actors involved in the process, the modalities of their interaction with the public sector, the forms of active partnership and participation. In this first stage of the research, we focused on how the public player is involved in the strategies we analyzed. In some cases the main public actor is a new body, specifically established (Calgary Food Committee), while in some others there are already existing bodies, for instance the Food Policy Councils (Toronto, Vancouver and Bristol. In the Urban Food Strategies, the public players mainly have the task of piloting and harmonizing the interactions among the variety of participants. The role of network manager (Sibeon, 2001) ‐ that stimolates and manages the interaction between a large number of actors of the food system – is played sometimes by a public body, some other by the structure that holds responsibility for having defined the strategy. In general, we can state that in the food strategies, the public member does not carry out its competences in planning sector projects, but in incentivizing and stimulating the various action forms, emerging from social interactions, in framing the complexities and the differences, in outlining the background political options on which participation is built and dealt with. In this respect the strategies building processes, sometimes create new spaces, with different level of formality, affiliation with the public player, organization and operative rules. The chosen methodology implies, for the next steps, a more detailed analysis of the networks involved, through – for example – the census of participants on the various food coalitions, in order to understand the social maps structured around them. The analysis of the documentation remarks the centrality, within the processes implied in it, of the participation and involvement of the private and public stakeholders, as well as the social community. Whereas all strategies register the quantity of individuals involved, only some of them details how participation is carried out and, in certain cases (see Edmonton and Seattle), highlight the close connection between the processes outcomes and the strategies chosen. In cases like Edmonton and Vancouver, there have been the involvement of thousands of participants, developing very complex processes. The City of Vancouver, for instance, worked in partnership with the Vancouver Food Policy Council for a large urban involvement, through the slogan “talk food with us”. In this case, the Food Strategy report stresses the concept of the importance of participation and outlines 4 principles that guided its consultation: (i) engage ethno‐culturally diverse communities; (ii) engage socio‐economically diverse, age‐diverse, and harder‐to‐reach communities through storytelling; (iii) emphasize collaboration and partnerships and (iv) create tools and resources that can be used beyond the consultation process (City of Vancouver, 2013). In the Bristol and San Francisco case studies, a great involvement has been registered also during the steps of analysis and assessment of the food system: over 200 people joined together to draw up the report “Who feeds Bristol”, where beside the description of the food system there is a critical evaluation, followed by a list of priorities and a draft list of actions. Furthermore, along with the usual forms of participations, varying from consultations (Public opinion survey) to real engagements (through Citizen panels, Stakeholder workshops) arise very appealing communication approaches, like storytelling‐themed, public events, open houses, Food Conferences. Besides it is reported an increased use in new media: websites, mailing lists, blogs, tweets, and so on. For what concerns the implementation of the strategies, participation and engagement of citizens is carried out through websites communicating the progress of the strategy’s implementation and, sometimes, food charters submittable online from public and private stakeholders, but especially from citizens, with purposes focused on urban awareness and responsibility.

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The idea that food represents a lens for understanding the world and on many urban dynamics emerges very well trying to analyze urban strategies (with the limitations of a desk analysis). In the analyzed documents in fact, often emerges the awareness of how these tools can aim to achieve social, environmental, economic and public health goals in the urban areas adopting them. For example, in the strategy of Brighton and Hove we read "Achieving the aims of our food strategy will help to improve our city in a number of ways, including contributing towards a number of the high‐level, citywide social, economic and environmental priority outcomes" followed by a list of programming tools and planning. Similarly, the document of Calgary shows that "to focus on food not only represents opportunities for enhancing citizens' quality of life, but also acts as a lever for many and achieving goals and objectives of Municipalities (...) therefore, promoting a sustainable food system can support The City of Calgary goals, objectives and targets outlined in City policies (Municipal Development Plan, Calgary Transportation Plan, Community Greenhouse Gas Plan etc) ... ". Some strategies go into more detail on the type of integration with other tools: for example in the Edmonton strategy we can read "The Food and Urban Agriculture Strategy was developed as part of the ongoing process of creating a better Edmonton through coherent and integrated planning, and Although some of the key documents City blackberries are relevant to the Food and Urban Agriculture Strategy than others, the Following Provides a brief overview of the directly relevant plans. " Specifically, a table declines each objective of the strategy in relation to the six strategic plans of the city (The Way Ahead, The Way We Grow, The Way We Finance, The Way We Prosper, The Way We Move, The Way We Green). 2.3

UFS as systemic tools

Referring to what reported earlier, one of the distinguishing features of Urban Food Strategies is the holistic approach to food system, understood as multi‐dimensional and multi‐sectoral. Concerning the multidimensionality of food the analysis of the vision of the urban food strategies we explored provides a framework of how a food system should be, starting from a set of keywords, often combined one with the others. The most recurrent term concerns the "sustainability" of the system (stressed by all cities with a future vision, except Belfast and Durham ), followed by "health" (Calgary, Toronto, Vancouver, Seattle, Durham, Brighton and Howe, Edinburgh, Belfast and London). In many food strategies, there is also a mention of the "resilience" of the system (Calgary, Edmonton, Philadelphia and London), of the need to relocalize the system, trying to define what is "local" (Calgary, Edmonton, Durham and London), of justice and of access to food. Despite all the strategies address, as already mentioned, the entire size spectrum of the food (environment, health, economic development, social and cultural aspects), however, it is possible to identify some prevailing narratives (Sonnino, 2014), consistent with the specificity of places and with the priorities of each context. In this sense, for example, some strategies are more strongly guided by a vision of an economic nature, such as New York, Bristol, Vancouver and Philadelphia, the latter defining "the local and healthy food movements as economic development strategies" (DVRPC 2011, p .4). Just as there are strategies characterized by narrative explicitly focused on health issues. The prime example is probably that of Toronto, whose vision is to create a "health‐focused food system" (Toronto Public Health Department; 2010, pag.5), while Seattle declines the theme of the health of people and environment: Seattle has made a healthy food system a priority. Healthy for people and the planet (City of Seattle, 2012). Malmo declines the theme of "good food", in order to emphasize the centrality of public health (in relation to other issues of sustainability).

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As regards the multi‐sectoriality of these tools, we observe that all the analyzed documents explicitly refer to the entire food chain, in all its phases. Several authors (including Sonnino and Moragues‐ Faus, 2014) claim that the distribution sector represents the missing link of the urban food strategies, despite its centrality, even in terms of negative externalities, in the functioning of food systems. 2.4

UFS as a mechanism to relocate food systems

In spite of peculiar differences the UFS, generally speaking, can be defined as strongly characterized an attention to the relocalization of the food system, crucial issue in the debate on this themes (for more references see Brinkley, 2013). In food strategies relocalization is often considered in relation to the achievement of other objectives, such as economic development or public health (Sonnino, 2014) and it is bound not only to policies addressed to foster urban and periurban agriculture– that the debate tends to overestimate (ibidem)‐ but also to improvements on distribution and logistics in the short supply chains, in public procurement, and so on. A first insight that the analysis of the strategies suggests, concerns the attempt to overcome the contrasting concept of global and local vision, in order to accept the multi‐layered dimension of food system. Several strategies, among which the Edmonton’s, acknowledge the dual nature, local and global, of food systems and openly choose to deal with the local issues they hold direct responsibility of. In the strategy of Bristol, for example, we read "We are under no illusion of the huge scale and ambition of a food plan. But the rewards and benefits would be significant with repercussions That would be far reaching and generational. " However, the attribute of “local” is still often considered as a synonym of “good” (Hinrichs, 2003) contributing in reducing a complex issue to a mere matter of opposites: on one side the conventional food system, capitalist and globalized, on the other, the locally rooted alternative practices, seen as activities of resistance to the increasing globalization of the agro‐food supply chain. Another issue explores the definition of “local”. Not all the analyzed strategies present an insight into the dimension of local food, but when they do, it reveals different aspects. Sometimes the administrative‐economic dimension is prevailing, as in the case of Calgary and Edmonton that identify as their ideal area of supply the entire region of Alberta; and the case of Seattle, linking the urban area with its metropolitan area, in food flows. In the case of Philadelphia, there is instead the identification of the ideal size of the foodshed, calculated as a a 100 mile radius area. Other strategies tend instead to go over the identification of an ideal local foodshed, conferring more interest on different issues, like the relationship between relocation and sustainability. According to several authors (Renting et al., 2003; Sonnino, 2014; Sonnino e Spayde, 2014) this can be seen as a consequence of a multidimensional and multifunctional approach to food. For instance, in the Brighton and Howe strategy can be read: “Our strategy addresses ways in which we can localize our food production and increase consumption of food produced from within a 50‐ mile radius, but only as part of a sustainable food system. The distance travelled by food, whilst significant, is not the only measure of food’s environmental impact, and factors such as the energy intensiveness of production and storage are amongst other crucial factors” (Brighton e Howe, 2012, p. 28). Toronto as well provides an example of this tendency, integrating localization into a wider sustainability perspective: “Sometimes, both the local food movement and its detractors have become absorbed in debates expressing the same compartmentalized thinking that characterizes the dominant food system. The issue is not so much which single food choice is ‘best’, but how can we accelerate progress towards a comprehensive health focused food system where the goals of

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affordability, environmental protection, local farm viability, land use planning and others, can be reconciled. One of the functions of this food strategy project is to promote this kind of dialogue” (Toronto Public Health Department; 2010, pag. 12). Los Angeles is, according to Sonnino (2014), one of the most emblematic example of this broader and more flexible interpretation of relocalization of the food system: "To be clear, while the benefits of urban agriculture are significant to individuals and neighborhoods, poverty and hunger exist in Los Angeles That on such a massive scale supporting urban agriculture Should only be viewed as a supplement, not a replacement strategy, for solving food insecurity and improving food access". In the strategy of Durham we can read "Food that is produced and consumed in or near County Durham That is healthy for people and the planet, and supports our local economy. There is no agreed definition of local food nationally, and for good reason, as the appropriate definition depends on factors Which Vary with location and circumstance. Concerned with what we are in this instance is not only geographic location, but also other criteria such as the quality of the food (eg is it healthy?), its impact on the environment, how the people who produce it are Rewarded, and how animals reared for food are treated. We are also concerned about supporting the local economy by protecting jobs and growing the demand for local goods That will in turn created opportunities for new jobs. In other words, Durham local food Should the three fulfil pillars of sustainability by having economic, social and environmental benefits." (County Durham Food Partnership, 2014, pag. 3) With the same perspective, cities like London and Malmo, collocate alongside the local dimension of food quality, other realities more connected to the production methods (such as organic farming), to the fair job practices (fair workers’ retributions along all the food supply chain), to environmental impacts and animal welfare.

2.5

UFS as tools for increasing the knowledge of the food system

Generally speaking, all the analyzed strategies are based on an analysis of urban food contexts. Most of the documents in fact report, as preliminary investigation or in support of specific ideas and actions, data and information on the local food system. The analysis generally concern every stage of the food chain and, in some cases, are supported by spatial analysis (using GIS software) supporting the study of food systems. Among the strategies analyzed there are however some cases where the assessment of the food system seems to be, more than in others, a truly strategic step in the process of construction of the food policy. Emblematic, for example, is the report "Who feeds Bristol?" commissioned in 2009 by the local hospital, reporting the results of a detailed analysis of the food system, on the basis of which will be developed several proposals that will be part of the urban strategy of the city (Good Food Bristol). This report is a good model of a detailed analysis of the urban food system. Similarly, the report "Greater Philadelphia Food System Study" (Dvrpc, 2010) defines the trends, but also the challenges and opportunities of regional food systems through an analysis of various stakeholders, an assessment of agricultural resources, an exploration of distribution channels and food freight, and an identification of the food economy. Another interesting case is that of the Calgary strategy that incorporates, within the document, an important spatial investigation of the elements of the agro‐food chain, which along with a careful survey of activity in the area and of the various dimensions of the food system, forms the basis for many reflections and policy proposals.

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Urban Food Planning in Turin: a case study

A few years later than in other countries, the issue of the re‐territorialization of food and the agro‐ food chain is taking an increasingly crucial role in Italy, starting from cities like Pisa, where there is a Local Plan of Food (Di Iacovo et al., 2013), or Palermo, where the strategic plan includes actions of promotion and preservation of urban and periurban agriculture, or Milan, where the process of development of food strategies has been launched5. In this framework, another interesting case is Turin, where a process of construction of a new integrated governance of the territorial food system has been started, under the guide of the municipality of Turin and the metropolitan area (the newborn Città Metropolitana, whose boundaries juxtapose to the ones of the former Province of Turin). Turin is the fourth biggest Italian city for population. Localized in the Northwest of the country, the city has a population of 900.000 (almost 2,3 million if we consider the Città Metropolitana). In the last decades, the city was the location of one of a dramatic transformation both physical and symbolical. Many factories closed, leaving huge empty spaces in the middle of the city, progressively filled by brand new portions of city. This material change went with a remarkable process of re‐ invention of the city's image, which had its turning point in the 2006 Winter Olympic Games (Dansero and Puttilli 2009). In this context, the case of Turin, which we already presented and discussed in the two last Aesop conference (Montpellier, 2013 and Leeuwarden, 2014), is notably interesting, from many point of views. Turin belongs to a territorial system where food is a mature economic, social and cultural asset, which contributes to a regional development increasingly based on high‐quality food production (wine, chocolate, nuts, cheese, etc.) or food and wine tourism, which are gradually taking the place of heavy industries in the economic system and in the discursive representations of the area. The acknowledgment of this assets, stimulated by some strong and very active stakeholders (e.g. Slow Food, Eataly), brought to the organization of several initiatives and events aiming at promoting and safeguarding typical food products (e.g. Salone del Gusto, Terra Madre, Cioccolatò, etc), which made of Turin one of the recognized national “capitals of food” (Torino Strategica, 2013). Like other Italian cities, Turin and its people have a strict relationship with food, witnessed, for example, by the big amount of food markets (45) held everyday in the city. In most of them, producers bring everyday their fresh products, from the countryside around Turin. In the Italian context, these markets hardly can be defined as “alternative food networks”, as they are not expression of practices of explicit resistance against the globalized and de‐territorialized food system. They are just a common way for people to purchase their food. At the same time, Turin is rich of food‐related practices that explicitly oppose to the conventional food system, such as urban gardens, solidarity purchasing groups, farmers’ market and so on6. This is a clue of the peculiarity of Italian food system, where the issues are quite different by the ones faced by food plans of Northern American of British cities. This could suggest that there could be an “Italian way” to food planning, which will not be discussed into this paper, but which would deserve a careful consideration.

Also in Milan, on 15 and 16 October 2015, the Milan Urban Food Policy Pact will be signed, and International Agreement which involves more than 40 cities in the world with the goal of making their own food systems more sustainable and equitable through sharing of ideas and good practices 6 For a more detailed insight on alternative food networks in Turin, see the paper of Dansero and Pettenati in these proceedings. th

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In the very last years, at least two important factors contributed to build momentum for what concerns research and practice about food and food policies in Turin. The first is the process of institutionalization of the “metropolitan area” of Turin, which is going to take the place of the “province” in the institutional reordering of Italy. This new “territory of competence” is progressively becoming a “territory of project” (Raffestin, 1980), which includes the city and its surrounding. Many of the projects developing in this area concerns the relationships between food and the city. The topics of these projects are various: urban and periurban agriculture, with its social, environmental and educational dimensions; public health; sustainable catering, food education; waste reduction and so on. The second factor is the spatial and temporal proximity of EXPO 2015 (Feeding the Planet, Energy for Life), which was held in Milan (about 130 km and 50 minutes of high‐speed train from Turin) from May to October 2105. The Exposition is the frame in which several projects about food are developed, not only in Milan, but in the whole Northern Italy as well. Local institutions (at the municipal, provincial and regional scale) are trying to attract within their boundaries part of the potential benefits of Expo 2015, both for what concerns flows of tourists and projects and policies concerning the main topic of the international event: food. Even if Turin still does not have a food council and these projects are still not part of an official process of food planning, in the last years local authorities have been paying specific attention to food policies, shaping the idea of a strict relationship between food and the city, in the perspective of a reterritorialization of the food system. In terms of governance, one of the key issues to deal with is the relationship between the different processes of urban food planning undertaken by different actors of the urban area, with various objectives and scales of action. In the past two years, in fact, several strategic processes related to the food system took place. Now, three of these seem to be likely to generate positive actions in terms of urban food governance: ‐ The working table " Torino Capitale del Cibo" (Torino Food Capital), organized by Torino Strategica7, within the third Strategic Plan "Torino Metropoli 2025," which defines the vision and plans for the future of Turin metropolitan area. One of the objectives of this table is the creation of a food commission, seen as a combination between a Food Policy Council and a business hub, for the development and management of a metropolitan food system, which has more quality and could be more sustainable, just , resilient and competitive; ‐ “Nutrire Torino Metropolitana” (Feeding Metropolitan Turin) the participatory process led by the Città Metropolitana (the former Province of Turin) and the University of Turin in order to mobilize actors of the food system by involving them in the construction of the local food agenda, as a first step towards launching a food strategy for this area; ‐ The European project Food Smart Cities for Development funded by the Development Education and Awareness Raising (DEAR) of the European Commission, which aims to the creation of a Food Policy Council. These three processes has different scales: the metropolitan area (Torino Strategica), the metropolitan city (Nutrire Torino Metropolitana) and the municipal level (DEAR) (see Image 1)

Torino Strategica is an association” which promotes strategic planning methods, monitors its actions, sets up specific workshops, communicates to the public the opportunities for development created by the Strategic Plan and encourages the public’s participation”. (www.torinostrategica.it) th

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In the awareness of the fact that a common framework would increase the effectiveness of individual efforts, one of the first questions to be posed is: what scale could be the better for the food strategy of Turin? Could a scale of city‐region, as most of the strategies analyzed suggests, be the strategic dimension for urban food planning of Turin, guaranteeing the right synthesis between the various scales of action and government in the area? A second issue, still concerning the issues of food governance, involves the actors involved and their political legitimacy and the bodies that guide the food strategies. How should the various actors involved in the project relate one to each other (in the case of Turin: a food commission, a food policy council and other already existing or newly created bodies)? Can these relational spaces aspire to a formal legitimacy given by their level of territorial government? In case of more collective actors simultaneously existing, how could be managed the participation of the subjects of the food system, which could soon be on multiple tables simultaneously?

Figure 1 – The actors involved in the Turin Food Governance (image of the authors)

Is it desirable and feasible, the coexistence of a metropolitan food policy council and of a food commission, the first more policy‐oriented and the latter more focused on the competitiveness and the promotion of the food system? Is it possible to think, as in the case of Bristol, to the coexistence of an urban food policy council and a food network of larger scale? Finally, how should we manage the existence of multiple local and urban food networks, of different scales, nested in the same area? These matters of scale are obviously related to the issues related to the relocalization of the food system. What is the local food system of Turin? What scale does make sense to assume to define the short food supply chain, for example referring to public procurement? Finally, a key issue for the city of Turin, either at a municipal and metropolitan scale, is the lack of knowledge of the system, which is crucial to fill, it, in order to start a process of development of urban food strategies.

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Conclusions

The conclusions of this paper can be organized according to two lenses: a first, concerning the adequateness of the four dimensions of urban food strategies we used in order to systemically analyze this tool in different geographical contexts; a second, focused on the case of Turin, presented at paragraph 3, with the aim to comment the main findings of our research and to suggest further topics to explore. About the first issue, as suggested by authors like Sonnino and Spayde (2014), in order to deeply understand the value and the characteristics of the four analyzed dimensions of urban food strategies, it should be useful to go beyond the comparative analysis of plans and general strategies, focusing with the real influence of these tools on the food system in each case study. How the food system of a city where integrated and systemic food policies are implemented can be considered as more sustainable, resilient or just? Focusing on the case of Turin, it is possible to comment all the four axis of analysis of UFS we propose In order to develop urban food strategies that could effectively foster food governance in a systemic way, it is crucial to understand how the different processes simultaneously active in town should relate each other, in order to avoid any conflict or overlapping and to take advantage of the potential synergies of the many actors involved. The systemic approach to the analysis, the governance and the development of the food system seems to be pretty clear in the different processes started in Turin, which take into account most of the dimensions of food and of food governance: culture, health, business, environment, social justice, etc. For what concerns the relocalization of the food system, it is one of the main purposes of the three processes, which aim to support local food economy, through the relocalization of food networks and the development of short food supply chains in the various fields of the food system (public procurement, home consumption, catering and restaurants, and so on), considering it as one fundamental step towards more sustainable food systems. Finally, the definition of tools of analysis, assessment and monitoring of the food system and its performances, plays an important role in the three processes we described, even if still only in terms of strategic general objectives. Our group of research is working at a project (involving three universities: University of Turin, Polytechnic of Turin, University of Gastronomic Sciences) called Atlante del Cibo (Atlas of Food), with the aim to to develop and implement an interdisciplinary methodology of food system analysis and assessment, at the metropolitan scale. This methodology is composed of three main parts: ‐ a review of existing maps and representations of the food system (a map of maps), which are critically reviewed and organized, in order to produce a catalogue of the different existing representations; ‐ a collection of static maps, specifically produced for the Atlas, representing data about the food system coming both from official archives (e.g. census) and from users and actors of the food system. The static maps will be open to updates and corrections, following the suggestions of users; ‐ a platform for users‐generated, dynamic, interactive maps, based on crowdmapping and the integration with social networks More specifically, the Atlas of Food of Turin, has the following aims: ‐ to provide an open access tool, collecting and representing data, information and ideas about the food system at the city‐region scale;

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‐

to support the public‐private network which is working at the development of food policies, through analysis of the food system, development of scenarios and suggestions for the food strategies; to increase the awareness of the actors of the food web about food, fostering the visibility and sharing of the issues linked to the different phases of the food chain; to provide a platform where the actors of the food chain can virtually meet, reciprocally know, share ideas, creating an opinion making critical mass able to address food policies; to monitor the food system on regular basis, with a participatory approach, reporting changes, trends, opportunities and threats.

‐ ‐ ‐

A further issue to debate is related to the scales of the food system and its governance. Talking about UFS in Turin, as well as in any other city – means to apply a transcalar approach, integrating different scales, such as: ‐ The micro‐local scale of practices and specific actions for which UFS represent a framework to be integrated in. ‐ The metropolitan scale: based on the city‐region which as Turin and its center and the newborn Città Metropolitana as institution of government. The challenge is to go beyond the centralized vision of a food system centered on a big city, in favor of considering the polycentric nature of the food system, seen as composed of several local food system, centered on small and medium cities and towns (e.g. Chieri, Pinerolo, Ivrea, etc.), ‐ The macroregional scale: considering the interrelations between the food system centered on Turin and the food systems of the other main cities of Northern Italy, notably Milan (distant about 100 km from Turin). The two cities historically compete for the predominance in many fields (e.g. culture, industry, etc.), but could cooperate in planning a macroregional polycentric and multiscalar food system in Northwestern Italy. 5.

References

Brighton & Hove Food Partnership (2012), Spade to Spoon: Digging Deeper. A food strategy and action plan for Brighton & Hove, Brighton & Hove Brinkley C., (2013) Avenues into Food Planning: A Review of Scholarly Food System Research, International Planning Studies, 18:2, 243‐266. City of Seattle ( 2012), Food Action Plan, Seattle. County Durham Food Partnership (2013), Sustainable Local Food Startegy, Durham. Di Iacovo F., Brunori G., Innocenti S. (2013), “Le strategie urbane: il piano del cibo”, Agriregionieuropa, 9(32), www.agriregionieuropa.univpm.it Dansero, E., M. Puttilli, (2009), Turismo e grandi eventi. Torino e le prospettive post‐olimpiche: da città‐ fabbrica a meta turistica? Rivista Geografica Italiana (116):225‐251 Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission (DVRPC) (2010) Food System Study, DVRPC, Philadelphia Hinrichs C. (2003), The practice and politics of food system localization, Journal of Rural Studies 19, pagg. 33–45 Kearns A. and Forrest R. (2000),” Social Cohesion and Multilevel Urban Governance”, Urban Studies, Vol. 37, No. 5–6, pagg. 995–1017 Moragues A., Morgan K., Moschitz H., Neimane I., Nilsson, H., Pinto M., Rohracher H., Ruiz R., Thuswald M., Tisenkopfs T. e Halliday J. (2013) “Urban Food Strategies: the rough guide to sustainable food systems”. Document developed in the framework of the FP7 project FOODLINKS. Morgan K., Marsden T., Murdoch J. (2006), Worlds of Food, Oxford University Press, Oxford. Morgan K. e Sonnino R. (2010),“The Urban Foodscape: World Cities and the New Food Equation”, Cambridge journal of Regions Economy and Society, 3(2), 209‐224.

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Morgan K. (2009) “Feeding the city: the challenge of urban food planning”, International Planning Studies 14(4), 341–348 Morgan K. (2013), “The rise of urban food planning”, International Planning Studies 18(1), 1–4. Morgan, K. (2014), “Nourishing the city: the rise of the urban food question in the global north”, Urban Studies (in pubblicazione). Pothukuchi K. e Kaufman J. (1999), “Placing the Food System on the Urban Agenda: The Role of Municipal Insitutions in Food Systems Planning”, Agriculture and Human Values, 16, 213‐224. Raffestin C. (1980), Pour une géographie du pouvoir, Litec, Paris Renting H., Marsden T. K. e Banks J. (2003), “Understanding alternative food networks: exploring the role of short supply chains in rural development”, Environment and Planning A, n. 35, pp. 393–411 Rhodes R. (1997), Understanding Governance: Policy networks, Governance, Reflexivity and Accountability, Open University Press, Buckingham. Sibeon R. (2001), “Governance in Europe: Concepts, Themes and Processes”, paper presentato alla Conferenza Internazionale Governance e Istituzioni: il ruolo dell’economia aperta nei contesti locali, 30‐31 March, Forlì. Sonnino R. (2009), “Feeding the city: Towards a new research and planning agenda”, International Planning Studies, 14, pagg. 425‐435. Sonnino, R. (2014), The new geography of food security: exploring the potential of urban food strategies. The Geographical Journal. doi: 10.1111/geoj.12129 Sonnino R. e Faus A.M (2014), “Sostenibilità e sicurezza alimentare: gli anelli mancanti”, Agriregionieuropa, 10 (36), www.agriregionieuropa.univpm.it Sonnino, R. and Spayde, J. 2014. The “New Frontier? Urban strategies for food security and sustainability” in Marsden T. e Morley A. (a cura di) Sustainable Food Systems: Building a New Paradigm. Earthscan, Londra. Toronto Public Health (2010), Food Connections: Toward a Healthy and Sustainable Food System for Toronto A Consultation Report, Toronto Wiskerke, J.S.C. (2009), On Places Lost and Places Regained: Reflections on the Alternative Food Geography and Sustainable Regional Development, International Planning Studies 14(4), pp.369–387.

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TRACK 3. RELEVANT EXPERIENCES AND PRACTICES The track focuses on new relationships among rural areas, cities, nature and agriculture, the consequent transformations of need, cultural sensitivities and life styles.

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Esther Sanyé‐Mengual, Jordi Oliver‐Solà, Juan Ignacio Montero, Joan Rieradevall, “Using a multidisciplinary approach for assessing the th sustainability of urban rooftop farming”, In: Localizing urban food strategies. Farming cities and performing rurality. 7 International Aesop Sustainable Food Planning Conference Proceedings, Torino, 7‐9 October 2015, edited by Giuseppe Cinà and Egidio Dansero, Torino, Politecnico di Torino, 2015, pp 284‐296. ISBN 978‐88‐8202‐060‐6

USING A MULTIDISCIPLINARY APPROACH FOR ASSESSING THE SUSTAINABILITY OF URBAN ROOFTOP FARMING Esther Sanyé‐Mengual1, Jordi Oliver‐Solà1,2, Juan Ignacio Montero3,1, Joan Rieradevall1,4

Keywords: Urban agriculture, Life cycle assessment, Qualitative research, Geographic information systems, Integrated assessment Abstract: Urban agriculture (UA) is blooming around cities of the developed world as a response to the increasing urban population, the growing environmental awareness of the industrial food system and the need of addressing social gaps. Within this expansion, urban rooftop farming (URF) is gaining importance as a way to further develop local food production. To assess the sustainability of implementing URF projects, a multidisciplinary methodological scheme was designed to approach such a complex system. The method combines four disciplines as follows: (a) qualitative research, to evaluate the qualitative potential by evaluating the perceptions of different stakeholders; (b) geographic information systems (GIS), to quantify the potential roofs for implementing URF; (c) life cycle assessment (LCA), to quantify the environmental impacts of URF forms; and (d) life cycle costing (LCC), to quantify the economic costs of URF forms. Results highlighted the potential of URF in both qualitative and quantitative terms and the potential benefits of different URF types. First, URF can contribute to the three dimensions of sustainability, although the complexity and novelty of URF shows specific barriers that might be overcome through further dissemination and demonstration activities. Second, available and feasible spaces can be found in retail and industrial parks to deploy commercial URF activities through rooftop greenhouses. Finally, rooftop greenhouses and open‐air rooftop gardens were evaluated. LCA and LCC results outlined the relevance of design decision in terms of cultivation technique, crop and management.

Introduction

Urban agriculture (UA) is expanding over cities worldwide as a way to boost local food production (Orsini et al. 2013; Mok et al. 2013). In developed countries, urban agriculture projects addresses social, economic and environmental gaps thereby becoming multifunctional food systems. Beyond improving urban food security (Carney 2011), particularly in areas known as “food deserts” (Wrigley et al. 2004; McClintock 2011), UA initiatives are linked to community empowerment, social inclusion and community building processes (Howe and Wheeler 1999; Armstrong 2000; Lyson 2004; Lawson 2005; Teig et al. 2009; Carney 2011; Block et al. 2011; Guitart et al. 2012). Furthermore, the development of UA as local food systems positively contribute to urban sustainability by enhancing local and environmentally‐friendly economies (Howe and Wheeler 1999; McClintock 2010; Arosemena 2012; Guitart et al. 2012; Smith et al. 2013; Sanyé‐Mengual et al. 2013). 1

Sostenipra (ICTA‐IRTA‐Inèdit)‐Institut de Ciència i Tecnologia Ambientals (ICTA). Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB). Campus de la UAB. 08193. Bellaterra (Spain), esther.sanye@uab.cat 2 Inèdit. Inèdit Innovació, S.L. UAB Research Park. Carretera de Cabrils, km 2 (IRTA) 08348. Barcelona (Spain), Jordi@ineditinnova.com 3 Institute of Agrifood Research and Technology (IRTA). Carretera de Cabrils. km 2. 08348. Barcelona (Spain), juanignacio.montero@irta.cat 4 Departament of Chemical Engineering. Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Campus de la UAB. 08193 Bellaterra (Spain), joan.rieradevall@uab.cat

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Within such development, urban rooftop farming (URF) has grown in popularity as an alternative way to soil‐based UA forms (Specht et al. 2014; Thomaier et al. 2015). URF is “the development of farming activities on the top of buildings by taking advantage of the available spaces in roofs or terraces, which can be developed through open‐air and protected technologies and used for multiple purposes” (Sanyé‐Mengual 2015). URF encompasses four main typologies of projects. Rooftop greenhouses are business‐oriented projects that employ protected culture, such as Gotham Greens (New York, United States) (http://gothamgreens.com). Rooftop farms are commercial initiatives which use open‐air practices, like the Eagle Street Rooftop Farm (New York, United States) (http://rooftopfarms.org). Socially‐oriented URF initiatives can be both protected and open‐air projects, such as the Manhattan School for Children (http://www.ps333.org/) or the community rooftop garden in Via Gandusio’s social housing (Bologna, Italy) (Orsini et al. 2014). Currently, open‐air rooftop initiatives which perform soil cultivation are the most common (Thomaier et al. 2015). 1.1

Urban rooftop farming research

The number of URF studies is reduced, limiting the scientific support to decision‐making processes around URF at the policy and practice scales. To date, the barriers and opportunities behind URF have been observed from the experts’ point of view (Cerón‐Palma et al. 2012) and from the available literature (Specht et al. 2014). Both studies highlighted the potential contribution of URF to the three dimensions of sustainability: society, economy and environment. However, URF is a complex system where multiple stakeholders play a key role (e.g., as consumers, policymakers, technicians or practitioners) and deepening in the perceptions (i.e., knowledge, conceptualizations, perceived barriers and opportunities) of the different stakeholders could unravel a better understanding of URF implementation processes. Second, the identification of optimal spaces and the quantification of the potential area for implementing URF are basic for large‐scale planning. Notwithstanding that some studies have approached the quantification of the URF potential (Berger 2013; Orsini et al. 2014), the development of quantitative tools to account the potential of URF could support planning decisions. Furthermore, the evaluation of different urban spaces and case studies could identify optimal areas for URF implementation. Finally, although several sustainability benefits are expected from urban rooftop farming (Cerón‐Palma et al. 2012; Specht et al. 2014), studies have focused on the evaluation of the agronomic and biodiversity potential of URF (Whittinghill et al. 2013; Orsini et al. 2014; Freisinger et al. 2015). Furthermore, the lack of specific data forces the use of environmental values from conventional farming practices in UA studies (Kulak et al. 2013). In this context, there is a need to cover such gaps in order to support the development process of urban agriculture and rooftop farming projects in developed countries. However, to approach such a complex process, multiple tools might be employed leading to a multidisciplinary evaluation scheme. This contribution describes a multidisciplinary methodological framework used to assess the sustainability of urban rooftop farming (URF) implementation and provides further knowledge on URF systems in the Mediterranean. 2.

Proposing a multidisciplinary assessment scheme

Figure 1 illustrates the proposed multidisciplinary scheme which combines tools from four disciplines: social sciences, geography, environmental sciences and economy. The assessment focuses on deepening in “what is the potential” and “what are the impacts” of URF by assessing the qualitative and quantitative potential, and quantifying the environmental and economic impacts. This scheme allows performing the assessment from the city scale to the system‐product scale. th

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Research question What is the potential of rooftop farming implementation?

Sustainability assessment of rooftop farming implementation What are the impacts of rooftop farming implementation?

Disciplines, tools SOCIAL SCIENCES TOOLS

GEOGRAPHIC TOOLS

Qualitative potential WHY and HOW should URF be implemented?

Quantitative potential HOW MUCH and WHERE can URF be implemented?

ENVIRONMENTAL TOOLS

ECONOMIC TOOLS

Environmental assesssment WHAT are the impacts of the URF systems?

Economic analysis WHAT are the costs of URF systems?

Scale, focus City scale

City Industrial parks Retail parks

System-Product scale

URF systems URF techniques Crops

Figure 1. Multidisciplinary methodological scheme for assessing the sustainability of rooftop farming.

2.1

Social sciences

Social sciences research is used to interact with the different stakeholders involved in the development and implementation of URF. As a novel strategy, discovering the potential in qualitative terms is of great interest for planners and policymakers. The application of social sciences focuses on knowing “Why should URF be implemented?” and “How should URF be implemented?”. To answer such questions, the background of URF, the interests of the different stakeholders, the opportunities and challenges associated to URF, and the potential URF models and users are key issues. 2.1.1 Semi‐structured interviews Semi‐structured interviews are employed as qualitative tools that support the integration of multiple perspectives and the description of processes (Weiss 1995). Based on the transcripts and the coding of the interviews, grounded theory techniques (Kuckartz 2012) are used to unveil the concepts and discourses. After mapping the stakeholders related to the implementation of rooftop farming in Barcelona, 25 stakeholders were selected representing architects, urban planners, administration, gardeners, NGOs, food coops and URF promoters (i.e., restaurant manager that plans a rooftop greenhouse). Semi‐structured interviews dealt with the concepts and definitions of urban agriculture, the perceptions around urban rooftop farming and the specific barriers and opportunities of such systems. 2.2

Geographic information systems (GIS)

Geographic information systems (GIS) are used to quantify the potential implementation of URF at different scales. As an urban strategy, the capacity to assess the implementation at the planning scale is essential to support urban planning decisions. The application of GIS aims to discover “Where can URF be implemented?” and “How much URF can be implemented?”. In this sense, the identification of the optimal spaces for developing URF and the quantification of these potential areas are key in defining programs, urban strategies and planning actions. GIS are used to access spatial data (e.g., area, sunlight, availability) by consulting available maps, to create specific spatial data at the planning scale (e.g., retail parks) by digitalizing spatial elements and generating new data by creating databases (e.g., rooftop type, material).

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2.2.1 An integrated GIS‐LCA tool For the purpose of quantifying and evaluating the potential implementation of URF, an integrated GIS‐LCA tool was designed. The tool consists of three steps: requirements’ definition, potential quantification and indicators evaluation. ‐ The requirements, based on experts’ consultation, define the characteristics of an economically and technically feasible roof for implementing a rooftop greenhouse: allowed in the planning, available space, sunlight, minimum area of 500m2, adaptation to the technical building code, flat and resistant. ‐ Once the requirements are established, data can be compiled in a database using GIS in order to quantify the area for a potential short‐term implementation. ‐ Finally, the evaluation of the potential area can be done in self‐sufficiency terms (i.e., potential supply of food demand) and environmental terms (i.e., potential environmental savings related to avoided food imports).

2.3

Environmental accounting: Life Cycle Assessment (LCA)

Life cycle assessment (LCA) is used to account for the environmental burdens of rooftop farming. As a sustainable strategy, the quantification and comparison of the environmental aspects of different URF types and practices can inform stakeholders in decision‐making processes. Thus, LCA provides with quantitative data to know “What are the environmental impacts of different URF types?”. 2.3.1 LCA specifications LCA follows the ISO 14040‐44 (ISO 2006a; ISO 2006b) standard which establish a four‐stage scheme: Goal and scope definition, Life cycle inventory, Life cycle impact assessment and Interpretation. For the assessment of URF, the assessment considered two functional units: 1 kg for food products and 1m2 for cultivation systems. The system boundaries varied from cradle‐to‐grave (greenhouse structure) to cradle‐to‐farm gate and cradle‐to‐consumer (food products). Experimental trials were used for compiling foreground inventory data (water consumption, design, etc.) and the ecoinvent (Swiss Center for Life Cycle Inventories 2014) and the LCA Food (Nielsen et al. 2003) databases were used for background data (electricity production, materials processing). The impact assessment included indicators from the CML 2001 (Guinée et al. 2002), ReCiPe (Goedkoop et al. 2009), Cumulative energy demand (Hischier et al. 2010) and Global warming (IPCC 2007) impact methods. The simapro software (PRé Consultants 2013) was used for the calculations. 2.4

Economic accounting: Life Cycle Costing (LCC)

Life cycle costing (LCC) is employed to evaluate the economic costs of rooftop farming. As a sustainable strategy which provides new business opportunities, the quantification and comparison of the economic aspects of different URF types and practices can inform stakeholders in decision‐ making processes. Thus, LCC supplies with quantitative data to know “What are the economic costs of different URF types?”.

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2.4.1 LCC specifications LCC is partially standardized in the ISO 15686‐5 (ISO 2008) for the construction sector. LCC follows the same four‐stage scheme as LCA: Goal and scope definition, Life cycle inventory, Costs aggregation and Interpretation. A cost‐benefit approach that includes both the costs and revenues of the systems was employed. The same functional units and systems boundaries as in the LCA were used. Data from projects and producers were compiled for the inventory. The indicators of Total cost (€) and Total profit (€) were used. 3.

Assessing the implementation of URF in the Mediterranean

3.1

Case studies

Observing the potential implementation of URF from a qualitative and quantitative perspective was performed at different scales and using diverse case studies, as compiled in Table 1. In qualitative term, interviews were performed to 25 stakeholders that represented the different roles in the implementation of URF at the city scale (i.e., administration, architects, gardeners, NGOs, urban planners). The quantification of the potential of URF was done for different planning pieces, case studies representing industrial and retail parks were analysed. Table 1. Description of case studies of the qualitative and quantitative potential studies Study

Assessment scale

Location

Case studies

Qualitative potential (interviews)

City

Barcelona, URF in Barcelona Spain (25 stakeholders)

Quantitative potential (GIS‐LCA tool)

Planning piece: Industrial park Barcelona, Zona Franca park Spain

Quantitative potential (GIS‐LCA tool)

Planning piece: Retail park

Barcelona, Montigalà retail park Spain Sant Boi del Llobregat retail park

To account for the environmental and economic burdens of URF, specific case studies that represent diverse forms of URF were chosen. Table 2 compile the main characteristics of the case studies, including the cultivation technique employed and the crops cultivated. The three case studies (Figure 2) provided experimental data on the agronomic performance of the different URF forms (crop yield, resources consumption, crop management, crop design). Table 2. Description of case studies of the environmental and economic assessments Case study

URF form

Location

RTG‐Lab

Rooftop greenhouse (RTG)

Bellaterra, Soil‐less production Spain (perlite)

Via Gandusio Community rooftop Bologna, garden (CRG) Italy Gran Via

Private rooftop garden (PRG)

Cultivation system

Soil production Floating hydroponic Nutrient film technique (NFT)

Barcelona, Soil‐less production Spain (perlite)

Crops Tomato

Tomato, Pepper Melon, Watermelon Lettuce, Eggplant Tomato, Chard, Beet Lettuce, Cabbage

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Figure 2. Case studies of the environmental and economic assessments.

3.2

Results

3.2.1 Qualitative potential The stakeholders’ analysis of the potential implementation of URF in Barcelona indicated that the development of URF can provide several environmental, social and economic opportunities towards designing sustainable cities, although a lack of support and acceptance from some stakeholders is currently a limiting factor. This trend is mainly related to the complexity and the novelty of URF initiatives. ‐ Stakeholders currently conceptualize urban agriculture in different terms, even identifying urban agriculture as a false agriculture. The lack of a common definition of urban agriculture slows down the establishment of a framework where stakeholders can discuss and work towards the development of global urban agriculture policies and projects. ‐ Urban agriculture in Barcelona was developed for hobby purposes in the 80s, contrary to food security needs during war and economic crises in North America, United Kingdom or Cuba. Such origin led into the conception that urban agriculture is a social tool rather than a productive system with commercial opportunities. Consequently, soil‐based urban agriculture is more interesting than rooftop farming since fewer resources are required. ‐ Barriers and challenges to the implementation of URF in Barcelona are mostly linked to acceptance issues, investment costs and legal barriers. However, the progressive implementation of URF through pilot projects and generation of new knowledge will increase the demonstration and dissemination towards a larger support of urban rooftop farming among stakeholders (Figure 3). 3.2.2 Quantitative potential The GIS‐tool was applied to different case studies of industrial and retail parks to evaluate the potential implementation of URF in quantitative terms, leading to implementation recommendations for urban planners, entrepreneurs and practitioners. ‐ Selecting suitable roofs for implementing rooftop greenhouses is a complex process that requires a multicriteria set: availability of space, sunlight, resistance and slope, and legal and planning requirements. ‐ For Barcelona, the short‐term potential of retail parks was greater (53‐74%) than industrial parks (8%). This trend is related to the infrastructure characteristics of retail buildings which th

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are more resistant and thus more suitable for URF. However, industrial areas had a large absolute potential (13ha), becoming interesting urban pieces for the planning and implementation of large‐scale URF projects (Figure 4). Both industrial and retail parks resulted in optimal spaces for implementing commercial URF initiatives, since food‐related business are commonly placed in such urban spaces: food distribution centres and supermarkets. In this study, the assessment of the quantitative potential was limited to rooftop greenhouses, since it is the more restrictive form of URF. Implementing open‐air URF forms has fewer requirements and is more flexible (e.g., plots, raised beds and other growing systems can be adapted to the spaces available in roofs).

‐

Figure 3. Stakeholders’ position on conceptualizing UA and supporting URF in Barcelona, and expected trends through demonstration and dissemination activities.

Figure 4. Identification of suitable areas for implementing rooftop greenhouses in Barcelona (Spain).

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3.2.3 Deepening in the sustainability profile of different forms of rooftop farming The three case studies analysed (RTG‐Lab, Via Gandusio, Gran Via) are pilot projects and, thus, the study provides the first environmental and economic results on urban rooftop farming, unravelling some trends and patterns of the environmental and economic burdens of rooftop greenhouses, community and private rooftop gardens. Rooftop greenhouses: The structure of the greenhouse of the RTG‐Lab played the major role. To comply with the Technical Building Code (BOE 2006), the structure must be reinforced thereby ensuring resistance and security. However, the short‐supply chain resulting from a local production gives advantage to the production in RTGs from both the environmental and economic perspectives, when compared to conventional supply‐chains. The assessment of the RTG‐Lab highlighted the following trends: ‐ The structure of the greenhouse was the most contributing element to the environmental burdens (41.0‐79.5%) and to the economic costs (64%), as in conventional greenhouse systems. In some categories, fertirrigation played the major role. Compared to a multitunnel greenhouses (i.e., commonly used in conventional greenhouse production in the South of Spain), the structure of an RTG had an environmental impact between 17 and 75% larger. ‐ Considering the food product, tomatoes from an RTG in Barcelona had lower environmental burdens than conventional tomatoes not only at the production point (between 9 and 26% lower) but also at the consumer (between 33 and 42 % lower). ‐ Regarding the economic costs, local tomatoes would only be cheaper (21%), and thus competitive, when the entire supply‐chain is considered. In this case, the conventional supply‐ chain includes the transportation, packaging and food waste costs. ‐ Future RTGs may optimize the structure requirements to minimize the environmental impacts and economic costs of this element. Community and private rooftop gardens: Rooftop gardens use open‐air cultivation techniques. The assessment of the Via Gandusio and Gran Via case studies outlined the following trends: Crop inputs contributed the most to the environmental impacts (85%), where irrigation played the major role (60‐75%). Even more, the needed equipment and the consumed resources for the irrigation were the most expensive elements. Fruit vegetables (in particular, eggplant and tomato) had the larger crop yield, leading to lower environmental burdens and economic costs. The integration of re‐used elements, such as pallets, into the design of the gardens reduces the environmental burdens and costs of the required structure (e.g., pots, raised beds). In the community garden, the burdens of the structure were negligible to the final impacts as the users designed the garden with former pallets and PVC pipes. In the private garden, the structure was made of new elements and contributed to between 28 and 35% of the environmental impacts. The level of horticultural knowledge of the users in community and private gardens is determinant in the sustainability performance of this type of local products, since directly affects the efficiency of the production (e.g., crop yield, water consumption). Future designs may consider the integration of re‐used elements, the optimization of water requirements and the training of users to enhance the sustainability of rooftop gardens.

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3.2.4 Comparing rooftop farming forms and conventional production Figure 5 shows the global warming potential of lettuce production and tomato production in the three URF forms assessed in this study, as well as the minimum and maximum values related to conventional production found in the literature. Lettuce production

Tomato production 2

0,5

Global warming impact [kg CO2eq]

0,6

0,4 0,3 0,2 0,1 0

1,8 1,6 1,4 1,2 1 0,8 0,6 0,4 0,2 0

Private rooftop garden

Community Rooftop ConventionalConventional rooftop Greenhouse (min) (max) garden

Private rooftop garden

Community Rooftop ConventionalConventional rooftop Greenhouse (min) (max) garden

Figure 5. Comparison of the global warming impact of lettuce and tomato production in rooftop greenhouses, community rooftop garden, private rooftop garden and conventional production (minimum and maximum literature values).

The following patterns are observed: According to the results obtained from the case studies, products from open‐air rooftop farming (both community and private) had a lower environmental impact and a lower cost than products from rooftop greenhouses, due to the burdens associated to the greenhouse structure. However, one may note that each type of rooftop farming aims to address different issues. Thus, although rooftop greenhouses showed larger environmental burdens, companies can benefit from a more‐controlled environment and from the potential transformation to integrated RTGs. On the contrary, socially‐oriented or self‐managed initiatives may prefer rooftop systems more simple, placed in an open and fresh environment. Notwithstanding that lettuce production in rooftop farming forms had a larger environmental impact than in conventional production, the case studies analysed were polyculture gardens with a homogeneous design, resulting in a low plant density and high water irrigation for leafy vegetables since design parameters were established for fruit vegetables. Thus, an optimization of polyculture gardens by differentiating diverse design areas could improve the performance of leafy vegetables. Tomato production showed a lower environmental impact than values for conventional production. Among the different URF forms, tomato production in the RTG‐Lab had the larger impact. However, the RTG‐Lab can be integrated in the buildings where they are placed on by exchanging the flows of energy, water and CO2, thereby improving the efficiency of the agriculture production and reducing the environmental burdens and costs of the activity. 3.2.5 Design recommendations: Prioritising growing systems and crops Different growing systems and crops were analysed throughout the study, providing quantitative data to draw some design recommendations:

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Soil production with the use of compost as fertilizer is the most eco‐efficient cultivation technique in rooftop farming. Similar eco‐efficient values were obtained for the theoretical production in an integrated rooftop greenhouses (i.e., taking advantage of the residual flows from the building of energy, water and CO2) (Figure 6). Notwithstanding that the values of crop yield were higher in the rooftop greenhouse case (25 kg∙m‐2), the higher costs of the greenhouse system (11.9€∙m‐2) reduced the eco‐efficiency of this form of URF. Hydroponic techniques were the least eco‐efficient ones due to the higher environmental impact of electricity (e.g., recirculation pump in the Nutrient Film Technique) (75% of burdens) and the large cost of irrigation equipment (e.g., aerator in the floating).

Global warming potential (kg CO2eq/kg)

6,00 5,00 4,00 3,00 2,00 1,00 0,00 0 CRG-Soil

0,5 CRG-Floating

1 1,5 Economic cost (€/kg) CRG-NFT RTG-Soilless

2,5

iRTG-Soilless

Figure 6. Eco‐efficiency of crop production in rooftop greenhouses (RTG) and community rooftop farming (CRG).

Regarding crop selection, fruit vegetables yielded better than leafy vegetables in all the URF forms assessed in this study. Notwithstanding that fruit vegetables have longer crop periods and consume a larger amount of resources, higher crop yields reduced the environmental impact per kg of product (Figure 7). Indeed, leafy vegetables could improve their efficiency by optimizing the design of polyculture gardens, as abovementioned. In terms of crop planning, self‐sufficiency gardens are aimed to provide a diversified production in order to satisfy the food demand of the users during the different seasons of the year by combining fruit and leafy vegetables. On the contrary, commercial initiatives employing rooftop greenhouses would prefer monoculture crops to maximize the production efficiency.

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Global warming potential [kg CO2 eq/kg]

3,00 2,50 2,00 1,50 1,00 0,50

FRUIT

LEAFY

Private rooftop garden

FRUIT Community rooftop garden

Lettuce

Tomato

Lettuce

Watermelon

Tomato-2

Tomato-1

Melon

Eggplant

Chili pepper

Cabbage

Chard

Lettuce

Tomato

Beet

0,00

LEAFY FRUIT LEAFY Rooftop greenhouse

Figure 7. Comparison of the global warming impact of crop production in rooftop greenhouses (RTG), community rooftop farming (CRF) and private rooftop farming (PRF).

Conclusions

The multidisciplinary methodological scheme was essential to improve the current understanding of the implementation process and the potential benefits of urban rooftop farming in Barcelona. The combination of tools from different disciplines was fundamental to approach the complexity of implementing a new sustainable strategy in cities. A comprehensive picture of the potential and sustainability of URF was obtained from assessing the perceptions of the different stakeholders (social sciences), evaluating the potential in quantitative terms and from a planning perspective (geographic tools), and quantifying the environmental burdens (LCA) and the economic costs (LCC). This approach could be further applied to different regions, case studies and other forms of rooftop farming and urban agriculture in order to improve the current knowledge. In terms of potential, urban rooftop farming in Barcelona shows a great potential in both qualitative and quantitative terms although specific barriers constrain this development at the small‐scale. URF promoters may overcome social acceptance, economic and legal barriers to reach a large‐scale implementation of these new forms of urban agriculture. For this development, industrial and retail parks showed a significant quantitative potential for the deployment of commercial initiatives through rooftop greenhouses. According to the LCA and LCC results, URF can become an environmentally‐friendly option for further developing local food systems in urban areas. Results depend on the type of URF, the cultivation technique and the crop under assessment, highlighting the importance of design decisions in the final impacts of rooftop farming products. Open‐air systems, soil production and fruit vegetables were the most eco‐efficient options. In conclusion, rooftop farming in developed countries can positively contribute to urban sustainability and urban food security as their environmental impacts and costs highlights the feasibility of URF within the expansion of urban agriculture and local food systems. However, one

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may note that urban food systems are a complementary pathway to the conventional agriculture industry thereby supplying the demand of citizens with a higher environmental awareness which positively value localism, seasonality and environmentalism. 5.

Acknowledgements

The authors thank the Spanish Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad (MINECO) for the financial support to the research project “Agrourban sustainability through rooftop greenhouses. Ecoinnovation on residual flows of energy, water and CO2 for food production” (CTM2013‐47067‐C2‐ 1‐R), and the Spanish Ministerio de Educación for awarding a research scholarship (AP2010‐4044) to Esther Sanyé Mengual. 6.

References

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Lawson LJ (2005) City Bountiful: A Century of Community Gardening in America. University of California Press Lyson TA (2004) Civic Agriculture: Reconnecting Farm, Food, and Community (Civil Society: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives). Tufts McClintock N (2011) From Industrial Garden to Food Desert: Demarcated Devalution in the Flatlands of Oakland, California. In: Alkon A, Agyeman J (eds) Cultiv. Food Justice Race, Class, Sustain. MIT Press, Cambridge, pp 89–120 McClintock N (2010) Why farm the city? Theorizing urban agriculture through a lens of metabolic rift. Cambridge J Reg Econ Soc 3:191–207. doi: 10.1093/cjres/rsq005 Mok H‐F, Williamson VG, Grove JR, et al. (2013) Strawberry fields forever? Urban agriculture in developed countries: a review. Agron Sustain Dev 24:21–43. doi: 10.1007/s13593‐013‐0156‐7 Nielsen, Nielsen A, Weidema B, et al. (2003) LCA food data base. Orsini F, Gasperi D, Marchetti L, et al. (2014) Exploring the production capacity of rooftop gardens (RTGs) in urban agriculture: the potential impact on food and nutrition security, biodiversity and other ecosystem services in the city of Bologna. Food Secur 6:781–792. doi: 10.1007/s12571‐014‐0389‐6 Orsini F, Kahane R, Nono‐Womdim R, Gianquinto G (2013) Urban agriculture in the developing world: a review. Agron Sustain Dev 33:695–720. doi: 10.1007/s13593‐013‐0143‐z PRé Consultants (2013) SimaPro software version 8.0.1. Sanyé‐Mengual E (2015) Sustainability assessment of urban rooftop farming using an interdisciplinary approach. Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona Sanyé‐Mengual E, Cerón‐Palma I, Oliver‐Solà J, et al. (2013) Environmental analysis of the logistics of agricultural products from roof top greenhouses in Mediterranean urban areas. J Sci Food Agric 93:100– 109. doi: 10.1002/jsfa.5736 Smith VM, Greene RB, Silbernagel J (2013) The social and spatial dynamics of community food production: a landscape approach to policy and program development. Landsc Ecol 28:1415–1426. doi: 10.1007/s10980‐ 013‐9891‐z Specht K, Siebert R, Hartmann I, et al. (2014) Urban agriculture of the future: an overview of sustainability aspects of food production in and on buildings. Agric Human Values 31:33–51. doi: 10.1007/s10460‐013‐ 9448‐4 Swiss Center for Life Cycle Inventories (2014) ecoinvent database v3.0. Teig E, Amulya J, Bardwell L, et al. (2009) Collective efficacy in Denver, Colorado: Strengthening neighborhoods and health through community gardens. Health Place 15:1115–22. doi: 10.1016/j.healthplace.2009.06.003 Thomaier S, Specht K, Henckel D, et al. (2015) Farming in and on urban buildings: Present practice and specific novelties of Zero‐Acreage Farming (ZFarming). Renew Agric Food Syst 30:43–54. doi: 10.1017/S1742170514000143 Weiss R (1995) Learning From Strangers: The Art and Method of Qualitative Interview Studies. The free book, New York, USA Whittinghill LJ, Rowe DB, Cregg BM (2013) Evaluation of Vegetable Production on Extensive Green Roofs. Agroecol Sustain Food Syst 37:465–484. doi: 10.1080/21683565.2012.756847 Wrigley N, Warm D, Margetts B, Lowe M (2004) The Leeds “food deserts” intervention study: what the focus groups reveal. Int J Retail Distrib Manag 32:123–136. doi: 10.1108/09590550410521798

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Jeroen de Vries, Ruth Fleuren, “A spatial typology for designing a local food system”, In: Localizing urban food strategies. Farming cities and th performing rurality. 7 International Aesop Sustainable Food Planning Conference Proceedings, Torino, 7‐9 October 2015, edited by Giuseppe Cinà and Egidio Dansero, Torino, Politecnico di Torino, 2015, pp 297‐306. ISBN 978‐88‐8202‐060‐6

A SPATIAL TYPOLOGY FOR DESIGNING A LOCAL FOOD SYSTEM Jeroen de Vries1, Ruth Fleuren2

Keywords: keyword urban design, urban agriculture, spatial typology, local food, design process Abstract: The local food system comprises productive elements ranging from balcony gardens, kitchen gardens, community gardens and fish ponds to multifunctional urban farms, food forests or dairy farms in the green infrastructure. For planning, designing and evaluating a sustainable, local food system a spatial typology of urban agriculture is required. This leads to the following research questions. What are the spatial types required to design a local food system for an existing urban area? And how can a designer evaluate the design as to productive capacity for local food? Key publications and student research provide a broad spectrum of types of urban agriculture, based on goals, organisation, production systems, products and functions. From this we can deduce a set of spatial categories. The spatial typology can be used to programme and design local food production elements in urban areas. The types are related to areas with individual houses and apartment blocks, (semi‐) public urban open space, and green infrastructure. To be able to compare the consumption of food with the potential production a local urban food calculator (LUFC) is developed. This can be used in two ways. Firstly to chart to what extent the potential production in an urban area meets the needs of its inhabitants. Secondly it can be used as an evaluation tool to measure to what extent the design of a local food system can provide in the needs of the consumers. Two existing residential areas in the city of Arnhem in the Netherlands are used as first test case.

Introduction

The local food system comprises productive elements ranging from balcony gardens, kitchen gardens, community gardens, and fish farms to multifunctional urban farms, food forests, intensive greenhouses or dairy farms in the green infrastructure. For planning, designing and evaluating a sustainable, local food system for urban areas a spatial typology of urban agriculture is required. This supports integrated development of urban agricultural systems and it provides the opportunity to increase the amount of food produced. This leads to two main research questions: What are the spatial types required to design a local food system for an existing urban area? And how can a designer evaluate the design as to productive capacity for local food? In order to answer this series of research questions are defined in Scheme 1.

Spatial typology of urban agriculture

Key publications on urban agriculture edited by Philips (2013), Viljoen & Bohn (2014) and Roggema & Keeffe (2014) provide a broad spectrum of types of urban agriculture, which are based on goals, organisation, production systems, products and functions. De Graaf (2011) organised urban 1

Teacher and researcher in landscape architecture, VHL University of Applied Sciences, Programme of Landscape Architecture, the Netherlands, jeroen.devries@wur.nl 2 Teacher in landscape architecture, VHL University of Applied Sciences, Programme of Landscape Architecture, the Netherlands, ruth.fleuren@wur.nl

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agriculture on the basis of artificial or more self‐regulating systems and whether it is related to built‐ up structures or open field cultivation. The sources illustrate these typologies with reference projects. In a series of student projects the typology of urban agriculture has been researched. Landscape architecture students of VHL (Hommel, Streng and Verheij, 2014; Kors and Floor, 2014) analysed urban agriculture and developed spatial categories, such as the kitchen garden, the advanced kitchen garden, the landscape management farm, the urban estate and the green infrastructure farm.

Scheme 1. Set of research questions for the evaluation of local food design Production

Consumption

Which types of urban agriculture elements can be planned?

What is the average diet of Dutch consumers?

What kind of crops and animal produce can these provide?

Which type of food can be produced locally in the city?

What is the average yield of the crops and produce?

How many inhabitants are there in the planning area?

What surface of each types of urban agriculture can be programmed in the area? What is the total potential production of local food per year What is the total amount of food that is yearly required for in the area? the area? To what extent does the production meets the required consumption and can this be adapted by changing the programme for urban agriculture?

Table 1. Spatial typology of urban agriculture with average surface and type of produce Type of urban agriculture

Organisation Approximate production area per unit

Productive house (indoor) private

Private

2 to 20 m2 per house

mostly vegetables, herbs, and fruits

Private

20 to 50 m per house

mostly vegetables, herbs, and fruits

Private

Productive roof (flat) private Productive roof (flat), aquaponics Kitchen gardens

Private

Main crops and animal produce

20 to 50 m per house

vegetables and fish

50 to 300 m per house

potatoes, vegetables, herbs, and fruits 2

Allotment gardens

Private

complex 5,000 to 20,000 m potatoes, vegetables, herbs, and fruits

Community gardens, open field

Collective

400 to 10,000 m2

potatoes, vegetables, herbs, and fruits

Community gardens, glass house

Collective

200 to 5,000 m

vegetables, herbs, and fruits

Edible green amenities

Public

400 to 10,000 m2

fruits and nuts

Roof gardens aquaponics

Professional

500 to 1,500 m

vegetables and fish 2

Professional horticulture, open field Professional

5,000 to 40,000 m

potatoes, vegetables, herbs, and fruits

Professional horticulture, glass house

Professional

5,000 to 10,000 m2

vegetables, herbs, and fruits

Professional hydroponics

Professional

1,500 to 10,000 m2

vegetables, herbs, fruits, and fish 2

Urban farm

Professional

300,000 to 800,000 m

combination of meat, potatoes, vegetables

Green infrastructure farm

Professional

300,000 to 1,200,000 m2

combination of meat, wheat, vegetables

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An inventory of the described types of urban agriculture was made and categorised on the bases of their spatial characteristics. A spatial typology has been developed, which can be used to programme and design local food production elements in urban areas. Making use of the properties of reference projects for each spatial type an indication of the surface area, production systems, crops and products was defined (Table 1). The private ones are to be located in private houses and gardens. The collective gardens can be located in (semi) public space or unbuilt private plots. The professionally managed types need larger surfaces in order to be profitable. Roof gardens can be located on larger buildings, the farms on private agricultural land or integrated into existing green ilegumesnfrastructure or the urban fringe areas. The main crops for each type are based on what is found in the reference projects in the Netherlands. For the representation in designs proposals and maps for each type an icons is made.

Private productive house

Public edible green amenities

Private Private Private kitchen productive roof productive roof garden garden aquaponics

Professional roof gardens aquaponics

Professional horticulture, open field

Professional horticulture, glass house

Allotment gardens

Community gardens, open field cultivation

Community gardens, glass house

Professional hydroponics

Urban farm

Green infrastructure farm

Figure 1. Representation of the spatial types by icons

Calculation of consumption of food

The amount of food that is required for the inhabitants of an area is based on the average diet in the Netherlands in 2010 (PBL, 2014). For the calculation of the required amount of food the average diet is converted into kilos per year. The following elements are excluded from the calculation because these are difficult to produce locally in the Netherlands: alcoholic beverages, non‐alcoholic beverages (including coffee and tea), sugar and fats. Meat is subdivided into beef (20%), pork (60%), and chicken (20%).

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Figure 2. Average Dutch daily diet (source National Environmental Office – PBL 2014)

Table 2. Average consumption in kilos per year per person Type of food Potatoes

grams per person per day

kilos per person per year

Comments

Grains (pasta and bread)

156

57 rice is not produced locally

Vegetables (excluding legumes)

145

Pulse

Fruits

Herbs

Beef

Pork

Poultry

7 mainly chicken

Fish

7 most of the fish in Dutch diets is caught at sea

Cheese

285

104

Dairy (excluding cheese) Eggs

15 mainly apples and pears

The required amount of food is calculated by multiplying the average diet by the number of inhabitants in each area.

Calculation of production of local food

To calculate the potential food production the following steps are taken. Firstly the types of crops and produce are defined for each spatial type. Because the calculator works with gross surfaces, part of the surface is allocated for access and facilities. The results can be seen in Table 3. Secondly the yields of crops and production are defined on the basis of organic farming. Data are retrieved from national statistics of production (www.cbs.nl) with addition of a series of specific research reports of the Louis Bolk Institute (www.louisbolk.nl). For the fish farms and hydroponics studies of the innovation network of agriculture and agribusiness (www.innovatienetwerk.org) are

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used. For each type of urban agriculture the yields of suitable crops are selected, e.g. tomatoes, cucumber, courgette for professional horticulture in glass houses. Milk production is related to the average production per cow and the index of cattle per hectares. The amount of kilos per m2 also includes the produce of fodder for cows (silage) and chickens (corn). For the production of pigs it is assumed that these are mainly fed on leftovers from other crops.

Access & Facilities

Eggs

Dairy (milk, yoghurt)

Cheese

Fish

Poultry

Pork

Beef

Grains

Herbs

Fruits

Legumes

Potatoes

Crops ‐> Types of urban agriculture

Vegetables (excl .legumes)

Table 3. Percentage of surface allocated to crops and products per type of urban agriculture

Productive house (indoor) private

70% 10%

20%

Productive roof (flat) private

50% 10% 10%

10%

30%

Productive roof (flat), aquaponics

25%

30%

40%

Kitchen gardens

20%

35% 10% 20%

10%

Allotment gardens

20%

35% 10% 20%

10%

Community gardens, conventional

20%

40%

5% 15%

10%

Community gardens, glass house

55%

5% 30%

10%

Edible green amenities

30%

70%

Roofgardens aquaponics, professional

27%

30%

40%

Professional horticulture, conventional

20%

40%

5% 20%

10%

Professional horticulture, glass house

50%

5% 30%

10%

Professional hydroponics

50%

30%

20%

15%

20%

10%

5% 20% 10%

10%

20%

15%

10%

5% 30%

Urban farm Green infrastructure farm

In order to define the production space that is available in an urban area, the following data are collected: the number of houses, and the total surfaces of private gardens, flat roofs, and public green space. The surface of unbuilt land that is or can be used for horticulture, an urban farm,

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etcetera is measured too. Consequently the available surface is allocated to one of the spatial types. Where the spatial types can be placed depends on the urban structure in the area, limitations like traffic, the size of plots and needs for other functions like recreation, water retention, alignment of roads, etcetera. Table 4. Average yields or produce per year of organically grown products Crop or product

kg/m2 *)

comments

Potatoes

2.9 the same for all spatial types

Grain

0.7 the same for all spatial types

Legumes

1.5 the same for all spatial types

Vegetables Herbs Fruits

5 open field, the same for all spatial types 30 glass house, the same for all spatial types 1,5 the same for all spatial types 4 mostly apples and pears: farms, orchards, edible green 2 berries in roof gardens, kitchen gardens 8 berries in glass houses, tunnels (professional horticulture)

Beef

0.07 pasture in urban farm or green infra farm

Pork

0.57 urban farm or green infra farm, outdoor

Poultry

0.11 urban farm combination indoor/outdoor incl corn fodder

Fish

6.67 organic aquaponics, with fodder production and facilities

Cheese

0.15 1/10 of milk production per hectare

Dairy

1.50 2 cows per hectare, 7500 litres per cow per year

Eggs

0,.4 urban farm combination indoor/outdoor including fodder (corn)

*) the sources of the key figures can be found in the Excel file of the local urban food calculator, see Appendix 1 The produce per square meter is without taking into account the space for facilities, infrastructure, transport, and energy

A first test was made for two neighbourhoods in the city of Arnhem: Presikhaaf III, an example of modernism that mainly consists of high rise buildings and Elderhof, a residential area from the 1980’s with terraces houses (Figure 3). Presikhaaf III offers a huge amount of flat roofs and a good spatial structure to embed community gardens and some glass houses. Elderhof consists of a fine maze structure of private gardens and in the north a park area with allotment gardens. In the south there is space for glass houses and a fish farm.

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Figure 3. Google map and map with public green space of Presikhaaf III and Elderhof

Discussion

The local urban food calculator (LUFC) uses a defined series of typologies of urban agriculture. The actual production may take place in units that are a mixture of these types. It is also possible that producers in a certain type grow more or less of a type of crop than defined in Table 3. For a specific area or a design the LUFC can be adapted to this. In other countries the diet may be different and in the Netherlands scenarios exist for vegetarian or flexitarian diets. In a designated area the consumption may differ because of income and culture. For the calculation an average diet is used, but diets may vary depending on what can be locally produced and is offered. In the calculation certain types of food were excluded, because these could not be produced locally in the Netherlands. It is possible to look for alternative types of food and drink, e.g. elderflower syrup replacing soft drinks, rhubarb wine as an alcoholic beverage. For products like coffee and tea there might also be alternatives, but it is doubtful to which extent consumers would be willing to adapt. In the two test cases the planner decided how the available space was to be used for different types of urban agriculture, based on the interpretation of aerial views and the maps with the green structure. The percentage of the available space that is to be designed for the types of local food production (e.g. the percentage of the surface of private gardens for kitchen gardens, or the amount of houses that can be converted into productive houses) is to be based on reference projects. However, the actual production largely depends on the willingness of people to change ornamental gardens into productive gardens. Besides this there is always an amount of space needed for other

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functions like terraces, recreation, parking, tool sheds, etcetera. Therefore it is recommended to use the local urban food calculator in a bottom‐up planning process is recommended.

Conclusions and further research

The first tests in Arnhem for two neighbourhoods show that the local food system within the urban area can only provide a small amount of the total nutritional needs of the local population. The local production in these two areas may provide for half the amount of vegetables and fruits and to a lesser extent for the amount of potatoes and fish. Within these areas there is no space for dairy production and grains. Production can be raised by introducing more glass houses, polycultures and hydroponics in the area, but these types of urban agriculture are less attractive. The open field cultivation types also have a social and recreational function. The next step in this research is to extend the analysis of available space for the different typologies to the whole city of Arnhem and to develop a set of scenarios for more and less intensive food production in relation to social and recreational use.

Postscript and acknowledgments

An Excel file with the urban local food with a short explanation on its functioning can be obtained from the author, by sending an e‐mail to jeroen.devries@wur.nl. The first author gratefully acknowledges the support of Ir. G. J. van der Burgt, Professor Dr. Ir. E.T. Lammerts van Bueren, and Professor Dr. Ir. P.C. Struik for leading him to the relevant key figures on yields and produce of organic farming.

References

Roggema, R.,2015. Towards fundamental new urban planning for productive cities: the quest for space. Proceedings of the second international conference on Agriculture in an Urbanizing Society.Rome, 14‐17 September 2015 Graaf, P. de, 2011. Ruimte voor stadslandbouw in Rotterdam, Paul de Graaf Ontwerp & Onderzoek, Rotterdam Philips, A, 2013. Designing Urban Agriculture: A Complete Guide to the Planning, Design, Construction, Maintenance and Management of Edible Landscapes. Hoboken: Wiley Roggema & Keeffe, eds, 2014. Why we need small cows. Ways to design for urban agriculture, VHL University of Applied Sciences Viljoen, A & K. Bohn, eds,2014. Second nature urban agriculture. Designing Productive Cities. London & New York, Routledge PBL, 2014. The Netherlands in 21 infographics. Facts and figures on the human environment. [online]. Available at <www.pbl.nl/21infographics> [Accessed 1st of October 2014] Student projects VHL relating to functional and spatial typologies of urban agriculture Hommel, Ouren, Ferry Streng & Udin Verheij. 2014. Stadslandbouw verankerd, Een onderzoek naar de verankering van stadslandbouwinitiatieven in stadsranden, afstudeeronderzoek 4e jaar landschapsarchitectuur, VHL Hogeschool, Velp Kors, Milly & Aranea Floor. 2014. Voedsel dichterbij! Onderzoek naar typen stadslandbouw. Afstudeeronderzoek Tuin‐ en landschapsinrichting, VHL Hogeschool, Velp

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APPENDIX 1. Detailed table with yields per m2 of crops and products Overview of yields and produce of organic crops and animal produce in kilo per m2 This is the net surface so without the space for facilities, infrastructure, transport, and additional energy 2

Diet category

Crop or product

kg/m

Comments

Source

Potatoes

2.9

www.cbs.nl/NR/...5C74.../2009biologischelandbouwmaatwerk2009.xls

Potatoes

2.9 the same for all spatial types

Grain

Wheat

0.7 winterwheat

www.louisbolk.org/downloads/1459.pdf

Grain

Corn

0.9 only the corns, not the leaves

www.cbs.nl/NR/...5C74.../2009biologischelandbouwmaatwerk2009.xls

Grain

0.7 the same for all spatial types

Legumes

Legumes: Green peas for packing

0.7

https://www.wageningenur.nl/upload_mm/9/d/e/fdcfad65‐920f‐48c3‐9a5e‐ 335a882f6705_Flyer%20rapportage%20Bodemkwaliteit%20op%20zandgrond% 202012.pdf

Legumes

Green Peas

personal communication Prof. Dr. Ir E. Lammers van Buren and Prof. Dr. Ir P.C. StruiK

Legumes

Green Beans

personal communication Prof. Dr. Ir E. Lammers van Buren and Prof. Dr. Ir P.C. StruiK

Legumes

1.5 the same for all spatial types

Vegetables Onions

5.4

www.louisbolk.org/downloads/1459.pdf

Vegetables Onions

5.2

http://www.cbs.nl/nl‐ NL/menu/themas/landbouw/publicaties/artikelen/archief/2009/2009‐2740‐ wm.htm

Vegetables Endive

3.5 winter crop

http://www.louisbolk.org/downloads/2117.pdf

Vegetables Lettuce ‐ open field cultivation

5 4 crops, 12 /m2, 400 gr /p; 1st of May till end of Oct

personal communication Prof. Dr. Ir E. Lammers van Buren and Prof. Dr. Ir P.C. StruiK

Vegetables OUTDOOR open field

5 the same for all spatial types

Vegetables Bell pepper

17 yearround

http://www.louisbolk.org/downloads/1899.pdf

Vegetables Tomato

39 1/2 Jan to end of Oct; http://www.louisbolk.org/downloads/1899.pdf with one crop of lettuce

Vegetables Cucumber

26 yearround

http://edepot.wur.nl/323447

Vegetable GLASS glass HOUSE house

30 the same for all spatial types

Fruits

Apples

http://www.cbs.nl/nl‐ NL/menu/themas/landbouw/publicaties/artikelen/archief/2014/2014‐4180‐ wm.html

Fruits

Pears

http://www.cbs.nl/nl‐

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Overview of yields and produce of organic crops and animal produce in kilo per m2 This is the net surface so without the space for facilities, infrastructure, transport, and additional energy Diet category

Crop or product

kg/m

Comments

Source NL/menu/themas/landbouw/publicaties/artikelen/archief/2014/2014‐4180‐ wm.html

Fruits

Straw‐ berries

1.7 open field cultivation

http://www.cbs.nl/nl‐ NL/menu/themas/landbouw/publicaties/artikelen/archief/2009/2009‐ aardbeien‐art.htm

Fruits

Straw‐ berries

8 cold frame or tunnel

http://www.cbs.nl/nl‐ NL/menu/themas/landbouw/publicaties/artikelen/archief/2009/2009‐ aardbeien‐art.htm

Fruits

Black berries

3.6 open field cultivation

Fruits

Blue berries

5.8 open field cultivation

Fruits

4 farms, orchards, edible green

Fruits

2 roof gardens, kitchen gardens

Fruits

8 glass houses, tunnels (professional horticulture)

Herbs

Beef

0.07 pasture in urban farm 30% milk cows (sausages etc.), 70% meat cows, 1,5 cow/hectare, 240 kg or green infra farm consumption meat per cow, 180 days

Pork

0.57 urban farm or green infra farm, outdoor

additional fodder by leftovers of crops and food, 27 pig / ha, 70 kg consumption meat per pig, 120 days

Poultry

0.11 urban farm combination indoor/outdoor incl corn fodder

4 cycles per year, 4,1 m2 per chicken, 1,3 kg per chicken, m.bestman@louisbolk.nl

Fish

6.67 organic aquaponics, with lemna minor, worms, tilapia

innovatienetwerk, nutri‐hof 10 ton plant ecological faming

Cheese

0.15 1/10 of milk production / ha

personal communication Prof. Dr. Ir E. Lammers van Buren and Prof. Dr. Ir P.C. StruiK

Dairy

Dairy (milk, yoghurt, etc)

1.50 2 cows per hectare, each 7500 litres (kg) per year

personal communication Prof. Dr. Ir E. Lammers van Buren and Prof. Dr. Ir P.C. StruiK

Eggs

0.34 urban farm combination indoor/outdoor incl corn fodder

leenstra a.o., m.bestman@louisbolk.nl

1.5 open field cultivation www2.vlaanderen.be/landbouw/downloads/fijne_groententeelt.pdf, peterselie: 1,5 kg / m2

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Kathrin Specht, Esther Sanyé‐Mengual, “Urban rooftop farming in Berlin and Barcelona: which risks and uncertainties do key stakeholders th perceive?”, In: Localizing urban food strategies. Farming cities and performing rurality. 7 International Aesop Sustainable Food Planning Conference Proceedings, Torino, 7‐9 October 2015, edited by Giuseppe Cinà and Egidio Dansero, Torino, Politecnico di Torino, 2015, pp 307‐313. ISBN 978‐88‐8202‐060‐6

URBAN ROOFTOP FARMING IN BERLIN AND BARCELONA: WHAT RISKS AND UNCERTAINTIES DO KEY STAKEHOLDERS PERCEIVE? Kathrin Specht1, Esther Sanyé‐Mengual2

Keywords: Urban agriculture, Qualitative research, Technological innovations, Social perceptions Abstract: Urban rooftop farming (URF) projects have been set up or planned by non‐profit initiatives or business entrepreneurs in the cities of Berlin (Germany) and Barcelona (Spain) over the last few years. Beyond the already‐established types of urban agriculture (UA) (such as allotments or school gardens), these “new forms” of UA are attracting increasing interest that can be observed in both cities. According to their proponents, they are supposed to provide potential benefits in the urban setting. At the same time, they are connected to a number of associated problems, uncertainties and risks, which constrain their social acceptability. This paper aims to identify what risks key stakeholders perceive around URF in case studies of Berlin and Barcelona. To explore this objective, we analyzed 56 qualitative interviews conducted with key stakeholders (e.g., activists, lobby groups, planning experts, policy and administration officials, and sales representatives) in both cities. The results provide an overview of the perceived risks associated with URF on different scales (from the single project level to the larger metropolitan region). We illustrate how certain groups are affected differently by those risks according to their respective roles in the system. In conclusion, stakeholders associate a number of potential risks and problems with URF, which should be known, considered and addressed by those who want to develop, finance or implement URF in the cities of Europe and beyond.

Introduction

As in many other cities worldwide, urban agriculture (UA) has been progressively expanding in the cities of Berlin (Germany) and Barcelona (Spain) in the last few years. Beyond the already‐established types of UA, such as family‐home gardens, school gardens and garden plots, these “new forms” of urban agriculture are attracting increasing interest that can be observed in both cities. These new types of urban food producers focus on urban farming activities that take place around urban buildings. In recent years, rooftop gardens and rooftop greenhouses have been set up or planned by activists, non‐profit associations, private initiatives or business entrepreneurs for social as well as commercial purposes. 1.1

Urban rooftop farming research

Notwithstanding the increasing interest in urban rooftop farming (URF), the existing literature in the field is limited to certain topics. Diverse studies have attempted to define the concepts behind URF, such as Vertical Farming (Despommier 2008; Despommier 2009; Despommier 2010) or Skyfarming (Germer et al. 2011), and highlighted the potential contribution of URF to food security and 1

Leibniz Centre for Agricultural Landscape Research, Institute of Socio‐Economics, Eberswalder Straße 84, 15374 Müncheberg, Germany, Kathrin.Specht@zalf.de 2 Sostenipra (ICTA‐IRTA‐Inèdit)‐Institut de Ciència i Tecnologia Ambientals (ICTA). Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB). Campus de la UAB. 08193. Bellaterra (Spain), esther.sanye@uab.cat

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sustainable development. The opportunities and barriers associated with URF systems have been identified from a technical perspective (Cerón‐Palma et al. 2012; Freisinger et al. 2015) and from the perspective of current literature and practices (Specht et al. 2014; Thomaier et al. 2015). Both approaches outlined the multiple contributions to sustainability (considering the effects on the environment, the economy and society). In quantitative terms, rooftop farming has been assessed in terms of agronomic performance, potential area of implementation and eco‐efficiency. Different studies have analyzed the varying production efficiency of rooftop gardens to identify optimal crops and techniques (Proksch 2011; Whittinghill et al. 2013; Pennisi 2014; Orsini et al. 2014). Attention has been also paid to the use of urban wastes as crop substrates (Grard et al. 2015). The quantification of the potential implementation of URF has been the focus of studies in New York, Bologna and Barcelona (Berger 2013; Orsini et al. 2014; Sanyé‐Mengual et al. 2015a). Finally, among the three dimensions of sustainability, the environmental aspects and economic costs have been quantified for rooftop greenhouses (Sanyé‐Mengual et al. 2015b) and community rooftop gardens (Sanyé‐Mengual et al. 2015c) in a Mediterranean context. Regarding the social aspects of URF, Sanyé‐Mengual et al. (2015a) and Specht et al. (2015a,b) compiled the perceptions of stakeholders in relation to the potential implementation of URF forms in Barcelona and Berlin, respectively. Approaching stakeholders is essential in understanding the implementation of such a complex system, where multiple stakeholders play a key role (e.g., as consumers, policymakers, technicians or practitioners). The studies highlighted the several opportunities related to the environmental, economic and social advantages of developing local food systems through URF projects. However, stakeholders also perceived certain barriers to short‐term implementation, mostly related to the novelty and complexity of URF. Among these barriers, some perceived risks were identified, such as risks attached to soilless growing techniques or health risks related to URF products. Notwithstanding these results, the studies did not delve into the multiple risks that stakeholders perceived. In this context, the goal of this study is to identify the risks that stakeholders perceive concerning the implementation of URF in European cities. This contribution also focuses on classifying the risks, particularly in terms of spatial distribution and risk recipients. To do so, Barcelona and Berlin are used as case studies. 2.

Research method

The results are based on the analysis of 56 qualitative interviews. Between 2011 and 2013, 25 guided interviews were conducted in Barcelona and 31 in Berlin as independent studies (Sanyé‐Mengual et al. 2015a; Specht et al. 2015a). In both cities, key stakeholders (e.g., activists, lobby groups, planning experts, policy and administration officials, sales representatives, etc.) were approached and asked about perceived risks, problems and uncertainties related to rooftop farming, as one part of a broader interview on the topic. The interviews were transcribed, coded and analyzed applying the principles of qualitative content analysis (Kuckartz 2014; Weiss 1995).

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Results: Perceived risks of URF implementation

The following results provide an overview of the identified risks associated with URF. First, we present the perceived risks along three different scales, from the single‐project level to the city level to the larger metropolitan region. Second, we illustrate which particular risks might be relevant for different stakeholder groups, pursuant to their respective roles in the food system. 3.1

Perceived risks linked to URF on different scales

The interviewed stakeholders had different roles and came from different disciplines and backgrounds. Some stakeholders were concerned with a specific URF system on the single‐project level (e.g., gardeners or technicians) or with the city as a whole (e.g., urban planners or architects), while some were more strongly associated with the urban fringe (e.g., peri‐urban farmers or representatives of farmers’ associations). Risks were perceived on different spatial scales and can be related to them accordingly. Some of the risks perceived by stakeholders are connected to the single‐ project level and relate to production technology, system or potential products. Other concerns or uncertainties affect the city as a whole or encompass even a larger spatial area. Table 1 distributes the identified risks among the three spatial areas. Table 1. Perceived risks of URF on different scales. Micro level (URF project, production system or products)

City level

Larger metropolitan and peri‐urban area

Logistics and management constrains for food products

Conflicts with images of “urbanity”

Conflicts with images of “agriculture”

Associated technology is perceived as too complex

Projects are exclusive and act as a driver for gentrification

Competition with peri‐urban and rural farmers

Risk that projects are overtaken by large enterprises

Few or no aesthetic benefits are perceived

Risk that the projects are set up too fast

Competition with other rooftop uses

Risk of unsustainable management

Conflicts with potential urban animal production

Soilless growing techniques are “unnatural”

Increase in noise and smell

Quality of products expected to be low Uncertainty about the overall environmental impact

Health risks

Operators are not trained (professional) enough

Soilless techniques cannot be organic

Perceived little or no economic benefits

On the micro level, those particular stakeholders who are closely related to URF systems identified specific risks associated with the management of URF projects (e.g., logistics, type of projects), the resulting products (e.g., quality) and the performance of the system (e.g., environmental impact,

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costs). They perceived some of the applied rooftop farming technologies as too complex and expensive. Furthermore, stakeholders were concerned about potential health risks (due to contaminated air, soil or water). They further brought up general acceptance problems for the application of soilless growing techniques, which cannot be certified as “organic” and are perceived as an “unnatural” way of producing. On the larger city level, stakeholders expressed concerns regarding the integration of the new system with the urban environment, including conflicts with prevailing images of “urbanity”. Urban stakeholders were concerned about the impacts of integrating agricultural activities in the city (e.g., aesthetics, noise, smell), the impacts of the implementation process on society (e.g., gentrification) and competition with current sustainability strategies and alternative rooftop uses (e.g., photovoltaics). In particular, stakeholders are aware of the lack of agricultural training and expertise in the current job market in urban areas. With regard to the larger metropolitan and peri‐urban areas, stakeholders outlined global risks associated with the concept of URF and the economic competition with current activities. Some stakeholders even refused to define these types of projects as “agriculture” (Sanyé‐Mengual et al. 2015a). 3.2

Who are the recipients of the identified risks?

In considering the identified risks, it turned out that they are not likewise relevant for those varied stakeholders who are associated with the introduction or implementation of URF. While some of the risks affect the general public or society as a whole, others are more relevant for specific groups, such as producers or potential consumers. As presented in table 2, we grouped the previously identified risks according to their relevance for the four societal groups of general citizens, promoters, users/producers and consumers. Table 2. Identification of different groups as potential recipients of the acknowledged risks. Citizens (General public)

Promoters

Consumers

Producers

Conflicts with images of “agriculture”

Risk that projects are overtaken by large enterprises

Soilless growing techniques are “unnatural”

Risk of unsustainable management

Conflicts with images of “urbanity”

Risk that the projects are set Quality of products expected Logistics and management up too fast to be low constraints for food products

Conflicts with potential urban animal production

Competition with other rooftop uses

Increase in noise and smell

Competition with peri‐urban Soilless techniques cannot be Operators are not trained and rural farmers organic (professional) enough

Health risks

Associated technology is perceived as too complex

Projects are exclusive and act Uncertainty about the as a driver for gentrification overall environmental impact

Perceived little or no economic benefits

Few or no aesthetic benefits are perceived

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The various identified risks can affect different recipients in a different manner. Risks related to the general conceptualization of urban agriculture, the impacts of production (e.g., noise) and impacts of the URF project itself (e.g., aesthetics) affect the general public and all citizens can become recipients of them. These types of risks must be addressed and handled by the administration and the project managers. The establishment of a legal framework that avoids certain impacts (e.g., smell), the dissemination of information and communication campaigns can each contribute to minimize these risks. Promoters of URF initiatives are affected by risks related to the implementation of the project, such as competition with other activities and the environmental and economic performance of the project. These types of risks can be minimized by establishing an alternative local food sector structure, building cooperative networks with rural farmers and providing data on the economic and environmental performance of URF projects. Risks associated with the quality of and concerns related to the products provided by URF particularly affect the potential consumers of URF products. Strict quality control along with communication and campaigns on the quality of local food products as well as quantitative studies on potential health risks might minimize the negative perceptions related to URF products that otherwise lead to low social acceptance.

The producers of the URF system are directly affected by risks related to management. The complexity of management in URF systems depends on the level of knowledge of the respective user or producer. The promotion of specific education on urban agriculture and rooftop farming, such as in New York (e.g., training programs in the Eagle Street Rooftop farm) (http://rooftopfarms.org/education/), would improve the curricula of new urban farmers in European cities while reducing management risks.

Conclusions

We conclude that there are a number of potential risks and problems associated with URF that should be known, considered and addressed by those who want to develop, finance or implement URF in the cities of Europe and beyond. The perception of risks has a spatial component. Stakeholders identified risks on different scales from the project to the larger city context. Among them, the risks associated with the system are the most numerous and encompass concerns related to the integration of the system with the urban environment; the use, access and complexity of the system; and the aesthetical impact of URF. The number of risks closely related to the URF system is larger than the number that is perceived for the entire city or the peri‐urban area. Notwithstanding that risks are perceived by multiple stakeholders, each risk affects a specific group of recipients. The general public can be affected by negative impacts from the implementation of URF projects, which can be handled by normative schemes. The low acceptance of URF among potential consumers can only be minimized through communication campaigns. The perceived risks cause several implementation barriers, such as problems with the social acceptance of URF products. To overcome such barriers, pilot projects and the dissemination of current knowledge and practices are fundamental in improving the current understanding of local food systems among the multiple stakeholders. Furthermore, URF may focus on sustainable technologies (e.g., local resources, energy efficiency), integrating social aspects (e.g., education) and

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establishing new market structures (e.g., short supply‐chains) to ensure a socially accepted development of this new form of urban agriculture. 5.

Acknowledgements

We wish to express our greatest thanks to all the local stakeholders who collaborated with us during the research process. Funding from the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) has supported parts of the work in the German case study (funding code FKZ 16I1619). The Leibniz Centre for Agricultural Landscape Research (ZALF) is institutionally funded by the Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture (BMEL) and the Ministry for Science, Research and Culture of the State of Brandenburg (MWFK). The authors further thank the Spanish Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad (MINECO) for the financial support to conduct the research project, “Agrourban sustainability through rooftop greenhouses. Ecoinnovation on residual flows of energy, water and CO2 for food production” (CTM2013‐47067‐C2‐1‐R), and the Spanish Ministerio de Educación for awarding a research scholarship (AP2010‐4044) to Esther Sanyé Mengual. 6.

References

Berger, D., 2013. A GIS Suitability Analysis of The Potential for Rooftop Agriculture in New York City. Columbia University. Cerón‐Palma, I., Sanyé‐Mengual, E., Oliver‐Solà, J., Montero, J.‐I., Rieradevall, J., 2012. Barriers and Opportunities Regarding the Implementation of Rooftop Eco.Greenhouses (RTEG) in Mediterranean Cities of Europe. J. Urban Technol. 19, 87–103. doi:10.1080/10630732.2012.717685 Despommier, D., 2010. The vertical farm: Feeding the world in the 21stCentury. Thomas Dunne Books., New York. Despommier, D., 2009. The rise of vertical farms. Sci. Am. 301, 80–87. Despommier, D., 2008. Cities dream of a second agricultural revolution. Space Mag. 488, 103–105. Freisinger, U.B., Specht, K., Sawicka, M., Busse, M., Siebert, R., Werner, A., Thomaier, S., Henckel, D., Galda, A., Dierich, A., Wurbs, S., Große‐Heitmeyer, J., Schön, S., Walk, H., 2015. There‘s something growing on the roof. Rooftop greenhouses. Idea, Planning, Implementation. Leibniz Centre for Agricultural Landscape Research (ZALF), Müncheberg. Germer, J., Sauerborn, J., Asch, F., Boer, J., Schreiber, J., Weber, G., Müller, J., 2011. Skyfarming an ecological innovation to enhance global food security. J. Für Verbraucherschutz Leb. 6, 237–251. doi:10.1007/s00003‐ 011‐0691‐6 Kuckartz, U. 2014. Qualitative text analysis. A guide to methods, practice and using software. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. Orsini, F., Gasperi, D., Marchetti, L., Piovene, C., Draghetti, S., Ramazzotti, S., Bazzocchi, G., Gianquinto, G., 2014. Exploring the production capacity of rooftop gardens (RTGs) in urban agriculture: the potential impact on food and nutrition security, biodiversity and other ecosystem services in the city of Bologna. Food Secur. 6, 781–792. doi:10.1007/s12571‐014‐0389‐6 Pennisi, G., 2014. Sistemi fuorisuolo per l ’ orticoltura in città : casi studio nella città di Bologna. Alma Mater Studiorium Università di Bologna. Proksch, G., 2011. Urban Rooftops as Productive Resources: Rooftop Farming versus Conventional Green Roofs, in: ARCC2011 ‐ Considering Research: Reflecting upon Current Themes in Architecture Research. pp. 497– 509. Sanyé‐Mengual, E., Anguelovski, I., Oliver‐Solà, J., Montero, J.I., Rieradevall, J., 2015a. Resolving differing stakeholder perceptions of urban rooftop farming in Mediterranean cities : promoting food production as a driver for innovative forms of urban agriculture. Agric. Hum. Values. doi:10.1007/s10460‐015‐9594‐y

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Sanyé‐Mengual, E., Cerón‐Palma, I., Oliver‐Solà, J., Montero, J., Rieradevall, J., 2015b. Integrating horticulture into cities: A guide for assessing the implementation potential of Rooftop Greenhouses (RTGs) in industrial and logistics parks. J. Urban Technol. (online). Sanyé‐Mengual, E., Oliver‐Solà, J., Montero, J.I., Rieradevall, J., 2015a. An environmental and economic life cycle assessment of Rooftop Greenhouse (RTG) implementation in Barcelona, Spain. Assessing new forms of urban agriculture from the greenhouse structure to the final product level. Int. J. Life Cycle Assess. doi:10.1007/s11367‐014‐0836‐9 Sanyé‐Mengual, E., Orsini, F., Oliver‐Solà, J., Rieradevall, J., Montero, J., Gianquinto, G., 2015b. Techniques and crops for efficient community rooftop gardens in Bologna (Italy). Agron. Sustain. Dev. doi:10.1007/s13593‐ 015‐0331‐0 Specht, K., Siebert, R., Hartmann, I., Freisinger, U.B., Sawicka, M., Werner, A., Thomaier, S., Henckel, D., Walk, H., Dierich, A., 2014. Urban agriculture of the future: an overview of sustainability aspects of food production in and on buildings. Agric. Hum. Values 31, 33–51. doi:10.1007/s10460‐013‐9448‐4 Specht, K., Siebert, R., Thomaier, S., Freisinger, U., Sawicka, M., Dierich, A., Henckel, D., Busse, M., 2015a. Zero‐ Acreage Farming in the City of Berlin: An Aggregated Stakeholder Perspective on Potential Benefits and Challenges. Sustainability 7, 4511–4523. doi:10.3390/su7044511 Specht, K., Siebert, R., Thomaier, S., 2015b. Perception and acceptance of agricultural production in and on urban buildings (ZFarming): A qualitative study from Berlin, Germany. Agric. Hum. Values. doi: 10.1007/s10460‐015‐9658‐z Thomaier, S., Specht, K., Henckel, D., Dierich, A., Siebert, R., Freisinger, U.B., Sawicka, M., 2015. Farming in and on urban buildings: Present practice and specific novelties of Zero‐Acreage Farming (ZFarming). Renew. Agric. Food Syst. 30, 43–54. doi:10.1017/S1742170514000143 Weiss, R.S., 1995. Learning from Strangers: The Art and Method of Qualitative Interview Studies. Simon and Schuster. New York. Whittinghill, L.J., Rowe, D.B., Cregg, B.M., 2013. Evaluation of Vegetable Production on Extensive Green Roofs. Agroecol. Sustain. Food Syst. 37, 465–484. doi:10.1080/21683565.2012.756847

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Erica Giorda, Gloria Lowe, “Restoring houses and restoring lives: experiments in livability in the Detroit East Side”, In: Localizing urban food th strategies. Farming cities and performing rurality. 7 International Aesop Sustainable Food Planning Conference Proceedings, Torino, 7‐9 October 2015, edited by Giuseppe Cinà and Egidio Dansero, Torino, Politecnico di Torino, 2015, pp 314‐323. ISBN 978‐88‐8202‐060‐6

RESTORING HOUSES AND RESTORING LIVES: AN EXPERIMENT IN LIVABILITY IN THE DETROIT EAST SIDE Erica Giorda1, Gloria Lowe2

Keywords: Community, Sustainability, Resilience, New Work, Development, Inclusiveness Abstract: A place – a neighborhood, a town, a block – thrives when people living there perceive it as theirs, and have or can create the material, social, and spiritual connections that provide traction to change the shape of things. But how can a place thrive when it has been polluted and neglected? How can people thrive when their lives have been shattered? These questions arise with urgency on the Detroit East Side. Here industrial ruins lie side by side with the newly planted lots of the Hantz Woodlands, the famed Heidelberg Project is rebounding after suffering several arson attacks during winter 2014. Urban farms are still a growing trend. The Detroit Eastern Market is flourishing. Blight, record unemployment, and lack of services continue also as an everyday reality. Investors are coming in droves to Detroit attracted by the media blitz of cheap land and building an investor’s paradise, yet with little knowledge or concern for the needs of the longstanding, not ‘invisible’ residents, who might face eviction should some large rehabilitation project be approved, or better yet, some investor who simply has a plan. In this context, a small non‐profit organization, We Want Green, too! (WWG2) launched the idea of retrofitting blighted houses with sustainable material and technologies, labor provided by differently‐ abled, unemployed, homeless veterans, on a shoestring budget. The dual mission of the organization is to rebuild blighted homes, souls, and communities while providing affordable housing that is environmentally friendly and energy efficient. The project focuses on several social issues facing urban areas around Detroit, seeking to address how we design living spaces (homes, communities, cities, states etc.) that revitalize us as human beings? How do we restore the resilience and creativity that speaks to the human inner being? WWG2 and its partners aim to educate residents and introduce sustainable practices to build livable, viable, safe communities, not just “neighborhoods” for the 21st century. In the long term, WWG2’s vision is to create sustainable, livable communities where residents can grow their own food, produce the energy they need, develop local businesses, and create friendly, safe urban environments for all dwellers of all ages and skills.

Introduction

The challenge for sociology is not just to recognize the importance of both the physical and the social factors, and certainly not to argue over the relative importance of the two, but to recognize the extent to which what we take to be ‘physical’ and ‘social’ factors can be conjointly constituted. (Freudenburg, Frickel, and Gramling 1995) “The truth of the matter is, a city is as natural as a forest or a desert or an ocean. Its structures will ebb and flow and cycle much as the trees and the sand and the waves will” (Palm inMillington 2013: 278). On a chilly spring day, as chilly as Michigan can make them, two women coming from very different paths in life met at a hipster coffee shop in the historical Indian Village neighborhood in Detroit to 1

Ph.D. Candidate, Department of Sociology, Michigan State University We Want Green, Too!

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talk about their ideas, and specifically about what can be done to support the growth of livable neighborhoods and communities in Detroit and beyond. This paper is an initial step in the direction of building a collaborative project. Following a paradigm that is traditional in both African American and Italian culture, we start our long‐term collaboration by telling a story about Detroit. In this draft, the two voices are outlined in different print colors. Storytelling has transformative and healing powers (Senehi 2009), specifically for marginalized groups to maintain cultural connections and make their voices more audible. Of course, many others are currently telling stories about Detroit, to highlight their viewpoint, to convince foundations to support their project, to attract investors, to make monies, sometimes at the expense of residents3. Such as the story told by Bruce Katz, director of the Brookings Metropolitan Policy Program to an audience at Tedx Hamburg, posted later for Linked in under the blog, Want to Change the World? Start with a City (Sept 23, 2015), his perception of Detroit as that city of change. As a story with two narrators, two different voices will be heard throughout the paper. Following Mead’s lead (Mead 1934), this paper aims to be a piece of research that does not just report facts about Detroit, but instigates actions. As such no distinction between the role of the academic (who in too many situations portrays herself as a detached observer) and that of the activist (who needs to be intensely involved with her job) can be made. (Frank 2005) The life and works of (Boggs and Kurashige 2012; Boggs 1978), also have significant influence on both authors: her lifelong commitment to grow knowledge and transformation from the ground up is an inspiration for both of us. The paper is thus set up as a montage of two different voices, following Salamon’s (2013) idea of polyphonic ethnographies. Detroit might have emerged from bankruptcy, and is being promoted around the United States as the new frontier for young entrepreneurs, but most of the problems that caused the city to collapse have not been addressed. Many aging residents are barely able to keep up with house expenses. Families who are delinquent on water or taxes, sometimes by small sums, get their water shut off and the kids sent to foster care. Access to affordable and healthy groceries is still very limited for those who don’t own a car, and public transit is in dismay (Taylor and Kerry 2015). Blight here is more than just the abandoned factories and decrepit mansions powerfully shown by the work of Vergara (1999) in his investigation of the American ruins. In that book Vergara famously quipped that maybe it could be a good idea to let Detroit to go back to nature, to let it became a monument to the mistakes of the past. Touring the ruins of Detroit has become a pastime, and journalists and scholars flocked to the city in the past ten years to record its demise. Detroit city of ruins is just one of the many narratives that circulate and it is a perspective that dehumanize the people that call Detroit their home. As one of us outlined in the past (Giorda 2011; Giorda 2012), conflicting narratives compete in making statements about what route should local government and agencies take to eventually restore Detroit to its past greatness. Another set of narratives, outlined by Millington (2013: 282) presents a “discursive scripting of Detroit as a blank slate for artists and creative gentrifiers who want to tap into the city’s history of art and working‐class culture.” The story we tell with this paper aligns more with the work of researchers such as Monica White, who look at the groundwork of black activists as a powerful political message of re‐empowering black communities from the ground up (White 2011a; White 2011b). The first part of the paper sketches the challenging and exciting situation the city is facing after ten of the most turbulent years in its life and looks into the mainstream ideas about growing, shrinking, or 3

Malik Yakini, 2013, personal communication. th

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leading Detroit on a novel route. The second part describes in depth the work one of us is doing to suggest yet another, and more livable, direction. Detroit, like many of the cities in the Rust Belt of the Midwest, symbolizes the premier age of industrialization with the automobile, assembly‐line production and the establishment of the blue collar middle class, and today is in a struggle for re‐imagining itself as a 21st century model that survived industrial decline and urban decay. The main problems the city faces are unemployment, housing, and access to services. Detroit is the largest city in Michigan, and is at the center of a metropolitan area that spans 10,130 km2 and six counties. The governments of the six counties, 150 cities and townships that comprise the Detroit metropolitan area talk little and cooperate less. While the population of Metropolitan Detroit increased during the last two decades, the city of Detroit went from almost two million people in the 1950s to less than 714,000 in 2010. There is a significant difference in median household income between the suburbs and Detroit, and a persistent racial divide (Clemens 2006) While the population in the suburbs is primarily white, Detroit’s population is 83% black4. The unemployment rate of Detroit is 19%, and about one‐third of the population receives welfare support (Bing 2011; Gallagher 2010; Steinmetz 2009). These social, political and economic conditions impact the health and wellbeing of the residents of the city. To suggest that these conditions occurred by accident would be shortsighted and revisionist at best. Historically, waves of urban renewal, beginning in the late 1940’s (Pisani 2012), fostered plans for redevelopment funded by federal government initiatives that failed to account for the displacement of residents living in the affected areas. One of the most egregious examples of urban renewal through state violence took place in the Black Bottom neighborhood on Detroit’s East Side. Urban renewal projects have “ failed egregiously to serve the needs of most of the city’s residents, some whom were forcibly evicted from their homes.”(Goodspeed 2004: 6) For that project, which took 14 years to complete, city planners focused on an area of approximately 129 acres. The revitalization of Black Bottom received funds for the removal of approximately 7,000 African Americans from their community, as a part of the overall Detroit Plan of 1950. It was the first deliberate attempt to remove residents from their community for the construction of a highway that would in fact provide whites that had fled to the suburbs with a viable transportation route back into the city for economic reasons. Despite the abundance of space, low‐income housing has been traditionally neglected in Detroit, and the widespread practice of redlining further increased the problem for black residents. In many suburbs, local homeowners’ associations specifically prohibited selling houses to Blacks. The planners never considered the cultural, social or economic impact their actions would have on the residents of this area; it was a calculated political move by Mayor Albert Cobo to win the election (1946). Historians are correct in stating that the city policies on urban revitalization, intentionally or not, were a means of removal of African American from their economically viable community in Black Bottom. The residents were not passive onlookers, though. Voices of dissent led to political organizing. However, it was difficult, and they were no challenge to the coalition of government and political leadership that considered urban “blight” removal a priority that would be accomplished through the creation of public housing projects, freeway construction, and slums clearance. 4

United States Census, 2010 th

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We now recognize that large‐scale urban renewal projects are disruptive of communities. We have sufficient research that acknowledges the problem of inadequate housing as a result of social inequities of wealth and income, access of which is not readily available to communities of color and immigrants. A solution to poor, deteriorated housing stock in Detroit could have been designed differently, but governments are not architects, and this program of renewal designed out of “free market” ideology was created and viewed through the lens of colonization with plans to control communities of color (See: Darden 1990). In the current climate of efforts to “right size” the city, there are no clear plans to help residents maintain the cultural, social and economic links to the neighborhoods in which they live, as if the past lessons have been forgotten. Two examples –which have been widely covered by local newspapers and scholarly literature ‐ are the Hantz Farms Detroit, and the Detroit Future City plan by Detroit Works. Hantz, a Detroit resident and rich entrepreneur, started and ambitious reinvestment program centered about urban farming in 2010 (Holt‐Giménez, Wang, and Shattuck 2011; Walker 2015). Since then the scope of the project changed from a futuristic urban farm from a more doable, and already under implementation, urban tree plantation. Anderson (Anderson 2013: 1172) summarizes the issues with the project clearly: “A company called Hantz Farms Detroit, for instance, which is owned by one of the wealthiest men remaining in the city, purchased 1,500 lots in Detroit for less than $350 each—a “bake sale price” (217) that was criticized as a “land grab,” but embraced by a mayor battling to manage an estimated 60,000 parcels of vacant or blighted property.(218) The company plans to clear the lots and turn the properties into commercial tree farms—more than 15,000 oaks and maples will be planted—thereby bringing the land back onto the productive tax rolls, improving safety in and around the properties, providing local jobs, and beautifying neighborhoods. It is a good plan, perhaps even a virtuous one, but nonetheless it is an indicator that if city land is being sold at nominal prices, the procedures to buy it should be transparent and available to small buyers, like local entrepreneurs and neighbors, as much as major landowners.” Akers (2013) also points out that the privatization efforts of the past administrations did not bring the expected results, increasing instead the role of external speculators, and opening spaces for business practices that do not support local communities nor give residents a voice to spell out their concerns and fears. This is the starting point for this discourse. There is and there has been a gap in the discussion between those in power, government at local, state, and federal levels about urban renewal policies. This gap is creating the environment for the destruction of communities and leaves residents with no expected economic gain and no actual improvement of their living conditions. Institutional solutions to remove blight support the creation of a “blight task force,” promote charter schools instead of viable public education, and aim at increasing rates for city services when possible. Currently, the Detroit Future City revitalization initiative seems identical to the failed Detroit Plan of 1950, complete with citizen removal and lacking minimal public housing availability. Today, throughout the area once known as Black Bottom, the I‐375 highway connector is being considered for removal because a gentrified core downtown occupied mostly by white dwellers has no need for this piece of highway, the city never did.5 Yet, the planners and politicians have not learned necessary lessons that will allow the city to move forward and be inclusive of all its residents. Our leadership should understand that a fruitful, stable and attractive 21st century city is a balance of development and civic engagement with all its 5

http://www.freep.com/article/20140223/OPINION05/302230041/Sugrue‐Trickle‐down‐urbanism‐won‐t‐ work‐Detroit th

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communities. People want to see a better future and are willing to do their part in achieving it. Let’s examine the path of reconciliation from past mistakes to future problem solving. The awareness of the differences in means and access, and the historical memory of neglect and discrimination are one of the first obstacles to overcome when underserved communities try to rebuild and renovate. Internalized oppression is both a psychological and socio‐cultural term used to define the experiences of many marginalized groups of people who feel inferior, living under oppressive circumstances, such as discrimination and structural racism. The marginalized groups adopt the negative, inferior images produced by the hegemonic ruling class, and use these images internally as “their own self‐images.” Accepting these images, a self‐fulfilling prophecy effect occurs in which the marginalized group acts out the behavior as defined by the hegemonic powers. Freire (2000) speaks to this phenomenon as “identifying with the oppressor.” Internalized oppression makes people fight with themselves and those in their own group rather than the dominant class. A current of self‐ hatred runs underneath. Gramsci (Gramsci and Buttigieg 1992) describes a similar situation with his idea of cultural hegemony, which he defines as the system of values, perceptions, and beliefs of the prevailing ruling class (elites), which are absorbed by the lower classes and accepted as natural and uncontroversial. To perceive and to resist cultural hegemony, the working class would depend on their own organic intellectuals, grown within the communities, people not just of letters but also of engagement in community life, organizers of the people for the benefit of the people. Gramsci knew that in order to re‐imagine a new society a new consciousness needed to be developed. For Gramsci this was a crucial element the political and social strategies needed to design a new and fair political structure. Gramsci pointed out that cultural hegemony is the vehicle that drives internalized oppression and its manifestations: physical violence, psychological withdrawal, physical impact, and mimesis just to name a few behaviors that work unconsciously to destroy self‐esteem. We see this behavior displayed in Black on Black crime. Self‐hate the materialization of internalized oppression, unemployment, and homelessness can result in a wreck (Fonte 2001). One way to recover is to find ways to recreate connections with the community that support spiritual as well as material growth. In contemporary Detroit the public recognition of skills and achievements comes mostly from the ability to be employed, which is difficult for people who suffers from post traumatic stress disorders and have low academic achievements. Health, the exercise and development of skills and capacities, self‐esteem based on the recognition of one’s achievements, a sense of social connectedness and exposure to the demands of cooperation are some of the intrinsic goods associated with a working life that is very difficult for many Detroiters to obtain. There are some organizations in Detroit that are working to create holistic and supportive environments for new social and environmental projects. Located on Detroit’s East Side is the James and Grace Boggs Center for Nurturing Leadership, which shares in the belief that re‐imagining society for the new human being will require a strategic plan to re‐educate the masses, provide place‐based education and design a local economy through New Work. One of the first students of the Boggs’ Detroit Summer program, Julie Putnam, opened The James and Grace Boggs Educational Center in 2013, to nurture creative minds and critical thinkers at a young age. The primary school’s core value is the development of the Beloved Community as envisioned through the philosophy of Dr. King that requires “a qualitative change in our souls as well

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as quantitative changes in our lives”. The school provides an environment that fosters learning through participation in service projects for the school and surrounding neighborhoods. Another organization that has expanded its yearly conference to invite people to think about livability and how we can create the Beloved Community in Detroit is the local Great Lakes Bioneers Detroit (GLBD). Formed in 2005 as a regional chapter of the National Bioneers Conference, it embeds Social and Environmental justice as the main focus of dialogue at the annual conference. GLBD’s mission is rooted in spirituality and sustainability for all life and Mother Earth, and the balance that we (humans) have to create for our survival and that of the Planet. In the past ten years the Detroit Bioneers have applied knowledge on sustainability and innovative approaches to pioneer changes between community and many non‐profit community based organizations serving in Detroit. Examining the work of these groups a question arises: why is sustainability so frequently presented as a luxury that poor people cannot afford, when they are the ones who need it most? Real sustainability is the conscious spiritual relationship of all things to each other. It is the system of inter‐connectedness that can be achieved after solving the broken‐ness in the spirit of human beings. How do we become more human, how do we grow into being one with nature and with each other? This is no doubt one of the most pertinent questions to be asked in the 21st century and We Want Green, Too is an effort trying to answer this question. Matthew Fox, radical priest and theologian, founder of the Institute of Culture and Creation Spirituality states: “The great work is the work of the universe, it is the unfolding of creation. Somehow, our work, our daily life, should contribute to that. We should feel that we are connected to the great work of the universe. Without that, we lose meaning in our work and the only meaning is a paycheck.” (2004) Our journey is to do development differently. African Americans came to Detroit for a better life and those dreams coupled with hard‐core skills still exist, we are in need of devoted mentors to assist in the elevation of our talents not the destruction of our lives, and we can no longer wait on a system that seems to render us invisible, so we are seeking alternatives, reaching deep into our souls calling upon our spirit (resilience) and determination to create ‘a way out of no way’ receptive to joining forces with those offering a helping hand up, not out. With nurturing, knowledge and encouragement from Grace Lee Boggs and Great Lakes Bioneers Detroit, listening to the stories from differently‐abled, broken and homeless veterans, We Want Green, too! was born as a community based initiative whose members are invested in the re‐ imagining of Detroit, in creating a new story about the city, its residents, and the resilience they display in the face of adversity. How can we thrive when our lives are so challenged and the place we call home is being taken away? Let’s start by rebuilding those houses and communities, re‐instilling the values forgotten, one soul, one house at a time. In late 2006 we set about the “good work” we envisioned. A house in Jackson, Michigan, 112 kilometers west of Detroit, is where we started. As we worked, we noticed that the men –working with their hands – began to change, a sort of transformation was appearing. These were broken souls waiting for a chance to rectify their lives, and all that was necessary was good work, valuable work, work to be done with their hands (Crawford 2009). The house in Jackson was retrofitted using mostly recycled materials in an energy efficient manner. Working mostly on weekends the project was completed in a little more than 6 months, but a deeper form of work was just beginning. Few weeks after the retrofitting work was finished, the men came back, and stated that after hearing about “green this and green that, we want green, too!” They wanted another house to work on.

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The year later, with a few veterans and returning citizens we started retrofitting a 1025 ft.2 bungalow on Detroit’s East side, in a depressed and blighted community not far from the Grace and James Boggs Center. The plan was simple: we would include community members in as much of the work as possible to introduce ourselves and build trust. A few days into the project, the young son of one of the neighbors decided to throw a rock and broke one of the windows. What lesson could we teach this young man that would have lasting value after all, our goal was to give this young man a valuable lesson on work, so he worked to pay off the damages and we hired him to stay on and we paid him a small stipend. After several weeks with the team and plenty of conversation, his ways changed. By the time school started in September, he had purchased shoes for himself and many of his views were changed. This is only an example of the power of what community does. Word spread fast about what we were doing and more young people came to visit the men working, conversations and sharing of stories became commonplace; trust was growing. The neighbors, hearing stories from their children, began upgrading their own properties. The materials we used were the result of creativity and ingenuity. Architects and builders that volunteered time and expertise taught us which walls could be removed to achieve the open space look we desired. Once the walls were removed we salvaged the lumber for to make railings and re‐ framing of windows and doors. To brand our presence to the community, we installed a view to the world in the form of a 180‐degree window purchased from a Habitat Reuse store for a tenth of the cost. It was the showcase for the house. We purchased environmentally friendly products online at a discount and talked about the importance of using low or no VOC paints. We built a relationship with the nearest Home Depot, whose manager would email us about products on sale or being discontinued such as the bamboo flooring we have. The 200‐watt electrical system, providing enough electrical power for the appliances and computers, was installed by a neighbor and retired master electrician, at cost. A whole house high efficiency furnace with A/C was also installed at cost, through relationships in the community. Cabinetry was purchased at IKEA and the good quality and cost savings was shared with the community, which had no prior knowledge of the store. As of September 2015, 95% of the retrofitting has been completed on the project house and most of the veterans have moved on to steady work. Our work has appeared on local radio (“On Being,” 2012), we received visits by folks from all over the globe, and the full story of our inception can be viewed online. We have been gifted a second house to retrofit and will be using the two locations as our community office and worker’s center. The men who spoke into existence “We Want Green, too” are former veterans, and we are recruiting new veterans for the new program. They are mostly 28 through 45 years of age, with families, disillusioned by life and financially destitute. We Want Green, too makes a difference in their lives and in the communities that bear their scars. We cannot accept the continued stigmatization of so many veterans who fought for the liberties of all people in the United States, it is not morally right. We don’t want them banished from their communities and ineligible for employment, so we have created a program that will seek to eliminate these obstacles and let them return to their families. Our mission continues, one community, one soul at a time, this is our legacy and our pathway to restoring lives and restoring communities to a livable, sustainable design for a 21st century Detroit. The outcome we expect of our program is to remedy much of the spiritual, mental and personal oppression experienced by our veterans and some returning citizens in times of international and domestic wars, and to provide them with skills they can use to regain access to the options available for securing good work and returning to their communities the victors of war, both internally and externally.

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Final remarks

In 2014, for the first time in decades, the population of Detroit increased. It was not a huge number, just about 6,000 people, but many hope it to be the start of a trend. Most new residents are not flocking to the blighted areas: most of them moved in around the Cass corridor, in the central neighborhoods where services, amenities and businesses look good. We find it important, as the city moves forward, to underline that the way recovery and growth are framed and presented might affect the opportunities poorer Detroiters have to participate in the process or being pushed away. Not all blight removal projects are created equal, and the means used, the goal pursued, and the stories told about them can prevent current residents to partake in the effort, or –as it had already happened in the past‐ they can disempower and alienate the same people they purportedly set up to help. We believe that the nodal aspect is whether the emphasis is on economic development or it is on people. Walker (2015) argues that the way urban farming has been framed by the City of Detroit is more about increasing property values than it is about providing food access, and “that the Detroit Future City (DFC) planning framework shows that the City is enrolling urban agriculture in a sustainability fix meant to attract capital” (Walker 2015: 12). That has been the explicit bet behind the Hantz Farm project since its inception (Holt‐Giménez, Wang, and Shattuck 2011). Many urban farmers, though, fight against that framing and keep working to create an alternative model (Taylor and Kerry 2015). In this paper we described a similar situation looking at blight removal and urban renewal strategies. On the one hand, the idea behind Detroit Future City (DFC) is prominently about creating the right environment for economic growth. This being a neoliberal capitalist society, the project assumes that once the growth machine starts again, all residents will benefit (Detroit Works 2012). Unfortunately, so far the model has not been working well for the lower and middle classes (Akers 2013; Harvey 2005). It is telling that in the DFC’s brief (Detroit Works 2012), the first thing to be discussed is economic development, and community involvement is the last. Walker (2015) and Howell (2013) underline that the DFC’s framework is innovative and points toward some form of sustainable city planning. They also point out that the fact that it centers on economic growth undermines much the possible benefits. Moore (2007) pointed out that sustainability has different meanings and different implementation in any urban context. Gilles (2006) suggested a change of focus, from the very abstract concept of sustainability to the more embedded and applied one of livability. In this paper we have proposed an example of how livability looks like in the East Side of Detroit. The core idea is not new: do things as if people matter (Schumacher 1985). Instead of looking for moneyed investors and start‐up funds WWG2 invests in people and looks at what resources are available on site. Instead of looking for new designs and recreate things anew, they rehab old structures with what material is available in the area. The means and the goals coincide: restoring a community by restoring its houses using locally available expertise and materials. It is the spirit of Bioneers (Ausubel 1997) and the spirit of permaculture (Mollison and Holmgren 1978): growth and renewal can be found when we harvest human and natural resources from the place where we live in, and give back to the community in the form of renewed buildings, newly found creative skills, and restored livelihoods. 3. References 1946. "Negroes Protest Cobo’s Public Housing Program." in Michigan Chronicle. Detroit. Akers, Joshua M. 2013. "Making markets: Think tank legislation and private property in Detroit." Urban Geography 34:1070‐1095. Anderson, Michelle Wilde. 2013. "New Minimal Cities, The." Yale LJ 123:1118.

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Ausubel, Ken. 1997. The Bioneers: Declarations of Interdependence: Chelsea Green Publishing. Bing, Dave. 2011. "State of the City Address 22 February 2011 ", edited by C. o. Detroit. Boggs, Grace Lee and Scott Kurashige. 2012. The next American revolution: Sustainable activism for the twenty‐first century: Univ of California Press. Boggs, James. 1978. Conversations in Maine: Exploring our nation's future: South End Press. Clemens, P. 2006. Made in Detroit: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. Crawford, Matthew B. 2009. Shop class as soulcraft: An inquiry into the value of work: Penguin. Darden, J. 1990. Detroit: Race and uneven development: Temple University Press. Detroit Works. 2012. "Detroit Future City: Detroit Strategic Framework Plan." Fonte, John. 2001. "Why there is a culture war." POLICY REVIEW‐WASHINGTON‐HERITAGE FOUNDATION‐:15‐32. Frank, Arthur W. 2005. "What is dialogical research, and why should we do it?" Qualitative health research 15:964‐974. Freire, Paulo. 2000. Pedagogy of the oppressed: Bloomsbury Publishing. Freudenburg, William R., Scott Frickel, and Robert Gramling. 1995. "Beyond the Nature/Society Divide: Learning to Think about a Mountain." Sociological Forum 10:361‐392. Gallagher, J. 2010. Reimagining Detroit: Opportunities for Redefining an American City: Wayne State University Press. Gille, Zsuzsa. 2006. "Detached flows or grounded place‐making projects." Governing environmental flows: global challenges to social theory:137‐156. Giorda, Erica. 2011. "Detroit. Growing a different future. Addressing global threats with local solutions to re‐imagine the city." Appetite 56:529‐530. Giorda, Erica. 2012. "Farming in Mowtown: Competing narratives for urban development and urban agriculture in detroit." Pp. 271‐281 in Sustainable Food Planning: Evolving Theory and Practice. Wageningen: , edited by A. Viljoen and J. S. Wiskerke. Wageningen (NL) Wageningen Academic Publishers. Goodspeed, R. 2004. "Urban Renewal in Postwar Detroit. The Gratiot Area Redevelopment Project: A Case Study." The University of Michigan, Detroit. Destrukcja miasta i znaczenie inicjatyw społecznych 559. Gramsci, Antonio and Joseph A Buttigieg. 1992. Prison notebooks, vol. 2: Columbia University Press. Harvey, David. 2005. A brief history of neoliberalism: Oxford University Press. Holt‐Giménez, Eric, Yi Wang, and Annie Shattuck. 2011. "The urban and northern face of global land grabs." Pp. 6‐8 in International Conference on Global Land Grabbing. Howell, Shea. 2013, January 18. "Beyond Detroit Works. ." in The Michigan Citizen. Mead, George Herbert. 1934. "Mind, self and society form the standpoint of a social behaviourist." Chicago: University of ChicagoPress. Millington, Nate. 2013. "Post‐Industrial Imaginaries: Nature, Representation and Ruin in Detroit, Michigan." International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 37:279‐296. Mollison, Bill and David Holmgren. 1978. Permaculture: Lesmurdie Progress Association. Moore, S.A. 2007. Alternative Routes to the Sustainable City: Austin, Curitiba, and Frankfurt: Lexington Books. Pisani, Alicia. 2012. "Urban Renewal in Detroit." URBAN ACTION:24. Salamon, Karen Lisa. 2013. "Mind the Gap." Transcultural Montage:145. Schumacher, Ernst Friedrich. 1985. Small is beautiful: Rowohlt Taschenbuch Verlag. Senehi, Jessica. 2009. "The role of constructive, transcultural storytelling in ethnopolitical conflict transformation in Northern Ireland." Regional and ethnic conflicts: Perspectives from the front lines:227‐ 38. Steinmetz, George. 2009. "Detroit: A tale of two crise." Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 27:611‐ 770. Taylor, Dorceta E. and J. Ard Kerry. 2015. "RESEARCH ARTICLE: Food Availability and the Food Desert Frame in Detroit: An Overview of the City's Food System." Environmental practice 17:102‐133. Vergara, Camilo J. 1999. American ruins: Monacelli Press. Walker, Samuel. 2015. "Urban agriculture and the sustainability fix in Vancouver and Detroit." Urban Geography:1‐20.

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White, Monica M. 2011a. "ENVIRONMENTAL REVIEWS & CASE STUDIES: D‐Town Farm: African American Resistance to Food Insecurity and the Transformation of Detroit." Environmental Practice 13:406‐417. White, Monica M. 2011b. "Sisters of the soil: Urban gardening as resistance in Detroit." Race/Ethnicity: Multidisciplinary Global Contexts 5:13‐28.

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Rosalba D’Onofrio, Decio Rigatti, Massimo Sargolini, Elio Trusiani, “Vineyard Landscapes: a common denominator in Italian and Brazilian th landscapes”, In: Localizing urban food strategies. Farming cities and performing rurality. 7 International Aesop Sustainable Food Planning Conference Proceedings, Torino, 7‐9 October 2015, edited by Giuseppe Cinà and Egidio Dansero, Torino, Politecnico di Torino, 2015, pp 324‐335. ISBN 978‐88‐8202‐060‐6

VINEYARD LANDSCAPES: A COMMON DENOMINATOR IN ITALIAN AND BRAZILIAN LANDSCAPES Rosalba D’Onofrio1, Decio Rigatti2, Massimo Sargolini3, Elio Trusiani4 Keywords: vineyard landscape, landscape planning and design, sustainable development, local communities, heritage. Abstract: This paper addresses the theme of ‘Landscape and Wine” through two experiences that are widely separated geographically (one in Italy, one in Brazil) but similar due to a common framework that makes the landscape a flywheel in promoting the harmonious development of the territories. In the case in Italy, the project to enhance the vineyard landscape in the Piceno area is implemented within a project to enhance and promote the rural hill landscape in Monteprandone. It proposes the reorganization of agrarian landscapes in the Piceno area by enhancing agricultural and food resources in general and the winemaking sector in particular, along with the promotion of integrated territorial development starting with the landscape, testing new methods and tools for territorial government and enhancement. For Brazil, the paper focuses on the experience of the so‐called Italian colony of Rio Grande do Sul. This is a territory to which Italians have emigrated and where, in recent history, the local agricultural economy of winemaking has transformed the territory, creating a landscape that is unique in all of Brazil. It has triggered a process of inland‐area development and tourism enhancement (Vale dos Vinhedos, Rua das Pedras, etc.), integrating the different, widespread historical/cultural values present, starting from small rural buildings. Today this territory is being preserved, consolidated, and managed in its transformations in order not to risk losing the characteristics that have determined its cultural and economic richness.

Introduction

In recent years, food traditions and typical production have increasingly become a favoured object of study through which the territory can be read and understood. Every society in every historical context tends to invest food with “extra‐nutritional value and meaning, at the heart of which operate complex, contradictory social, cultural, and economic processes” (Seppilli 1994). In particular, the link between landscape, food, and territorial history assume special meaning in the case of quality winemaking. According to Antonioli Corigliano (1999), wine constitutes one of the most powerful territorial markers in that it acts as a carrier of rural identity. Gergaud and Livat (2007) maintain that consumers always need to connect the wine with something that guarantees its quality. Other scholars (Skuras and Vakrou 2002, Angulo et al. 2000, Barreiro‐Hurle 2008) are convinced that the territory of origin is fundamental in choosing a wine. The choice of a wine would in fact result from cultural development and the perception of quality based on personal opinion and only in part on the chemical and physical characteristics of the product (Zeithaml, 1988, Lockshin 2006, Holleebeek 2007). The connection between wine and landscape was argued by Tomasi et al. (2010), who explain that appreciation for wine is highest where appreciation for the landscape is also high.

School of Architecture and Design “E. Vittoria” – Unicam (Italy), rosalba.donofrio@unicam.it UniRitter – Laureate International Universities (Brasil), driga2000@yahoo.com.br 3 School of Architecture and Design “E. Vittoria” – Unicam (Italy),massimo.sargolini@unicam.it 4 School of Architecture and Design “E. Vittoria” – Unicam (Italy),elio.trusiani@unicam.it 2

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This last argument holds particular meaning for the promotion of territorial economic development. Businesses should define focused marketing actions, creating in the collective imagination a harmonious continuum between wine and the landscape (Agnoli ed al., 2011). All of this leads to the conclusion that to confirm a quality product on the global market, in the case of wine (but it might also be extended to other agricultural and food products), it is necessary to begin with the landscape that produces said product. From this consideration, the need to conserve, protect, and enhance the uniqueness and typicality of the landscape should arise. Along with territorial marketing actions, to promote these policies it is necessary for public and local administrations to develop plans and projects that deal in an integrated way with actions to protect the landscape, as well as actions for its promotion and development. This contribution reflects on two experiences that are widely separated geographically (one in Italy, one in Brazil) but similar due to a common framework that makes the landscape—i.e., the visible connection between place, quality production, the recognisability of local communities, traditions, and culture—a new fly‐wheel in promoting the harmonious development of the territories. 2.

The experience in Italy: the vineyard landscape of the Piceno area

In his book “Vino al Vino”, writer, screenwriter, and director Mario Soldati presented an incredible snapshot of Italy at the end of the 1960s. It is a country in which it was still possible to understand the change from a town to a city: the difference in smells, flavours, and humanity. This book was a desperate call to save an immense heritage that was about to be lost. It saw in the wine culture the wonderful diversity to be found in Italy. It was only at the end of the 1980s, after two decades of territorial and food homogenisation, that the profound relationship between landscape, quality wine and food production, identity, and place recognisability was rediscovered. This rediscovery was the work of several non‐profit associations and some legislative intuition. Slow Food Italy was created in 1986. A worldwide non‐profit organisation, it is dedicated to promoting the value of food while respecting the people and territories that produce it. A year later in Siena, 39 Italian communities established an association to help relaunch the image and quality of Italian wine: the National Association of Wine Cities. This followed the wine‐methanol scandal of 1987, taking a decided stance against the mass introduction of foreign vines. In 1992, the Italian Government effectively responded to this emergency with Law 164/92, the Designation of Origin law (Denominazione di Origine) for the winemaking sector. This law clearly sanctioned the deep connection between wine and territory, marking a change in understanding the relationship between territory, landscape, and quality agricultural production. In 1993, the Wine Tourism Movement was born. It is a non‐profit association that today includes around 1000 of the most prestigious Italian wineries selected on the basis of specific requirements, the first of which is the quality of wine tourism centres. In 1999, Law 268 gave rise to the Wine Routes, which constitute a tool through which the winemaking territories and related production can be publicized, marketed, and used as a tourism goal. With this aim, they become tools in promoting local development centred on networks created around the winemaking sector, but which also extend to other sectors and production, attracting public and private players (Pavolini and Alessandrelli 2006). In Italy, successful experiences dealing with the link between landscape, winemaking, and integrated economic development of the territory are not lacking. This paper deals with the experience of one territory that in recent years is working hard in this direction: the Piceno area.

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2.1 Territorial characteristics, winemaking production, and criticalities in the development model The Piceno area in the Marche Region deals with a significant part of three hydrogeographic basins that converge on the Adriatic: the Tronto, Menocchia, and Aso, limited in the west by the Monti Sibillini chain and in the east by the Adriatic Sea. In the Piceno area, different forms of settlements co‐exist (historical hill settlements, more recent valley settlements), seminatural rural environments, and sometimes forest/pastoral zones. The weaving together of the different components determines the great variety of landscapes that are both urban and agricultural, industrial and natural, historical and contemporary. Winemaking in the Piceno area has deep historical roots. Over the centuries, winemaking techniques have changed according to need and the progress of knowledge, but according to tradition, grape cultivation in this area has always been connected to local varieties or at least varieties from central Italy. An important reorganization phenomenon in the sector has distinguished winemaking in recent decades. Based on data from the ISTAT 6th General Census of Agriculture in 2010, it is clear how the number of businesses related to vine cultivation has undergone a dramatic drop, from 8,845 units in 1982 to 2,440 in 2010, and how from 2000–2010 the number of businesses involved in vine cultivation has decreased by almost 50%. It is also true, however, that production has greatly affected the quality of the product and the restructuring of businesses. Attention to quality production has been developing since the end of the 1970s. Founded in 1979, Vinea is an association of producers that today encompasses 600 businesses representing about 50% of wine production in the area and 90% of the bottled product. The activities carried out by Vinea deal with a series of services guaranteed for members, both technical (favouring above all the qualitative development of small producers in the winemaking sector) and commercial/marketing of territorial typicality both nationally and internationally. The association is equipped with an analysis laboratory and bottling centre, and it manages the Offida section of the Marche Regional Enoteca. Among the projects realized by Vinea is the ‘Vinea Qualità Picena’ mark, which aims to enhance typical products from the territory and guarantee their traceability. In addition, the Consorzio Vini Piceni (Piceno Wine Consortium), which is currently composed of 34 ordinary members, was formed in 2002. These are business people directly involved in one or more phases of DOC (Controlled Designation of Origin) and DOCG (Controlled and Guaranteed Designation of Origin) production protected by the Consortium. The Consortium deals with vine cultivation, winemaking, and bottling, but also informs and involves consumers. In fact, quality production works completely only in the presence of knowledgeable consumers. Today winemaking in the Piceno area relies on one DOCG—Offida—characterized by three types: pecorino, passerina, and Offida Rosso, and three DOCs: Rosso Piceno (also Superiore), Falerio, and Terre di Offida (including passerina passito, Vin Santo, and sparkling wine). These recent successes would, however, seem to be more connected to the business capabilities and mediation carried out by producer associations rather than to institutional factors (Pavolini and Alessandrelli, 2006). Public actors, in fact, have played a secondary role. Today a vision of territorial development for the Piceno area is lacking, which, by playing upon the uniqueness of the landscape, history/culture, food, and wine, would be able to connect private and public players in order to initiate a new model of development. Researching this model was the goal of the research project “The need for innovation in regional food and agriculture”. The project, financed by the Marche Region with the participation of the Universities of Macerata and Camerino, aimed to weigh in on CIPE (Italian Interministry Committee for Economic Planning) resolution no. 17/2003. This research, completed in 2006, started from a confirmed centrality in the agriculture and food sector and the winemaking sector in particular. It hypothesized the involvement of other material and non‐material territorial resources in order to th

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enhance the entire Piceno territory as a fundamental factor in global competition. As of several years later, the research has progressed into the project “Enhancement and promotion of the landscape in the rural hill territory of Monteprandone” carried out by the School of Architecture and Design at the University of Camerino within a consultancy agreement to revise the new PRG (General Regulatory Plan) for the City of Monteprandone (AP).

2.2 The incentive for new development and the construction of a strategic framework for the Piceno area starting from wine From research made on behalf of the Marche Region as reported in the introduction to ‘Sviluppo Integrato e Risorse del Territorio’ (Integrated Development and Territorial Resources), edited by Francesco Adornato and published by Franco Angeli in 2006, some reflections emerged that serve as a basis for a new model of integrated development for the rural Piceno territory. The need to initiate a process of innovation based on agricultural multi‐functionality, the environmental compatibility of development, economic sustainability, and food safety. The need to promote a planning process that is conscious of territorial values and landscapes in order to guarantee a reduction in land use, a decrease in pollutants, and the protection of non‐renewable resources and biodiversity. The need to promote the creation of tools to enhance the network of agricultural, tourist, environmental, landscape, cultural, and archaeological resources. The need to foresee the necessary infrastructure and services to promote these activities, but with constant attention for the surrounding landscape. In each of these areas, one can see the main objective of agrarian landscape reorganization by enhancing the agricultural and food resources in general and the winemaking sector in particular. In this project, wine production is investigated from the point of view of both the final quality product and as a landscape builder. With the latter, it is considered a structural reference for large‐scale land planning. Therefore, the strategic framework proposed by the research provides guidelines for a series of actions to investigate through regional and local land planning. First of all, the project identifies the structural framework of resources and historical, natural, and landscape goods that can interact with the Piceno wine landscape system. It identifies the means to recover and protect specific components of traditional agrarian landscapes, with particular attention to vineyards, the relationships between vineyards and other agrarian production, and between vineyards and the rural building heritage. Particular attention is reserved for the most interesting points of view, maintaining inter‐visibility, preserving hidden landscapes, and removing or mitigating visual detractors. Finally, the project dedicates particular attention to identifying point‐of‐sale centres, fairs, and markets, with infrastructure and services appropriate for supporting the commercialization of food and wine products. In particular, the strategic lines defined in accordance with existing planning deal with (Sargolini 2006): managing the natural heritage; enhancing the rural territory; recovering and enhancing the cultural heritage (settlement, architectural, and infrastructural); enhancing tourism and social use; enhancing the landscape and local identities. th

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For each of these different lines, the study identifies a series of strategic actions. The research therefore provides some planning references for the Piceno territorial project. In particular, it identifies a system of landscape use—‘quick and slow paths’—that foresees different ways of using the Piceno territory (on foot or by car, bicycle, or horse); it also identifies frequent rest areas and the observation of landscapes near important views and essential services. Finally, the study provides indications and orientation for the system of large‐ and local‐scale planning. On the regional scale: define areas, points, poles, and references to insert the goods and resources within a national and international network. This is essential in combating the risk of isolation in which the Piceno territory could find itself. On the municipal scale: define relationships between the different goods and resources, and especially favour the rooting and close connection between the agricultural/food sector and the natural/cultural heritage of the Piceno area.

2.3 Landscape enhancement and promotion of the rural hill area of Monteprandone A few years ago, in 2013, a research group from the School of Architecture and Design at the University of Camerino dealt again with the theme of landscape enhancement and local production of the Piceno area. The group contributed with expert advice to enhance and promote the landscape of the rural hill territory of Monteprandone (AP) within the revision of the PRG. On this occasion, a Hill Agricultural Park was proposed with the aim of protecting and promoting the identifying values of the municipal territory, especially those linked to quality agriculture and food production (wine and oil) by maintaining or reinserting agricultural activities in the landscape. The Agricultural Park is a model of territorial planning aimed at integrating territorial governance and rural development plans, and it is proposed as a factor of integrated territorial requalification, focusing on a model of multi‐functional and multi‐productive agriculture. It acts on two levels: an institutional level of territorial government, and a voluntary level, aggregating local actors, putting local societies to work, and creating relationships through a network. The territory affected by the Agricultural Park was identified by investigating the landscape and agronomy and mapping the agricultural businesses present. It covers an overall area of 1635 Ha. The perimeter of the park intentionally encompasses the current settled areas as well as some of the areas of expansion in the new PRG. This endows the new tool with a strong innovative character that goes beyond enhancement of the territory and local production to establish new relationships between the country and the city. The Agricultural Park pursues the following goals. Protecting biodiversity, prestigious natural elements, and the overall environmental balance of the territory, consolidating the ecological function of the agricultural territory in relation to the settlement system of the City of Monteprandone. Protecting the morphological structures and geomorphological peculiarities, with particular regard for the system of hilltops. Protecting and enhancing the landscape/cultural importance of the territory, the historical evidence of anthropization, buildings, and rural settlement systems. Promoting quality agricultural and winemaking activities connected to the sustainable, compatible use of natural resources. Promoting agricultural activities as an element to enhance and qualify the territory, even for tourism. Incentivizing cultural, educational, and recreational activities connected to environmental fruition and tourism promotion in the territory.

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The main actions in creating the Park relate to: use and accessibility; requalifying the existing building heritage; enhancing the agrarian landscape; agricultural forestation and environmental requalification; promoting a free‐trade group. One of the actions deals with promoting sustainable mobility within the Park, with two types of paths: landscape paths, which connect the park by car with the hill territory, the centre of Centobuchi, and the Tronto River; agrotourism paths, which use different means of travel (horse, bicycle, walking), that allow the park territory to be discovered and which reach the different territorial agricultural companies. 3.

The Brazilian experience: the wine landscape in the Italian colony of Rio Grande do Sul among enhancement processes and the risk of losing local identity

The present contribution is the partial result of critical/comparative international research5 regarding the origin and destination of the first Italian immigrants in Brazil, with particular reference to territories in the State of Rio Grande do Sul. Research into the landscape/territorial aspects around the city of Bento Gonçalves in the Serra Gaucha and in some areas of the Province of Belluno in Italy forms the background to the main research topic. The project focused on the critical comparison of lesser rural buildings according to criteria of spatial syntax. The large number of Italian immigrants originating from the current area of Belluno constitutes the space/time anchor with the City of Bento Gonçalves.

3.1 Historical references European emigration to Brazil began around 1820, but really expanded in the middle of the last century. In about 100 years, Brazil welcomed about 1,500,000 Italians, representing about a third of all immigrants and making them the second largest ethnic community in the country. Most immigration occurred between 1887 and 1902, when about 900,000 Italians entered Brazil headed for the inland areas of São Paulo to work in the coffee fazendas and the interior areas of the State of Rio Grande do Sul. The flux decreased afterwards both due to the decision by the Italian government to prohibit subsidized emigration and due to the crisis of coffee overproduction. The fazendas and the State of São Paulo remained in any case the primary goal of immigrants. Until 1915 there was a net predominance of small families and agricultural manpower. In this group, people from the Veneto Region represent the largest contingent, counting about 35% of the arrivals in Brazil between 5

“Colonizzazione italiana nel Rio Grande do Sul: memoria e struttura dello spazio. Studio critico comparativo tra Bento Gonçalves/RS e le terre di orgine (Colonização Italiana no Rio Grande do Sul: Memória e Estruturação do Espaço. Estudo crítico‐comparativo entre Bento Gonçalves/RS e as terras de origem)”; principal investigator E. Trusiani (Sapienza University of Rome/UNICAM), Livia Piccinini (UFRGS/Porto Alegre), Decio Rigatti (UniRitter/Porto Alegre). The research was financed by the Sapienza International Sector under a bilateral agreement with UFRGS in Porto Alegre.

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1878 and 1902. As of 1950, of more than a million Italian emigrants, about three‐fifths originated in the Triveneto region and two‐thirds of this total settled in São Paulo. From the mid 1800s, the Brazilian government began to promote the colonization of vast uninhabited areas in order to guarantee border safety and counteract the indigenous people in controlling the land. In 1848 the emperor had provided public lands and grants to those charged with bringing colonists to occupy and work those areas, thus creating a rural class. Governmental controls to assign the colonists to the states of Rio Grande do Sul, Santa Catarina, and Paranà began around 1850 when a law declared all lands without a legally recognized owner to be property of the State. Starting in 1867, Brazil had a policy of attracting farming manpower not only with intense publicity, but also by offering maritime transport and contracted recruitments. These consisted of an agreement in which the government conceded land to a businessman, who in turn worked to populate and cultivate those areas with European colonists, reassigning the lots and dividing the payments into instalments. The Triveneto region, in particular, became an inexhaustible supply of manpower in search of better conditions. The agrarian crisis, the ill‐fated consequences of the pébrine that affected silkworm breeding, the arrival of European merchants of Chinese and Japanese silk and Indian rice at low prices had greatly impoverished the entire area. The need for Italians to find new outlets coincided with the need for Brazil to find a work force, especially for the coffee‐ cultivating regions and after 1850 when, pushed by London, the Brazilian government ended the slave trade, leading to the Lei do Ventre Livre6 in 1871. The migratory flux increased between 1885 and 1897, incentivized by travel subsidies, and, beginning in 1894, immigrants were directed in particular towards São Paulo. Around 1875, farmers from the Veneto Region began to reach the states of southern Brazil, attracted by the realistic perspective of becoming landowners, with the possibility of adapting easily to a mild climate similar to their homeland, thus allowing the cultivation of familiar products. Plots of land in the colonies varied between 25 and 60 Ha and were conceded only to families. Land assignments were dictated by colony management, but were often made by extraction; the lot had to be released in 5–10 years starting from the second year. The families had to deforest and prepare the terrain for cultivation, build their own housing, and see to opening roads and marking the property borders. The impact with this reality, with the luxuriant, thriving vegetation was initially shocking. Schools and medical assistance were lacking. The scarcity of good streets made communication, and especially the commercialization of products, difficult. Finally, the relationship with the Indians was problematic, generated conflicts, and in some cases led to punitive expeditions. The most characteristic settlement is the region of Rio Grande. The government had in fact marked out a very wide, totally uncultivated, mountainous area where the conditions of life were very hard. Despite this, the rate of abandonment was low. A strong spirit of adaptation, a great work capacity, a profound religiousness, and a solid family structure allowed the Italians to survive. In these isolated areas, the homogeneous provenance of the immigrants allowed for the attachment to and maintenance of uses, customs, traditions, and original language. In establishing themselves, the farmers even transplanted their own agriculture. These were grapevines first and foremost, whose cultivation would give rise to a territory and landscape that is unique in Brazil, and that, while with some transformations and modifications that endanger its most indigenous and structural cultural characteristics, today represents an economic, cultural, and tourist resource for Rio Grande do Sul. 6

The ‘Free Womb Law’ granted freedom to the children of slave mothers, but only upon reaching adulthood. Slavery was abolished in 1888. th

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3.2 The vineyard landscape of Bento Gonçalves: origin, evolution, and trends The research identified some landscapes within the territory of Bento Gonçalves, a municipality established in 1890 by the fusion of the two Italian colonies: Dona Isabel and Conde D’Eu. In these areas, the industrial vineyard landscape and the rural family‐vineyard landscape represent the areas that substantially mark the territory beyond the spatially dominant area of the Atlantic forest. These are two areas where grapevine cultivation strongly characterizes the territory. The traditional and original means of latada (pergola) are maintained and reproduced and are joined by the more recent espaldeiras (espalier) originating in a process to modernize production, operated by new generations in contact and cultural and educational exchange with Italy. Vegetation in the Bento Gonçalves territory is characterized by heterogeneous, differentiated landscapes that range from a strong degree of territorial anthropization represented by the typical winemaking culture to structures with a very natural landscape character such as Mata Atlantica. Anthropic vegetation covers a greater surface area than natural vegetation, and is characterized mainly by large areas of Vitis vinifera cultivation that marks the hilly orography of the territory. As mentioned previously, the vines were introduced at the end of the 1800s by emigrants from the Veneto Region. Today they constitute the main territorial landmark, with the historical/cultural value of the homeland. Within the vineyards, the tree species Platanus occidentalis (plane tree) is very common, along with shrub‐like varieties of roses. Both are explicit representations of Italian country traditions from the beginning of the 1900s. Plane trees are used to support the planting layout of the vines and have a strong perceptual impact on the entire extent, characterizing and defining the structure and margins of each vineyard system. Roses are instead used at the end of each row of vines as a biological indicator and as a signal for treatment against eventual parasites and fungal diseases. This is because roses are more sensitive than the vines and are the first to detect parasitic attacks. In the historical evolution of vine cultivation and the consequent creation of a unique landscape— and even in the economics—it is important to highlight some important moments7. Around ten years after the arrival of the Italians, the territory ‘made available whatever was needed, and even better that there was … wine, grain, cheese, salami, animals in large quantities…. Wine everywhere, made purely of grapes, without sulphites, sugar, or other added ingredients…’ (Lorenzoni). Grapevine cultivation allowed for continuity between original knowledge and local practice, which transformed the territory into a social space and ensured that the inhabitants could recognize each other within winemaking, bringing them into healthy contact with each other. Current winemaking in the Vale dos Vinhedos, located along the Leopoldina railway, moved quickly from subsistence cultivation to primary cultivation, becoming the main economic resource of the entire area. In 1907 the agricultural syndicate was founded with the aim of reinforcing technology and agricultural production in order to improve local products, especially wine, and to commercialize them beyond the confines of Rio Grande do Sul. Contact with the homeland was constant, and representatives from the Italian government visiting at the beginning of the 1900s suggested sending specialized people known today as oenologists and agronomists. This gave rise to the Porto Alegre School of Engineering, which shortly after welcomed German, Italian, French, and American professors as well as experts in oenology and agriculture. Latada was the original cultivation system, which is similar in some respects to the pergola used in Trentino, i.e., horizontal cultivation that guarantees greater productivity and an excellent grape yield. This system immediately conferred an unmistakable image on the Bento Gonçalves territory and the entire region of the Italian colony, a 7

Related to this, see the Master’s thesis by Marilei Elisabete Piana Giordani, “Por tras das perreiras: embates da paisagem cultural vinicola e a urbanizaçao‐ Vale dos Vinhedos, Bento Gonçalves, RS, UFRGS, School of Architecture, PROPUR. th

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visual success of the original knowledge and local practice/adaptation seen above. This landscape made of vines, roses, and plane trees allows change to be seen throughout the year, with its chromatic variations that mark the seasons. This is in contrast to the Atlantic forest, which instead tends to remain chromatically constant. The American grape, however, did not necessarily lead to quality wine, and the idea began to spread among experts that a different, almost industrialized production was necessary, one that foresaw the use of vitis vinifera with an espaldeiras system. At the beginning of the 1930s, wine was the main product exported by the colony and the winemaking sector economically and spatially determined the structure of the territory. It became the distinctive sign of the Italian colony and a local richness calling for new structures, activities, businesses, and professions. Winemaking cooperatives and the winemaking syndicate of Rio Grande do Sul (1927) were created, followed by the main Rio Grande cooperatives. ‘The exportation of wine and spumante began in 1938 with 46 litres. Ten years later it had reached 246,000 litres’ (Gobatto). The increase in production continued throughout the 50s, 60s, and 70s. In 1967 the first National Wine Festival (Fenavinho) was organized. Starting in the 1990s, the process of recognizing the economic/cultural value of the territory began, along with what can be defined as the cultural landscape of the Italian colony limited to this area of study. In fact, the process that would lead to recognition of territorial certification began. This is a process that begins with the APROVALE association, a group of six winemaking cooperatives out of the ten that existed in 1995, with the aim of promoting and sustainably developing the Vale dos Vinhedos through wine tourism as an economic cultural flywheel for the entire region of the Italian colony. This gave rise to the request for a wine Certificaçao de Indicaçao de Procedencia (Certificate of Origin Indication) and the Vale dos Vinhedos Denominaçao de Origem (Designation of Origin). These recognize geographical origin and aim to promote and create added value around a single product, relying on the historical/cultural heritage of the homeland, a heritage that is unique and non‐ transferrable, expressed by the local landscape. The Indicaçao Geografica de Territorio Vinicola was created in 2002, followed by the Denominaçao de Origem in 2012. These are important recognitions, but they contain different indications and criteria for protection that undermine the cultural identity of the territory itself. The first allows only cultivation of Vitis vinifera, banning American and hybrid cultivation, and recognizes the latada structure as an element of the cultural identity of the area, but does not ban other solutions that look to qualitatively or quantitatively improve the wine. Thus began a slow substitution of and/or new espalderias cultivation that is slowly changing the Vale dos Vinhedos landscape because it was adopted by the large APROVALE winemaking companies. In addition, the Denominaçao de Origem, in effect because it was the last recognition to be obtained, forbids the latada use and promotes the espaldeiras system for the reasons mentioned above. It is clear that this is a unique Brazilian landscape, an area of national and international tourism undergoing a phase of advanced transition between a consolidated process of quality recognition and an intense process of territorial enhancement to modify the structural elements of the landscape. It is a landscape where protecting the identifying characteristics of a historical/cultural heritage would seem, even if only apparently, not to mesh with the most advanced production systems and requests for quality. While it remains a principally winemaking landscape, these changes, starting from the planting systems and production, incite some reflections on the management of cultural landscapes. The economic enhancement of an extra‐urban territory has triggered a process of expanding some winemaking cooperatives, not always in ways that agree with the historical/cultural characteristics of the territory. It is here that management of the territory and its values and characteristics comes into play, thus forming a link with planning tools capable of governing the territory.

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Conclusion

When we eat or drink a quality product, we also want to understand where and how it was produced and what the symbolism associated with it is. We want to know if the product comes from afar, what culture generated it, what producer made it, and what the production techniques were. An act of reciprocal concurrence therefore develops between agricultural production and the landscape. As a first step, the agriculture produces the landscape; the landscape then becomes added value for the food or wine product associated with it. A short circuit is therefore created that connects the quality of the landscape to the quality of the food ever more closely. Reinforcement of this link can favour new forms of economic development in Europe that is also more sustainable because it is more attentive to the quality and identity of places and the expectations of local communities. To promote this connection, actions aimed at territorial marketing are not enough; it is necessary for public administrations to commit themselves to integrated actions and regulatory tools to protect and enhance the landscape. This is true in both the Italian and Brazilian cases. In the Piceno area, the indications and orientations for the large‐ and local‐scale planning systems set out in ‘The need for innovation in regional agriculture and food production’ and the provisions of the Agricultural Park in the PRG of Monteprandone represent an attempt to make the landscape assume a strategic role in developing policies, actions, and measures for intervention aimed at landscape enhancement, territorial requalification, and quality agricultural production. To do this, the wine landscape should be considered a fundamental heritage of the history, culture, and competitiveness of the territory. It cannot depend on spontaneous economic choices, but becomes the object of land planning analogous to what occurs for settled urban areas. In the case of Brazil, the process of tourism enhancement on a cultural basis presents some problems that require special attention. The optimal, fertile organization of wine production also does not correspond to the other tourism‐related aspects of the region. This can be seen, for example, in the lack of a wider and more strategic view of planning and in the weakness in some cases of public power compared to the pressure of the construction market. One example is the large transformation underway along the main colonial roads such as the Caminho das Pedra and the Vale dos Vinhedos, where the intense, continuous annual flux of tourists has given rise to buildings and activities external to the vineyard circuit, posing a problem related to building density rather than to the sale of products, which is always the expression of the territorial culture. The most evident, urgent question from the landscape perspective is the condominios fechados, that is, urban settlements (second houses) located in the middle of rural areas. These destroy the structural signs of the original colonies historically composed of long narrow lots, which is a completely unusual rural/urban landscape in the context. Growing awareness on behalf of the rural population has had the effect not only of blocking the construction of some condominiums, but also of prohibiting their introduction within the entire area pertaining to the Caminho das Pedras, despite the fact that the local plan permits it. These conflicts demonstrate how the economic value of the vineyard landscape can be a double‐edged sword for the entire area, if managed in a sectorial way and only through the approach of territorial marketing. An opportunity and a need not to separate rural and urban areas, protected landscapes and transformed landscapes also emerge from the two experiences presented. On the contrary, there exists a need to promote an overall territorial project that sees in the enhancement and (overall) landscape requalification the key to interpret and design each action and intervention aimed at development. In both experiences, local communities and agricultural businesses play a primary role. Collaboration is also required to ensure care for the territory, conservation of the landscape, and the promotion of territorial culture.

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THE IDEALIZATION OF A "BARCELONA MODEL" FOR MARKETS RENOVATION Sergi Garriga Bosch1, Josep Maria Garcia‐Fuentes2

Keywords: market halls, Barcelona, renovation, urban studies, food supply chains Abstract: The detailed study of markets provides valuable information about the changes and relations between urban trends and food practices in cities. In the case of Barcelona, the operations of preserving and renovating market halls during the last 30 years are a true record of the urban changes and they conceal a socioeconomic project often overshadowed by iconic architectures. In this paper we analyze the early stages of the markets' renovation policies in Barcelona, which has been strongly characterized by the Special Plan for Food Retailing Facilities (known by the Catalan acronym PECAB), written in 1986. To this aim we will contextualize the origins and motivations of these renovations in the European urban framework of the 70s and the 80s. Instead of thinking of the Barcelona case as a unique and exceptional experience, we will rather understand the resulting policies as local answers to the urban theories of that time. We will then present the unusual conditions and constraints in Barcelona to finally pursue a better understanding of the social structures and the food supply chains fostered by these market renovations.

The context for a markets renovation policy

During the last recent years, we have seen how interest for markets has grown exponentially. Its role as urban assets has been explored and largely experimented by the municipalities resulting in a wide and varied panorama of experiences. However, we cannot understand these experiences as isolated phenomena, but as operations in which cross transferences between different cases play a fundamental role. For this reason, it is important to focus on the global context in which they emerge and are developed as well as on the characteristics that distinguish each case. 1.1

The raise of public awareness on the preservation of iron architecture and market hall structures: Les Halles in Paris

After II World War two related debates emerged: on the one hand, the modern reconstruction of cities and, on the other hand, the preservation of the architectural and monumental heritage of cities. At this doorstep, many market halls built during the 19th century were destroyed to leave space for new commercial forms. During the war, markets received small investment so they soon became obsolete and were seen as anachronistic food distribution systems in front of the progress of the cities (Schmiechen & Carls, 1999). In contrast, supermarkets and commercial malls proved their efficiency, competitiveness and adaptation to the urban patterns advocated by the Modern Movement: zoning, use of private transport and energy consumption (Koolhaas, Chung, Cha, & Inaba, 2001). Furthermore, agriculture was getting into what Harriet Friedmann would call the "second food regime" in which industrialization, internationalization, mechanization and dependency on oil and chemistry characterized agricultural production (Friedmann, 1987). However, given these sudden changes it became clear that gradual awareness for lost heritage was arising. Alarms were triggered by the destruction of Les Halles in Paris, in 1971. This building, 1 2

Polytechnic University of Catalonia, sergi.garriga@upc.edu Newcastle University, josep.garciafuentes@ncl.ac.uk

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admired and copied by almost all countries in Europe during the 19th century, was being demolished and relocated to the outskirts to avoid operative problems in the city center and improve its distribution efficiency. This strategic decision enabled the arrival of goods from sources farther away. Consequently, this contributed to the homogenization of the food retail sector across regions, without regard to local diets and products. In this same year, Hermione Hobhouse published Lost London, a compilation of the most singular architectures that London had lost during the previous decades. She also warned of the social need to protect historic buildings in order to prevent London from becoming a Manhattan‐like city, "unattainable and unattractive to the middle classes" (Hobhouse, 1971). Also in Spain, the journal CAU published in 1975 a special issue that listed many buildings in danger. The fact that a large part of the selected building was related to food distribution is symptomatic of the changes that were taking place. This approach was drawn in the actions carried out to preserve the Covent Garden Market and El Born Market in Barcelona —two wholesale markets that were relocated following the guidelines of Les Halles. In both cases, the primary concern was tightly related to the architectural and historical legacy of the buildings. So the neighborhood and conservationist associations gathered to protect them from disappearing and to protect their communities from loosing an inherent representation of their history. The governments ended up recognizing them as listed buildings, although initially they had planned to demolish them. These movements saw market halls as identity signs of their neighborhoods and contributed to preserve the buildings as constituent parts of their historical memory. However, the activity was no longer supported. That was —and still is— the most common attitude towards the surviving market halls. Nowadays, they are being transformed to accommodate new activities like exhibition spaces, cultural centers, theaters or, in many cases, food hubs, largely dedicated to restaurants. But there is another side of the coin. Market activity is now being vindicated as a strong urban asset and it is adopting new forms out of the market halls more appropriate to the contemporary reality. They have proved their impact in different communities; they can contribute to undergo economic initiatives —both, bottom up and top down—, as well as address urban changes. 1.2

Towards a comprehensive preservation: the Plan for the historical center of Bologna

However, in Barcelona, the El Born case is an extremely unique example. This is because market halls in the city of Barcelona were preserved regardless of their monumental and historic values. Less than half of them were examples of valuable iron architecture from the end of the 19th century while the others were built in concrete during Franco’s dictatorship to supply the outlying neighborhoods. Nevertheless, the PECAB —Special Plan for Food Retailing Facilities (1986)— did not conceive them as isolated elements in the city but as an urban system with the potential at both the local and the municipal scale. Therefore, it was the potential of the whole rather than the individual value of each market hall what gave a comprehensive sense of preservation. This meant not only preserving the building but also the activity in it and its socioeconomic environment, as it was stated in the theoretical foundations of the reconstruction plan for the historic center of Bologna during the 60s and the 70s. Although it is difficult to evaluate the feasibility of this plan —which soon started receiving critics—, it had a significant impact on the European urban debate (Angotti & Dale, 1976; Marston Fitch, 1990). The Bologna Plan understood the area to preserve as a settlement with buildings as much as people and organizations with the aim to keep a certain "urban atmosphere" (Cervellati, De Angelis, & Scannavini, 1977; Cervellati & Scannavini, 1973). This conservationist approach had strong political

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and ideological implications. The plan not only expected an exhaustive restoration of the buildings according to the existing documentation, but also the preservation of the uses and activities to ensure the continuity of the social and economic values of the area, accepting the arising consequences. Also in this regard, the Bologna Plan matches the origins of the PECAB in Barcelona, closer to a socioeconomic project than a monumental one. On the one hand, although markets were decaying in front of the supermarkets, the City Council of Barcelona decided to keep them as an urban public service. On the other hand, each market preserved the activity with the aim to establish a commercial polarity in each neighborhood that could help to overcome the deep crisis of the retail sector at that time (Ajuntament de Barcelona, 1986; Maymó, 1984). The protection of this small commercial activity in front of the spread of the supermarkets had and implicit desire: preventing the local and traditional trade from disappearing as an operation of protecting a constituent "urban atmosphere" of the compact Mediterranean city. At that point, the City Council began a policy of refurbishing the market halls to make them more competitive in a more liberalized environment, upgrading their logistical core. 1.3

To preserve or to renovate? The IBA in Berlin

In the 70s, criticism to the Modern Movement consolidated throughout Europe, and consideration for the existing city was substituting the abstract practice of developing supposedly universal models. This turn to focus on the existing became evident with the writings from Colin Rowe to Leon Krier, with a general interest in the urban assessments of the 19th century, like Camillo Sitte. Many of these theories converged in the project for Barcelona elaborated by Oriol Bohigas —head of the City's Planning Office, 1984‐1991—, which led to a prolific activity during the 80s. These projects focused on solving specific problems in the existing city with significant attention to architecture and urban morphology (Ajuntament de Barcelona & Àrea d’Urbanisme, 1983). Bohigas advocated for the "reconstruction" of the city to overcome the urban "development" needs. For him, interventions in the existing should accommodate the future developments of the city, and the projects had to be "contemporary, that is to say, respectful but creative" (Bohigas, 1985). These ideas on reconstruction were largely tested during the 70s and the 80s within the framework of the IBA in Berlin. The underlying intent of the Berlin International Building Exhibition —Internationale Bauausstellung—, under the leadership of Josef Paul Kleihues and Hardt Waltherr Hämer, highlights the analysis of the city's history and the search for a contemporary equivalent. Under the name of "critical reconstruction" or "careful urban renewal", the IBA suggested the adaptation of the former structures to the current needs. In this regard, the PECAB is an example of preservation, but above all it is also a regeneration project that has taken the markets legacy as a starting point. It interprets the historical role of markets in the structuring of the traditional city and updates their attributes to inscribe them in a totally different city governed by new economic laws, new producing standards and new consuming trends. In Barcelona, this approach led to the renovation, refurbishment and modernization of the market halls and the market activity. And over time, this practice has progressively defined some recognizable characteristics of the renewed Barcelona markets: first of all, the introduction of an entrepreneurial thinking (Cabruja, 1990). Sellers are no longer licensees of a service to become tenants of a physical space. This fosters the capitalization of the stalls that grow in dimension and decrease in number. At the same time, the seller becomes also an investor and adopts a proactive attitude towards the revitalization and the success of the market. Secondly, the use of supermarkets inside the market hall to generate a symbiotic relationship with the stalls. This needs to be carefully

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designed so that the supermarket gets a place inside the market hall but in turns the market ensures a reliable flow of people and controls the competition in the area outside the building. The interpretation of the new consumption habits and social changes —female participation in the labor force and changes in family structures and time schedules— is a key element for this modernization. All these factors combined can offer a wide commercial mix, a one‐stop‐shopping experience. And finally, the opening of the market halls façade to the public space for the advent of new relations and activities as a way of revealing and emphasizing the permeable nature of the market. In parallel, architecture has also played an important role in the popularization of market halls, though not a central one in their success or failure. However, the undeniable efforts and construction costs of some of the interventions, mainly those in the central areas of the city —like Santa Caterina (2005), la Barceloneta (2007) or recently El Ninot (2015) or Sant Antoni (2016)—, highlights the interest to include markets into the set of institutions which serve as urban references in the city. Food culture —like the Mediterranean Diet or the Slow Food— is adopting a representative role supported by renovated market halls architecture since they are a new asset in their promotion (Garriga Bosch, 2015). Nevertheless, in spite of this traditional imagery promoted by the markets themselves, data reveals another reality. The 72% of the produce sold in the market halls comes from Mercabarna (41,7%) — the biggest wholesale cluster in the metropolitan area—, distributors (22,0%) and other wholesalers (14,8%), while the amount of produce directly bought to producers or of own production represents the 15,4% (Ajuntament de Barcelona & Institut Municipal de Mercats de Barcelona, 2009). Also, while in 1996 the mean distance of fruits and vegetables reaching Mercabarna was 400km, in 2013 the figure was about 1750km (Garcia Fuentes, Guardia Bassols, & Oyón Bañales, 2014; Mercabarna, 2013). Therefore, it is obvious that although in some countries markets represent an alternative to the standard supply chains, in Barcelona, the renovations of the markets have not restored the logic of the past, but have adapted the markets to the prevailing dynamics of the European contemporary commerce. The idealized version of the Barcelona model emerges between the traditional imagery of markets and the globalized economic context. 2.

Markets' mission change: from need to choice

During Franco’s dictatorship, markets in Barcelona proved to be the most effective way to supply the city and keep prices in check. But with the substantial liberalization of trade, new commercial forms became more efficient and gradually competed for the relative monopoly on food sales that markets had had until the end of the 80s (Guardia Bassols & Fava, 2015). Consumption patterns changed and availability of the commercial forms was multiplied. Consequently, markets lost their main function as a food supply service to become one among the many consumers' choices. This change of purpose motivated a reorientation of the products supplied. On the one hand, it required adaptation and produce specialization —ready or semi‐ready cooked food, gourmetization—. On the other hand, it generated a shift towards the ecologic and local sector and, in general, domains where large supply chains are less likely to access. While adaptation has been the answer in Barcelona to preserve markets, the ecological and local sector also reflects a small but generalized movement in many other places. In theses cases, markets are vindicated once more as an efficient way to supply the consumers' demands concerned about a healthier, local and less homogenized diet. Although they represent a very small share, the exponential growth of farmer's markets in United States or their resilience in France or Germany are indicative of this trend.

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And this is not happening only because of a consumers demand. Producers are seeing their economic margins structurally decrease as productions costs increase due to the need for continuous technological investment, new sanitary regulations and competitive low prices (Renting, 2003; van der Ploeg et al., 2000). Attempts by producers to recapture value in the supply chain, even though they are weak, have references to the Agricultural Park of South Milan, created in 1990. This project, although it established its theoretical bases in the 30s, it consolidated as an answer to the uncontrolled impact of the metropolitan growth of Milan (Calori, 2009; Matarán Ruiz, 2013; Sabaté Bel, 2013). In Barcelona, however, the concern about peri‐urban agriculture led to the creation of the Agricultural Park of the Baix Llobregat in 1998 (Montasell i Dorda, 2006). And today, some producers from the metropolitan area of Barcelona claim for a place to sell their produce avoiding the wholesalers and distributors structures. These claims are resulting into a new generation of open‐air, weekly markets that live together with municipal permanent markets. The former recover the eventual nature of the market. The latter accommodate and shape an urban and a commercial fabric on its surroundings. 3.

Conclusions: defining a model?

The contextualization of the European framework in which the PECAB was developed is needed to avoid localisms and helps us to better understand the nature of the plan for Barcelona market halls. However, it is also essential to highlight the constraints and conditions that make the Barcelona case a singular and therefore a rather unusual experience, very unlikely to be replicated anywhere else. On the one side, it is important to consider the strong presence of the market halls in Barcelona during the second half of the 20th century. While in many other cities markets were becoming huge obsolete urban facilities and falling into disuse, in Barcelona they were consolidated and even increased their presence in the urban structure. That left the city with and exceptional legacy of 40 operative food markets distributed homogenously across the neighborhoods (Guardia, Oyón, & Fava, 2010). Moreover, in 1985, these markets accounted for 45% of total food sales and 75% of fresh produce (Ajuntament de Barcelona, 1986). Therefore, policies focused on preserving and boosting the prominence of these markets as a mechanism to reorganize and consolidate the retail sector throughout the city. Today, this prominence is stabilizing around the 40% in fresh produce. But the urban —and even social— benefits and contributions of these renovations are much more comprehensive than the economic and statistical results and still justify the promotion of markets in front of other commercial forms (Institut Municipal de Mercats de Barcelona, 2014). On the other side, it should be noted that markets in Barcelona are still managed by public authorities. With the advent of private suppliers, many cities gave up on public ownership of markets. Instead of this, Barcelona updated them as a tool to mobilize strategic private investments: a selective public intervention intended to improve the economic and functional efficiency of the city and address the crisis of the retail sector in the 80s. Nowadays, thanks to this strategy, these investments in market halls are enabling spaces to accommodate urban and social processes of regeneration. To take up the challenge of an entrepreneurial management of these markets, in 1991, the Markets' Institute of Barcelona (IMMB) was established. The IMMB is an autonomous body with budgetary and administrative capacity, under the auspices of the City Council, to manage and direct markets. Since then, the Institute has sustained a continuous investment policy of markets evaluation, renovation and promotion; it has established a formal relation with the associations of sellers; as well as it has gathered enough experience to systematize, particularize and undergo the renovation

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of the whole system of market halls in the city. This panorama is in stark contrast to the simplistic assessment in which management and socioeconomic projects are placed in a second level. So, if there is to be a Barcelona model for markets susceptible to be applied in other contexts, it has nothing to do with iconic architecture. In countries like United States or France, markets have a clear function to bring producers and consumers closer together, while in Barcelona, as we have seen, the trend has been quite the opposite. Also, in other contexts, like in the United Kingdom, many markets still play an important part in the less well‐off inhabitants economies, something that is certainly not happening in Barcelona either. In these cases, markets followed different guidelines and are of an entirely different format, focus and organization. Consequently, adopting a model such as Barcelona's one, or a misconception of it, would probably turn into a disorder to the established social structures. In any case, it is evident that markets are the result of a complex socioeconomic structure, both in the city and the agricultural environment. And renovations always reshape them according to the existing contemporary social and economic changes. So, markets become and observatory of the societies that conceive them, and therefore the study of markets transformations highlight their dynamic nature. Markets and the social structure of the city are deeply intertwined. Because, indeed, the act of buying potatoes helps us to understand the social fabric and the territorial structure that cultivate, transport, store, sell, cook and eat them. However, the question that still remains unanswered is: could this happen the other way round? Could a change in our markets foster changes in the economic, commercial and urban policies on different scales? 4.

References

Ajuntament de Barcelona. (1986). Pla Especial de l’Equipament Comercial Alimentari de la Ciutat de Barcelona (PECAB). Barcelona. Ajuntament de Barcelona, & Àrea d’Urbanisme. (1983). Plans i projectes per a Barcelona: 1981/1982. Barcelona: Ajuntament. Àrea d’Urbanisme. Ajuntament de Barcelona, & Institut Municipal de Mercats de Barcelona. (2009). Impacte econòmic directe de la xarxa de Mercats Municipals de Barcelona. Barcelona. Angotti, T. R., & Dale, B. S. (1976). Bologna, Italy: Urban Socialism in Western Europe. Social Policy, (7), 5–11. Bohigas, O. (1985). Reconstrucció de Barcelona. Barcelona: Edicions 62. Cabruja, A. (1990). El futur dels Mercats Municipals. Barcelona. Calori, A. (2009). Dal parco agricolo alla regione milanese: Empowerment degli attori per la riconquista della sovranità alimentare. In Pianificare tra città e campagna (pp. 91–114). Firenze: Firenze University Press. Cervellati, P. L., De Angelis, C., & Scannavini, R. (1977). La Nuova cultura delle citta: la salvaguardia dei centri storici, la riappropriazione sociale degli organismi urbani e l’analisi dello sviluppo territoriale nell'esperienza di Bologna. Madrid: Arnoldo Mondadori. Cervellati, P. L., & Scannavini, R. (1973). Bologna: politica e metodologia del restauro nei centri storici. Bologna: Società Editrice Il Mulino. Friedmann, H. (1987). International regimes of food and agriculture. In T. Shanin (Ed.), Peasants and peasant societies (pp. 258–276). Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Garcia Fuentes, J. M., Guardia Bassols, M., & Oyón Bañales, J. L. (2014). Reinventing Edible Identities: Catalan Cuisine and Barcelona’s Market Halls. In R. L. Brulotte & M. Di Giovine (Eds.), Edible Identities: food as cultural heritage (pp. 159–184). Dorchester: Ashgate Publishing Limited. Garriga Bosch, S. (2015). Barcelona markets and city reform. In Food and the City. Padova. Guardia Bassols, M., & Fava, N. (2015). Malls and Commercial Planning Policies in a Compact City: the Case of Barcelona. Guardia, M., Oyón, J. L., & Fava, N. (2010). El sistema de mercats de Barcelona. In M. Guardia & J. L. Oyón (Eds.), Fer ciutat a través dels mercats: Europa, segles XIX i XX (pp. 265–300). Barcelona: Museu d’Història, Institut de Cultura, Ajuntament de Barcelona. th

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Hobhouse, H. (1971). Lost London. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. Koolhaas, R., Chung, C. J., Cha, T.‐W., & Inaba, J. (2001). Harvard Design School: guide to shopping. Köln: Taschen. Marston Fitch, J. (1990). Historic Preservation: Curatorial Management of the Built World. Virginia: University of Virginia Press. Matarán Ruiz, A. (2013). Participación social y energías de contradicción en los espacios agrarios periurbanos. In A. Roca i Torrent & C. Tous de Sousa (Eds.), Percepcions de l’espai agrari periurbà (pp. 45–58). Girona: Fundació Agroterritori. Maymó, J. (1984). Estructura del comerç d’alimentació de Barcelona: el consum i els seus condicionants. Barcelona: Direcció General de Comerç Interior i Consum. Mercabarna. (2013). Informació Estadística. Mercat Central de Fruites i Hortalisses. Barcelona. Montasell i Dorda, J. (2006). Els espais agraris de la regió metropolitanan de Barcelona. L’Atzavara, 14, 73–89. Renting, H. (2003). Understanding alternative food networks: exploring the role of short food supply chains in rural development. Environment and Planning, 35, 393–411. Sabaté Bel, J. (2013). Urbanismo y agricultura periurbana. In A. Roca i Torrent & C. Tous de Sousa (Eds.), Percepcions de l’espai agrari periurbà (pp. 27–31). Girona: Fundació Agroterritori. Schmiechen, J., & Carls, K. (1999). The British market hall: a social and architectural history. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press. Van der Ploeg, J. D., Renting, H., Brunori, G., Knickel, K., Mannion, J., Marsden, T., Ventura, F. (2000). Rural Development: From Practices and Policies towards Theory. Sociologia Ruralis, 40(4), 391–408.

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PARTICIPATORY PLANNING FOR COMMUNITY GARDENS: PRACTICES THAT FOSTER COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT Patricia Bon1 Keywords: Participatory Planning, Community Engagement, Empowerment, Community Garden, Community Development Abstract: Community gardens are a powerful tool for improving the urban environment, and the benefits associated with them have been well recognized in both popular publications and in academia. Unfortunately, we often see community gardens fail. Literature suggests that the considerable rate of failure may be brought upon by lack of community engagement. In light of this premise, this paper aims to identify practices used in a planning process that enhance community engagement. In order to do this, this paper analyzes the case of a unique community‐driven, participatory planning process developed for a community garden in Chicago, La Huerta Roots & Rays. 1.

Introduction

Community gardens are a powerful tool for improving the urban environment (Ferris 2001; Lawson 2005; Shinew 2004; Yotti 2006; Twiss et al. 2003). They help revitalize communities by improving health (Alaimo, 2008; Lackey, 1998; Robinson‐O’Brien, 2009), increase food access (Lackey 1998; Bleasedale et al. 2011), maintain green space, increase biodiversity and conserve wildlife habitat (Beran et al. 2012), promote social justice (Lackey 1998), reduce crime rates (Herod 2013), increase property values (Been 2006), and build social capital (Lawson 2005; Shinew 2005). Overall, community gardens are a great tool to help overcome some of our most pressing contemporary urban issues. Unfortunately, many community gardens fail in their first few years. According to Beran et al. (2012), Kearney (2009) and Thomas (2008), lack of community engagement is one of the main reasons that community gardens fail. With this in mind, this paper aims to identify practices that enhance engagement during the planning process, in an attempt to contribute to their longevity and success. In particular, we are interested in practices used during community planning processes that increase feelings of ownership and commitment, and foster a tangible connection between people and place. We will do this by analyzing the community‐driven, participatory planning process for La Huerta Roots & Rays, a community garden prized by the American Planning Association (APA‐IL) for their successful community outreach initiative during the planning process and continued community involvement following implementation. We examine the collaborative nature of the planning techniques they used and detail the process from conception to implementation, extracting useful experiences and practices that may be applicable to planning in general. The following section discusses the relevance of community gardens for urban planners and includes a literature review that establishes the importance of community engagement for the long‐term sustainability of community gardens. A description of the methodology used comes next, and finally the case study itself, followed by an analysis of the findings and the conclusion. 1

Patricia Bon, University of Illinois at Chicago, patriciabon@gmail.com

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Literature Review

The notion that community gardens bring great benefits to urban areas is widely accepted (Ferris 2001; Lackey 1998; Lawson 2005; Shinew 2004; Yotti 2006; Malakoff 1995; Hancock 2001; Carney et al. 2012, Twiss et al. 2003). They benefit urban environments in multiple ways and are often praised for their positive effects on communities and on urban revitalization. Unfortunately, a large proportion of these projects fail in their early years. In order to understand why they fail and how we can increase the rate of success, it is crucial to understand the dynamics behind a successful garden. Even though the physical and logistical aspects of community gardens may seem to be a priority, ‐ such as securing land, funding and other material resources ‐, a community garden is in fact, above all, more about the community that grows around it than about gardening itself (Glover et al. 2004). There are two main reasons for this. First, the motivation to establish a community garden often comes from a community’s willingness to address a common problem, “notably urban decline and the criminal activity often associated with it” (Glover 2004, 143). Second, because a community garden is a relatively complex project that requires constant management and tending; it “cannot succeed with the enthusiasm of just one or two people” (Thomas 2008, 10). It needs strong community engagement, which will bring the resources the garden needs to success. In fact, having people committed to the garden project is the first step for a successful implementation (ibid). In the same way that the presence of community involvement is fundamental for the success of a garden, the lack of community involvement usually leads to a garden’s demise. As a study on community gardening in New Hampshire states, the failure of a community garden is usually caused by a failure of human relationships (Beran et al. 2012). As the authors state, “rarely was failure based on mechanical problems, lack of money, or issues concerning soil, property, or irrigation” (Beran et al. 2012, 11). As established above, community involvement is a crucial factor for the long‐term sustainability of community gardens. But how can we enhance community participation and engagement? A participatory planning process may be a powerful tool to foster community engagement. As Thomas argues, one way to avoid community garden failure is to foster a sense of ownership from the beginning of the project (Thomas 2008), and having community members plan the project together may be the ideal way to do this. With this in mind, this paper aims to identify a set of practices that enhance engagement during the planning process. In particular, we are interested in practices used during community planning processes that increase feelings of ownership and commitment, and foster a tangible connection between people and place. We will do this by analyzing the community‐driven, participatory planning process for La Huerta Roots & Rays, a community garden in Chicago. We examine the collaborative nature of the planning techniques they used and detail the process from conception to implementation, highlighting a set of useful experiences that may be applicable to planning in general. The next section will explain the methodology used in this research. 3.

Methodology

The data for this case study was collected primarily through participant observation. I had been an active member of La Huerta Roots & Rays since March of 2012 and acted as project manager for the remediation and redevelopment of the garden since the conception of the project through to May 2014 when the basic reconstruction was completed. This intensive participation gave me an insider’s perspective of the dynamics between the garden organization and the wider community.

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I recognize, however, some of the perils of participant observation – Yin (1994) states that, beyond the usual weaknesses of direct observation, participant observation may introduce “bias due to investigator’s manipulation of events” (p. 80). I understand that I have written this report playing a dual role of researcher and agent of change, and I have tried to remain objective and impartial by being reflexive about where I stand. In order to maintain objectivity, I have tried to support my arguments with evidence from what was seen on the ground. 4.

The Case

4.1

Background of the Garden

La Huerta Roots & Rays is a community garden in Chicago that was founded in 2008. The garden was run by a small group of white, middle class, young American students, even though the site is located in Pilsen, an overwhelmingly Latino neighborhood. By 2013, the garden had been all but abandoned, with few members still involved. At this time, new leadership emerged with a desire to revitalize the space and broaden the membership base. They recognized that wider participation in the garden would be a good strategy for community building through placemaking. Their intention was to expand and diversify the membership base by engaging long‐term residents and involving residents of different age groups and cultural backgrounds. Around the same time, a critical issue came to light. After completing extensive environmental tests, gardeners discovered that the soil at the site was contaminated. Even though they followed gardening best practices, levels of contaminants were so high that these precautions were not enough and the area still posed a risk to the children in the neighborhood. An opportunity emerged to remediate the site with support from NeighborSpace (a non‐profit land trust dedicated to providing long‐term protection for community gardens in Chicago). The process would involve removing 3 feet of soil from roughly 30% of the garden area (approximately 400 tons of soil) and replacing it with clean soil. This meant that the garden would have to pull up all of its existing structures, essentially destroying what had been built over the past 5 years. It also meant that after the remediation the garden would have to be rebuilt from scratch. It was a huge task, both to remediate and to reconstruct the garden. The cost of the remediation alone was estimated at U$35,000. The garden leadership organized a meeting with the garden group in October 2013 to talk about the proposition to remediate the site. Their intention was to understand the members’ feelings regarding the remediation and necessary reconstruction of the space. After much discussion, garden members concluded that even though the remediation would come as a great inconvenience to everyone, it was their moral duty to move forward with it. Pilsen had very few green spaces, and because of the high levels of pollution all around, after remediation the garden would be one of the only clean and safe areas available for public use. The decision was made. The opportunity to remediate the site and transform it into a clean, safe location served as a catalyst for garden leaders to jump into action. And so, with this in mind, the team started to develop a community planning process to engage the residents and transform the space.

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4.2

The Planning Process

The planning process included six sessions, including an initial session, followed by four development sessions, and finally, an integration session, when they brought everything together and created the site plan. 4.2.1 Initial Planning Session The planning team decided that the first community meeting would be dedicated to understanding the goals and objectives of the community, and they would loosely base the following sessions on their findings from that day. The session was structured around three activities: envisioning the future; feedback from the community; and determining the goals and objectives for the plan. About 35 people attended the meeting. The first activity was a visioning exercise that encouraged participants to close their eyes and “imagine the garden if...”. The results were used as the foundation for the vision statement. The planning team identified what the community’s priorities for the garden were in their second exercise. The whole group participated in a brief discussion and together they chose 12 categories to vote on. Participants then received dot stickers and were asked to vote on the categories. After voting and debating, they determined 4 priorities for the garden. The final exercise asked participants to write down their ideas for what they would like to see in the space. A total of 168 suggestions were made, and ranged from physical structures like raised beds to activities like classes and workshops. The results from these three exercises combined shaped the proposed goals and objectives for the redevelopment of the garden (La Huerta Roots & Rays 2013 “Goals and Objectives Matrix”, p. 42) and were used to structure the following planning sessions. 4.2.2 Development Sessions and Meeting Structure The following four sessions were focused on developing the topics identified by the community in the initial planning session. Each week had one particular emphasis and each session was structured around a particular theme or goal, with activities, exercises and discussions that allowed participants to deepen their understanding around a particular matter or build consensus regarding specific issues. They tried to be creative and make the meetings as engaging as possible and so used different media, different presenters and different settings. The activities also included a lot of moving around and props and they avoided sitting around a table for too long and letting conversations drag on. They also tried to break up the size of discussion groups; sometimes they would have large group discussions and keep stack of people who wanted to speak, sometimes they would break into small groups then reconvene and have one representative from each group present their findings. They quickly learned that their planning process was a living being, and that they had to adapt the structure of the meetings to suit the needs of the particular sessions. Sometimes this involved creating new processes from scratch. For example, one of the critical decisions they had to make was to determine how much of the growing area of the garden would be dedicated to individual, collective, or donation beds. The group was very divided about this and everyone felt very passionately about it. It was clear to them that if they tried to make a decision about this by talking it over with the whole group and trying to reach consensus, they would use up one entire 3‐hour session, if not more.

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They decided that they needed a process that was brief and democratic. After brainstorming, the planning team came up with a process of voting with beans, whereby each garden member would receive 10 beans, and they would use them to distribute the percentages they felt each of the three growing areas should receive. On the day of, they had a brief group discussion on the topic and then they swiftly moved on to the vote. They managed to make a decision in less than 40 minutes. Participants felt the decision was reached fairly and overall garden members were pleased with the outcome. The planning team tried to pull in participants to present to the group as much as possible, whenever they found they could bring in a level of expertise that was missing from the conversation. Having personal knowledge about many of the participants beforehand, as they were already involved with the garden, and getting to know new participants on a personal level once they became involved, was a great advantage that allowed them to pull people deeper into the process. For example, two participants delivered a great presentation on how the plan could incorporate elements from Mexican art and culture into the garden; another member presented on permaculture and different growing techniques. There was another participant who was a fantastic artist and could help with the designs and illustrations, but was also very shy, so they invited her to work with a few of the gardeners in small groups in situations she would feel more comfortable in. They also invoked individuals or small teams to lead activities that they were experts in. For example one of the participants was an architect, so she led the conversations and activities regarding the development of the site plan; the session on planning with and for children was run by three other participants, a planning student, a child psychologist and a teacher’s aide, who had the skills and the experience needed to structure planning activities for children. 4.2.3 Individual Projects At the first planning session they were able to catch a glimpse of the multitude of activities that the community would like to see in the garden. Their neighbors wanted to use the space to read a book, to grill, to grow food, to play chess, to teach their children about their heritage, to compost, to train espaliers, to sunbathe, to socialize, to raise chickens ... and the list went on and on. The only way they would manage to cover everything on the wish list was to break the work down into specific projects for small teams and individuals to tackle. After gathering feedback from the community about each individual element – 61 in total ‐ (La Huerta Roots & Rays 2013, “Individual and Group Projects”, p. 34), participants took the lead on different projects and developed them over the course of the planning sessions. Examples of the projects included: chess table, chicken coop, compost bin, cooking area and grill, fairy garden, bike dome, shed, hops tunnel, herb spiral, and frankentree (La Huerta Roots & Rays 2013, see index of Individual and Group Projects, p. 43). The end result was a modest collection of original and professional quality project proposals for the items they were including in the plan. Several of the authors applied for grants through the garden and are currently implementing those same projects (for example, the chess table, the children’s growing area and the grill were all ideas that were developed during the planning process and then executed by the creators during the following summer).

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4.2.4 Integration Session This final session aimed to integrate all the individual projects into a coherent plan. By the beginning of this session, they had already defined which projects and elements would be included in the redeveloped garden. Their goal then was to figure out how they would bring it all together. During this session they worked with four different spatial modeling techniques. The most engaging was a paper model of the site plan with accompanying miniature figurines of all the elements and projects that were to be included in the plan (61 in total). They split into groups and took turns arranging the figurines. A stop motion video of the process can be seen here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QGYRO16‐vLk (“The Evolution of Our Site Plan”). 4.3

The Logistics

4.3.1 Outreach The planning team considered the outreach plan to be critical because of specific neighborhood issues. There were cultural and language barriers to cross, as well as prejudice and an unspoken hostility towards the garden group that they needed to overcome (since its conception the garden had been a place known for its “whiteness”). They thought their whole approach to the redevelopment process had to be well thought out and sensitive to these issues, and they were particularly concerned about how they were presenting the endeavor to the wider community. The outreach plan then became a crucial tool for communication as they were trying to convey not only the incredible opportunity that they had in their hands as a community (and not as the garden group), but also that everyone was welcome to participate in the process. Hence, the reach of the communication plan was very important. Once they knew their audience, they started to develop the written and print material. Every piece of written material prepared was bilingual in English and Spanish and included contact information for questions in both languages. When the print material was ready, the team went door‐to‐door with fliers to invite people to the first meeting. They also met with community leaders to carefully explain their intention, try to gain their support and ask for their help in spreading the word. 4.3.2 Time and Location Just as the cultural and language barriers were significant concerns in their outreach plan, they were also key in the choice of location. They had secured two possibilities: St Pius Church and Blue1647, a co‐working space that was relatively new to the neighborhood. Both organizations supported the project and offered to let them use the space for free. Blue1647 offered the best option in terms of infrastructure. They had an enormous amount of space, including a main hall with desks and chairs, meeting rooms with projectors and white boards, computer labs and wireless internet. St Pius Church on the other hand had only one small meeting room to offer and no other amenities, but it right across the street from the garden and was very well known and respected in the community. The planning team knew they would have a better turnout if the meetings were held at St Pius, yet they needed the infrastructure that Blue 1647 could offer. They decided to have the first meeting at St Pius, as it would be an introduction of sorts, and then, once they had connected with the participants, hold the charrettes at Blue1647.

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4.3.3 Food As the meetings were scheduled to happen around dinnertime, the planning team made an effort to always have food available. The team reached out to local stores, bars and restaurants asking for food donations and received a positive reply. They had a good line‐up of food donations scheduled for all six meetings. They found that food was also important to keep participants active. The meetings were supposed to last 3 hours but inevitably they ran long or people stayed behind afterwards to work on individual or group projects. There were also snack breaks between activities, and these extra opportunities for informal exchange provided occasions for people to develop new ideas to present when they regrouped after the breaks. They were important for the creative process and enriched the conversations. 4.3.4 Childcare One thing that the planning team had not anticipated was the number of children that attended the first meeting at St Pius. They had not arranged childcare, they did not have toys and games available and they had not considered ways to include the children in the planning process. They found that the presence of the children impeded the parents from participating because their attention was constantly divided. The children were also bored with all of the “grown‐up talk”, meaning that there were constant interruptions and the meeting did not flow as well as it could have. Offering childcare for the younger children therefore became crucial to welcome and engage families, and necessary to maintain a high level productivity in the meetings; and including the older children in the planning process would enrich everyone’s experience. The team adapted the meeting structure to make the necessary accommodations. They wanted to make sure the children were as engaged as the parents and participated whenever possible. The team divided them into age groups and organized special activates for the older ones, and provided toys, games and crayons for the younger kids, along with adult supervision. 4.3.5 Bilingual Communication La Huerta Roots & Rays, being the multicultural space that it is, motivated the team to organize a fully bilingual planning process. Two languages, Spanish and English, were used from day one and participants were encouraged to speak in the language they felt most comfortable in. All meetings were opened with the following announcement (delivered in English and Spanish): “This is a bilingual meeting, please speak in the language you feel most comfortable in.” All of the meetings included simultaneous interpretative translation, and multiple English‐Spanish/Spanish‐English dictionaries were available for participants to consult. 4.4

Final steps, Implementation and Recognition

Once the planning process was over and the group had created the planning document and the project proposals for the individual projects, they started working on fundraising, grant writing and project implementation. Funding for remediation of the site had already been secured by NeighborSpace through OSIF funds (Open Space Impact Fee), a total of U$35,000. However the redevelopment of the garden, including all of the construction and landscaping, still needed to be financed. They were able to secure the

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remainder, (approximately USD$45,000) in in‐kind donations, store credit and cash from a variety of sources and grants, including U$10,000 from Whole Foods, U$15,000 from the Walton Foundation, U$3,000 from the Christian Relief Service and U$5,000 from Home Depot, among others. Professionals who lived in the area provided services (for example two contractors who lived by the garden built the fence and the paths2); local stores provided equipment and materials (for example Sunbelt Rentals loaned a bobcat for a whole month and Ozinga provided concrete at a massive discount). Finally, many people from the neighborhood showed up to help on the workdays as they rebuilt the site together. By May 2014, the garden had been remediated and about 70% of the plan had been implemented. The redevelopment was overall a great success, and a detailed video of it can be seen at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bo7qrU7Yfc8 (“La Huerta Roots & Rays ‐ Time lapse of remediation/redevelopment 2014”). 5.

Findings

In this section, we present the main findings of this study, which detail the practices through which the planning process fostered community engagement. For analytical purposes, we have divided this section into two parts: involvement with the planning process; and engagement with the goals and products of the planning process. 5.1

Involvement with the planning process

For a participatory planning process to be successful, people need to be truly involved. First, they need to be able to attend the meetings; they also need to feel that they are welcome; and they sometimes need to be empowered (for example, through effective facilitation). In this case study, we were able to identify several instances when these measures were taken. 5.1.1 Careful Outreach Plan The planning team carefully planned and executed an outreach strategy that involved numerous stakeholders in the community. There were some particular challenges in this outreach plan that are worth mentioning: there were culture and language barriers, and there was hostility towards the original garden group’s “whiteness”. The outreach plan took these issues into account and acted to counteract them by seeking out the community leaders and gaining their support, and by preparing bilingual print material that was culturally relevant. The outreach plan was a fundamental first step to bring a diverse group of people on board with the planning process. It brought various advantages to the process. First, it brought legitimacy to its participatory nature ‐ many non‐members of the garden felt that they could participate in the planning process. Second, this brought legitimacy to what the team was doing vis‐à‐vis the neighborhood ‐ community members would be more prone to support decisions made during the planning process even if they did not participate since they had been encouraged to join the effort. Third, this helped the planning team tap into community resources (such as food donations) from 2

The gentleman who built the paths lived across the street from the garden. He had never been involved with the garden and did not attend any of the planning sessions, but said he was working on the paths because “Now I have a reason to come here, for the grill and the picnic area. The garden is going to become an extension of my backyard”. th

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businesses and organizations in the neighborhood that knew that the process and the garden redesign were in progress. 5.1.2 Language As most of the residents of Pilsen were Spanish speakers, the planning team’s decision to conduct a bilingual planning process was significant. Some participants did not communicate well in English, and they would not have been able to understand, let alone voice their ideas, if the process had not embraced them. Additionally, the fact that the interpretive translators were garden members ensured a closer, more personal environment that made people feel comfortable with the process. 5.1.3 Logistics Many decisions regarding the meeting’s logistics were important to increase the participatory nature of the process. The first aspect refers to time and location; the planning sessions had a good turnout because these were carefully planned around the dynamics of the neighborhood. For example, the team was sensitive to the fact that even though they had a great location with the necessary infrastructure for the planning sessions, the church was a familiar location and hence more welcoming for the community. As such, they decided to hold the first meeting at the church, and then, after bringing people on board, they continued the sessions in the second location. Second, offering food was a good measure to increase participation and to help people connect in an informal manner. Having good, hot food available gave people energy to keep going, even when the meetings ran late. Besides, it allowed for families to participate, as they would not need to cook that evening for the family. It also worked well to have snack breaks between activities; the breaks were informal and gave people an opportunity to interact and get to know each other, forming bonds between participants. Another relevant measure taken was offering childcare. Offering childcare for the younger children was crucial to welcome and engage families, and necessary to maintain a high level of productivity in the meetings. The fact that they also adapted the meeting structures to include planning activities specifically targeted for children is yet another example of how they were concerned with creating an inclusive and engaging process. 5.1.4 Making the process interesting, relevant and fun The planning team made a conscious effort to make the process interesting and fun for participants. Activities included a lot of moving around and props, and they avoided making people sit around a table for too long and letting conversations drag on. This constant shifting of gears was important to keep such a diverse group of people engaged. They also adopted creative ways of doing things, customized for their particular context. For instance, voting was performed in a variety of ways, using dot stickers, beans, runoff method and more. The final session was dedicated to the charrette of the site plan, which was perhaps the most engaging activity. This was a great exercise for two reasons. First, the dynamic nature of the exercise demanded constant negotiation between participants, and in the end they had reached a consensus about the layout. This really brought participants together. Second, it allowed everyone to visualize what they had been working towards for the past several weeks, giving participants a great sense of accomplishment, pride and satisfaction. This was crucial, as it motivated them to move forward the

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next steps in the process (fundraising and implementation of the plan) and to remain engaged with the garden. 5.2

Engagement with the goals and products of the planning process

As this study proposes, the first step to guarantee future community engagement with a project is to involve people in the planning process. The second step is to conduct the planning process in such a way that its practices will induce people to develop a sense of ownership with that which is being planned. La Huerta Roots & Rays’ planning process was successful because it promoted many practices that gave people ownership of the project; and ultimately making people feel emotionally attached to the garden and connected to other garden members motivated them to stay involved. 5.2.1 Democratic decision‐making Every decision made was either by consensus or by vote. Even the most crucial decisions of the project were made democratically. For instance, even though the decision to remediate the (contaminated) land seemed obvious, the garden leadership still called a meeting with garden members to understand their positions and feelings about it. It also ensured that the decision was made by the group as a whole, giving everyone ownership of this important decision and increasing the likelihood that they would remain engaged throughout the entire planning process. Another example of this was the first session, in which everyone could propose the goals and objectives for the garden. All goals and wishes of the community were included in a “goals and objectives matrix”, which served as a guide throughout the whole planning process. All of the ideas that were suggested in that first meeting were included in the plan. 5.2.2 Individual projects Perhaps the activity that most fostered engagement was the individual projects. As explained before, participants proposed ideas of elements to include in the garden (a grill, a picnic table, an apple tree, etc.) and were tasked with developing a one‐page professional‐grade summary of it. The act of proposing an idea was already an act of cognitive engagement: most people proposed projects that had personal significance. For example, one garden member was part of the Pilsen Chess Club and so he proposed a chess table, another one was a teacher and she suggested bird feeders that she would make with her students, and so on. The individual projects connected people with the garden at the individual level, making the sense of ownership a concrete, rather than abstract, idea. There was indeed a part of the garden that existed due to them, and it was now, above all, their job (and the community’s) to implement and sustain it. 5.2.3 Skill sharing and empowerment Another manner of fostering engagement and a feeling of empowerment was by assigning participants with special roles and functions throughout the process. Every session included presentations and activities led by different participants, often designed for participants to showcase special skills and expertise. For example, one of the garden members was an architect, and she helped with the site plan. Another was a child psychologist and she worked with the younger

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participants. Another member was a master gardener, and she prepared a presentation on gardening techniques. This made participants feel valued and appreciated, as they all had something special to contribute to the process. 6.

Conclusion

Community gardens are unlike any other public spaces in that the responsibility for their maintenance lies upon the community that surrounds it. Very few cities provide resources and services to upkeep publicly owned spaces like urban gardens, and when they do they are minimal. This means that one of the most important aspects of planning a garden is engaging with its potential users to make sure the space is kept alive and well maintained. In order for people to care for the space, they need to feel connected to it. A basic premise of planning a community garden therefore is developing a community that will grow around the space. The people involved need to be engaged in a way that they naturally take ownership of it. The goal of this paper was to identify practices in the planning process that enhance community engagement and increase feelings of ownership and commitment. The case of La Huerta Roots & Rays demonstrated that a powerful bond may be established between a community and a physical space through a process that uses a participatory and collaborative approach. Our findings highlighted the specific practices used during their planning process that mobilized participants and fostered a sense of community and ownership towards the space. 7.

References

Alaimo, K. et al. (2008). Fruit and vegetable intake among urban community gardeners. Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior. 40 (2): 94‐101. Been, V. (2006). The Effect of Community Gardens on Neighboring Property Values. New York University Law and Economics Working Paper. Beran, Y.; Burr, T.; French, C.; and Friese, N. (2012). Community Gardening in New Hampshire. UNH Cooperative Extension. Bleasedale, T; Crouch, C; Harlan, S. (2011) Community Gardening in disadvantaged neighborhoods in Phoenix, Arizona: Aligning Programs with Perceptions, Journal of Agriculture, Food Systems and Community Development 1 (3): 99‐114. Carney, P. A., Hamada, J. L., Redinski, R., Sprager, L., Nichols, K. R., Liu, B. Y., Shannon, J. (2012). Impact of a Community Gardening Project on Vegetable Intake, Food Security and Family Relationships: A Community‐ based Participatory Research Study. Journal of Community Health, 37(4): 874–881. Center for Conflict Resolution. (2003). A Manual for Group Facilitators. Rutledge: The Fellowship for Intentional Community. Ferris, J.; Norman, C.; and Sempik, J. (2001) People, Land and Sustainability: Community Gardens and the Social Dimension of` Sustainable Development. Social Policy and Administration, 35(5): 559 – 568. Glover, T. (2004). Social capital in the lived experiences of community gardeners. Leisure Sciences, 26(2): 143‐ 162. Glover, T. D., Parry, D. C., & Shinew, K. J. (2005). Mobilizing Social capital in Community garden Contexts. Canadian Association for Leisure Studies. Available at: http://lin.ca/sites/default/files/attachments/CCLR11‐ 46.pdf Hancock, T. (2001). People, Partnerships, and Human Progress: Building Community Capital. Health Promotion International 16 (3): 275‐280. Herod, M. R. (2012). Cultivating Community: Connecting Community Gardens and Crime Prevention. Available at: www.fonvca.org/agendas/nov2013/support‐material/ThesisCultivatingCommunityMay2012herod.pdf

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Lackey, J. et al (1998). Evaluation of Community Gardens. A program of the University of Wisconsin Cooperative Extension. Available at: http://www.uwex.edu/ces/pdande/evaluation/pdf/comgardens.PDF Lawson, Laura J. (2005) City bountiful. University of California Press. La Huerta Roots & Rays (2013). La Huerta Roots & Rays Remediation and Redevelopment Plan. Available at: http://issuu.com/patriciabon/docs/book_1.1_print Lennertz, B.; Lutzenhiser, A. (2006) The charrette handbook: the essential guide for accelerated, collaborative community planning. Chicago: American Planning Association. Malakoff, D. (1995). What Good is Community Greening? Community Greening Review, 5: 4‐11. Available at: https://communitygarden.org/wp‐content/uploads/2013/12/whatgoodiscommunitygreening.pdf NeighborSpace (forthcoming). Harvest Study of Chicago Community Gardens 2013. Robinson‐O'Brien, R.; Story, M.; Heim, S. (2009) Impact of garden‐based youth nutrition intervention programs: a review. Journal of the American Dietetic Association 109(2): 273‐280. Sabota, C. (2003). What Can Community Gardens Do For You? MetroNews 3 (1). Available at: http://www.aces.edu/urban/metronews/vol3no1/gardening.html Sanoff, H. (2000). Community Participation Methods in Design and Planning. New york: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Shinew, K.; Glover, T.; Parry, D. (2004). Leisure spaces as potential sites for interracial interaction: community gardens in urban areas. Journal of leisure research. 36(3): 336‐355. Solid Ground, Building Communities to End Poverty. Available at: http://www.solid‐ ground.org/Programs/Nutrition/P‐Patch/Pages/default.aspx. Thomas, F. (2008). Getting started in community gardening, City of Sydney: Sydney. Twiss, J.; Dickinson, J; Duma, S; Kleinman, T; Paulsen, H; Rilveria, L. (2003). Community Gardens: Lessons Learned From California Healthy Cities and Communities. American Journal of Public Health. 93(9): 1435‐ 1438. Vitiello, D.; Nairn, M.; Planning, P. (2009). Community Gardening in Philadelphia: 2008 Harvest Report. PA: University of Pennsylvania. Vitiello, D, et al. (2010). Community Gardening in Camden, NJ Harvest Report: Summer 2009. Philadelphia, PA: Penn’s Center for Public Health Initiatives. Yin, R. (1994). Case Study Research: Design and Methods. Thousand Oaks: SAGE Publications. ‘Yotti’ Kingsley, J.; Townsend, M. (2006). Dig into social capital: community gardens as mechanisms for growing urban social connectedness. Urban Policy and Research. 24(4): 525‐537.

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Aurora Cavallo, D. Pellegrino, Benedetta Di Donato, Davide Marino, “Values, roles and actors as drivers to build a local food strategy: the th case of Agricultural Park of Casal del marmo”, In: Localizing urban food strategies. Farming cities and performing rurality. 7 International Aesop Sustainable Food Planning Conference Proceedings, Torino, 7‐9 October 2015, edited by Giuseppe Cinà and Egidio Dansero, Torino, Politecnico di Torino, 2015, pp 355‐364. ISBN 978‐88‐8202‐060‐6

VALUES, ROLES AND ACTORS AS DRIVERS TO BUILD A LOCAL FOOD STRATEGY: THE CASE OF AGRICULTURAL PARK OF “CASAL DEL MARMO” A. Cavallo.1, D. Pellegrino.2, B. Di Donato1, D. Marino1

Keywords: Food planning, urban agriculture, Rome, ecosystem services. Abstract: The paper configures the Parco Agricolo of Casal del Marmo, as well as all other food practices in Rome, as a device of resilience for the city, made up of places where flows, relationships and processes become increasingly more sustainable, and where both physical and intangible spaces act as an infrastructure in their exchange with the city. Our issue is about understanding the role of a Parco Agricolo in building a food strategy, increasing knowledge and establishing a baseline for evaluating the potential role of local food shed, even in terms of its impact on agro‐ecosystems and landscape.

Introduction

The relationship between agriculture, food and cities ‐ seen not as a simple fact but as a complex system of social, economical and political behaviours ‐ can tell the story of many Mediterranean cities and certainly that of Rome. The lack of productive urban land, the food insecurity, the uncontrolled urban growth, the lack of stable local food markets, the land use conflicts in the urban areas and a general lack of knowledge about the food production, fuel the debate about city and food in time of changes. Casal del Marmo area is located in Rome, on both public and private land. In the area take place two different farms, one is a social cooperative, deeply involved in care farming, and the other one is a large landed estate example. The park’s area hosts several informal allotment gardens and it seems extremely interesting in terms of both natural and agricultural aspects. The process of park design is involving both the Municipality of Rome and different local stakeholders. It has several objectives: it aims to reconstruct the historical heritage of the area, to develop innovative ways to strengthen the sustainability of new model of business and market, and to identify governance model of public involvement. We focus on understanding the role of a Parco Agricolo in building a food strategy, increasing knowledge and establishing a baseline for evaluating the potential role of local food shed, even in terms of its impact on agro‐ecosystems and landscape. Starting from the relationship between town and country in Mediterranean contexts (Cavallo et al., 2014), we focusing on some main questions: Which planning and governance path is developing? How the local community perceived the flow of externalities produced by the park? And finally which role can be played by farming and food activities conducted in the Park, in the neighbourhood transformation process? The paper is organized as follow: paragraph 2 summarizes the main Rome practice, in paragraph 3 we focus on the park area, in 4 on analysis of ecosystem services in Casal del Marmo to understand how the local community perceived the flows of products, good and services of the Parco. In sections 5 we deepen the role played by the involved actors and the commitment of Rome City Council and we discuss the potential role of the park in building a local food Strategy and some final remarks. 1

Department of Bioscience and Territory (DiBT), University of Molise, Italy. PhD Candidate in Landscape and Environment Design Management and Planning, Sapienza University of Rome, Italy. 2

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The role of Casal del Marmo Park within Rome food practices

Since 2013 Rome Municipality is engaged in different initiatives strictly linked with agriculture and food. Analysing all actions we have select a set of thematic axes to understand their meaning and role in the Roman model. Frist we have choose the programme 100 Resilient Cities financed by the Rockefeller Foundation (100RC) as the most relevant in terms of education. The program aims to bring cities around the world to a more resilient model, within the program 100RC Rome Municipality is seeking new ways to preserve its rich cultural heritage and protect itself from a variety of environmental and socioeconomic shocks and stresses. Rome is struggling to reverse decades of poorly regulated development and address its informal housing neighbourhoods, inadequate infrastructure provision, and sprawl. Regarding the public food service, Rome represents a model at international level in school canteen (Morgan and Sonnino, 2008). One of the most important project deserving to be presented is known as the Quality Revolution, concerned with school canteen service in Rome. In the last decade the concept of quality has been widely used to describe the dynamics that have been shaping the system of food and agriculture. Moreover, nowadays organic food represents the 69% of all food served in schools, except meat, fish and cold cuts. Rome’s approach enhanced the market in terms of sustainability and quality and companies are now aware that they face a public administration, which requires strict compliance in order to continuously improve their own performance. Nowadays, the Rome City Council has promoted a new initiative involving an agricultural cooperative and a primary school, named “Uruguay”, where twice a month the school meals come from a farm based near the school. We can consider this practice as at the same time an education and a farming support action, but due to the fact that only one school has adopted this model we can not consider notable its impact on urban resilience. The role played by the local food network in Rome is remarkable, particularly in case of farmers’ market, SPG’ and those linked to box schemes experiences have seen significant success (Cavallo et al., 2015). The increasing importance of Alternative and Local Food Networks is showed in the data: the 60% of Rome municipalities farms sell directly (Istat, 2012) it was registered an increase of + 57% Farmers’ market at municipality level and of + 64% in Rome Metropolitan Area (2010/13) (Marino et al., 2013). The Rome Local Food Network behind agriculture in the city, within a number of integrated social agrarian cooperative, who represented an alternative food production system and landmark for many initiatives carried out by the civil society, associations, cooperatives, volunteer and school sectors, community supported agriculture (CSA) initiatives. Now Rome has a Regulation on farmers market and the XIV Municipality has activated “DOM”, a brand that distinguishes the products of SFSC from about 30 local farms. “DOM” is an interesting case due to its role in terms of business, different from all other action that are able to act mostly in terms of education. Rome’s city limits include large expanses of still viable agricultural lands and natural reserves, and its forward looking planners are focused on transforming these assets in order to maintain and protect its environment and build long‐term resilience to shocks and stresses. The Rome City Council is enhancing actions to promote integrated management of agricultural lands, defining tools aimed to promote biodiversity and landscape protection. During the last year the Rome Municipality allocate 50 hectares of vacant public lands to two different groups of young farmers with the idea of promote urban and periurban agriculture. Borghetto San Carlo, 22 hectares in the north side of the city, is located in the Protected area of Parco di Vejo, a green infrastructure that connect a marginal urban area with the Rome countryside. The second, named Tor de Cenci, is in the opposite side of Rome, between an high density neighbourhood and the Protected area of Castel Porziano. It’s to early to analyse effects of both experiences in terms of impacts, but we can estimate a very high role of this

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kind of practice in education. The Rome council presents an announcement for four different areas, but due the fact that one of those was not vacant – it is occupied by a group of activist from the 60s– and one needs an high investment to be activate, only the 50% are involved in a process of reuse. Rome has four historical public farms, for an amount of 2400 hectares inside the city, in an deficit budget, in this framework Borghetto and Tor de Cenci represent a new and interesting way to manage public lands, the framework of the Rome City Council Commitment on food and agriculture is summarized in figure 1. Moving from farming to planning actions, again the XIV Municipality has started the project for Casal del Marmo Park. It’s a combination of a working farm and a municipal park that is located at the urban edge. The Agro Park can serve as transition and buffer between urban and agricultural uses. It’d be a multiple space defined by small farms, public areas and natural habitat. Casal del Marmo is located on both public and private lands, vary in acreage, and it host single and multiple tenants, and have a variety of both agricultural and park components. The system described above configures a set of different forms of foodscape as a device of resilience, made up of places where flows, relationships and processes become increasingly more sustainable, and where both physical and intangible spaces act as an infrastructure in their exchange with the city.

EDUCATION 100 Resilient Cities Programme

PLANNING

FARMING

PROCESSING

SELLING

CONSUMPTION

100 Resilient Cities Programme The Agricultural Park of “Casal del Marmo” in XIV Municipality. Common lands assignment, Bando delle terre pubbliche. The Farmer market regulation

The Farmer market Regulation

The Charta of the Short Food Chain. The school canteen projects

The school canteen projects

The school canteenproject.

The Community gardens Regulation.

The Communitygardens Regulayion. The Municipality brand DOM.

Figure 1. The Rome City Council Commitment on food and agriculture.

However most actions are based on informal practices, establish by The Rome Municipality, their scale is still local and can’t design a network. The Roman model is strongly bottom up, with an ineffective policy making and planning actions. The Rome council is not able to act also at the metropolitan level and it’s an obstacle in building a strengthening urban rural relationship in terms of administrative engagement. The last issues is about built a link between market and Institutions: it’s seems that all energies are in education actions and only a few part of Roman Council projects are able to look at the agriculture activity as economic tools to develop new urban models.

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The Parco Agricolo of Casal del Marmo

The Parco Agricolo of Casal del Marmo is located in the North‐West of Rome within the GRA, the major highway that surrounds the city. The Parco Agricolo includes about 500 hectares of cropland (Agro Romano) between the urban areas of Palmarola neighborhood in the north and Primavalle and Torrevecchia neighborhoods in the south‐east. In the Parco Agricolo there are numerous items of historical and archaeological interest and some major public infrastructure like Santa Maria della Pietà, San Filippo Neri Hospital, the high school “Pasteur” and the juvenile prison “Casal del Marmo”. The Parco Agricolo of Casal del Marmo is a “naturalistic remains” of the Agro Romano that, before the urbanization and expansion of the city, had an ecosystemic continuity with other green areas, now protected, in the North West of Rome (Insugherata Natural Reserve, Urban Regional Park “Pineto”, Natural Reserve of Monte Mario and Natural Reserve of the “Tenuta dell’Acquafredda”). The area of the Parco Agricolo is included in the XIV Municipality of Rome, it is an extended floodplan with a minor hydrographic network made up of three valleys: Polledrara ditch (1.5 km), Marmo Nuovo ditch (4.3 km) and Fagiano ditch which flows into Capannelle ditch (3.6 km). While Polledrara ditch has not suffered any particular environmental impacts, Marmo Nuovo and Capannelle ditches present bad environmental conditions due to not untreated sewage that is the main cause of pollution in the area, together with illegal landfills dumping. The Parco Agricolo is a complex agro‐ecosystem where natural and human factors are highly integrated. The allocation of land ownership is a first factor: the 30% of the area is owned by the Rome Metro Area (120 hectares), half is entrusted to the Cobragor cooperative, a multifunctional farm that, in addition to traditional farming activities, including arable land, permanent crops (olive groves, orchards), greenhouse and open field vegetables, has been carrying on different activities related to olives processing, agritourism and educative courses for schools. The remaining public part of the Parco Agricolo includes some areas squatted by “ortisti” (vegetable gardeners) and divided in about 200 small cultivated plots fenced with recycled materials. The private land of the Parco Agricolo is about twice in terms of extension of the public part and it is currently used for cultivation. It consists of three large estates (Massara, Mancini and Vittorini, respectively of 100, 110 and 60 ha) and other small areas smaller than one hectare. The part of the Parco Agricolo beside via di Casal del Marmo is important for grazing thanks to presence of meadows and pastures. Agricultural activities in the area both as an economic (Cobragor cooperative) and a social activity and leisure (urban gardens) have undoubtedly been the main defense of this part of the city from soil sealing and have increased people’s awareness of the material and immaterial value. In 2012 the "Committee for the Parco Agricolo di Casal del Marmo" has started to promote the project of the Parco Agricolo of Casal del Marmo as required by the Piano Regolatore Generale of Rome (PRG), the roman urban plan. The project has many objectives crucial for the future of the area from environmental and socio‐economic point of view. The Parco Agricolo di Casal del Marmo has a good potential accessibility related to the presence of the urban railway Rome‐Cesano and several entrances for cars, bikes and pedestrians. Despite this advantage, the use of the area is still very difficult as most of the land is private and inaccessible. Currently land use cover shows the presence of natural grasslands mostly without trees and shrubs (32.5%), arable land (23.4%) and grassland without trees and shrubs (17.3%), as showed in table 1.

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Table 1. Land use of the Casal del Marmo Agricultural Park Corine Land Land Use Class definition Cover code

Area (ha)

2111

Arable land prevailingly without dispersed (line and point) vegetation

107,86 23,4

2221

Orchards

6,87

1,5

2231

Olive groves

4,08

0,9

2311

Grassland (pastures and meadows) prevailingly without trees and shrubs 79,8

17,3

2422

Complex cultivation patterns with scattered houses

36,76

3211

Natural grassland prevailingly without trees and shrubs

150,16 32,5

3111

Broad‐leaved forests with continuous canopy, not on mire

16,36

3,5

31121

Broad‐leaved forests with continuous canopy on mire

42,77

9,3

322

Moors and heathland

12,27

2,7

323

Sclerophyllous vegetation

4,94

1,1

Total

461,873 100

Source: Cafiero et al., 2004.

Figure 2. The Agricultural Park of Casal del Marmo.

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Mapping and assessing the ecosystem service of the Park

One of the main attraction of the Parco Agricolo of Casal del Marmo is its multifunctionality. The benefits provided by the Parco can be defined as “ecosystem services” and have direct and indirect impacts on the urban population well‐being (EEA, 2014). The multifunctionality of the Parco Agricolo thus refers to its ability to provide a wide range of ecosystem services to humans, such as provisioning, regulating and cultural services. To assess the multifunctionality we tried to identify the main ES provided by the area of the Parco Agricolo and to map them through an analysis conducted during the workshop held from the 18th to the 20th of June 2015 and organized by the european project TURAS (Transitioning towards Urban Resilience and Sustainability)3, an European research on sustainable and resilient cities, financed by the Seventh Framework Programme. The workshop involved about 60 stakeholders including national and international experts: professors, researchers, engineers, architects, agronomists, urban planners, economists and so on, as well as local stakeholders (Parco Agricolo , institutions, etc.). Each expert was asked to indicate the importance (from 1 ‐ very low to 5 ‐ very high) of each ES currently provided by the Parco Agricolo of Casal del Marmo and to indicate "NS" (Don’t Know) in case of uncertainty. After identifying the 3 main ES for the area, in order to figure out which portions and/or elements of the Parco Agricolo could provide these services respondents were asked to draw the number of the corresponding ES within a circle on a map of the area where they believed the service was provided. As the map shows, the result is quite interesting because it consists in a first spatialization of the main ES by linking elements of the Parco Agricolo to the benefits for the urban population. It is worth noting that the ES 1 "Crops" is concentrated mainly in the area of the CoBragor cooperative, although it is also provided by other areas of the Parco Agricolo including those of private ownership beside Casal del Marmo street or along the Capannelle ditch where the urban gardens are cultivated. The ES 13 “Pollination and seed dispersal” and 14 “Habitat for biodiversity” are provided mainly by the hydrographic network and appear to be primarily related to the riparian vegetation. Finally, the cultural ES 15 “ Recreation and leisure”, 16 “Cultural/spirtitual and educational values” and 17 “Landscape aesthetic” are related to both anthropic and natural elements that are widespread throughout the area. In some cases the respondents were not able to identify a specific point for the provision of ES, but they attributed all or some of the main ES to the entire area; this seems more evident for cultural ES that can be hardly associated with a single land use or item, as they result from the overall use of the area. Compared to the knowledge of the ES it is clear that in this area the main interest is the development of agricultural and recreation activities as well as the conservation of landscape amenity within the urban area; indeed, all the respondents have been able to score these ES (none has flag “NS”). Instead the regulating ecosystem services are not always well known as they require specific technical skills to be recognized and understood such as the ES 8 “Erosion control” and ES 12 “Waste treatment”. The perception and evaluation of ecosystem services is a first step for raising awareness of the urban population of the importance of green urban areas. Our assessment has shown that the Parco Agricolo provides many ecosystem services, but at the same time relationships between different stakeholders and land ownership greatly influence the provision of these benefits for the whole urban population. In the case of the Parco Agricolo of Casal del Marmo agricultural production seems to be the key for maintaining or increasing urban resilience. In other words the multifunctionality of Casal del Marmo is mainly due to the food production because without this activity the other ecosystemic functions would not be provided at the same level by the Parco Agricolo. So, defining 3

www.turas‐cities.eu th

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and implementing a food strategy means also influencing urban land use and local development. In this sense, a major issue is in understanding how to handle different interests (landowners and other stakeholders) and which tools are available for that. Table 2. List and description of ecosystem services included in the questionnaire Code

Ecosystem service

Definition

Crops

Cultivation of edible plants and harvest of these plants on agricultural fields and gardens which are used for human nutrition

Biomass for energy (wood)

Wood used for energy conversion and/or heat production

Wild food

Wild food, medicinal herbs, etc.

Fresh water

Used freshwater (e.g. for drinking, domestic use, industrial use, irrigation)

Global climate regulation

Long‐term storage of greenhouse gases in the Park ecosystems

Urban climate regulation

Changes in local climate components like wind, precipitation, temperature, radiation, etc. due to the Park ecosystem properties.

Water flow regulation

Maintaining of water cycle features (e.g. water storage and buffer, natural drainage, drought prevention)

Erosion control

Soil retention and the capacity to prevent and mitigate soil and wind erosion and landslides

Noise reduction

Absorption of sound waves by vegetation and water

Air purification

Capturing/filtering of dust, chemicals and gases.

Moderation of environmental extremes

Physical barrier and absorption on kinetic energy (e.g. storm, floods, heat waves)

Waste treatment

Effluent filtering and nutrient fixation by ecosystems

Pollination and seed dispersal

Habitat provision for birds, insects and pollinators

Habitat for biodiversity

Habitat provision for animal species

Recreation and leisure

Outdoor activities, including forms of sports, leisure and outdoor pursuit

Cultural/spirtitual and educational values

Cultural, spiritual or educational values that people attach to the Park

Landscape aesthetic

Visual quality of the landscape/ecosystems which influences human well‐being

Source: Gómez‐Baggethun and Barton, 2013; Kandziora et al., 2013.

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Figure 3. Participatory map of the main Ecosystem services Parco Agricolo di Casal del Marmo.

Bridging the gap: actors, procedures and tools

The participatory planning process of Casal del Marmo was started in 2014 within the TURAS project. The process involves a range of actors: the institutional part includes the regional public business innovation agency (BIC Lazio), the XIV local municipality of Rome and the Department of Environment of the Rome City Council. Two associations are involved as civic actors: “Associazione Comitato per il Parco di Casal del Marmo” who has started, since 2012, an informal process to encourage citizens participation and involvement in the planning and transformation processes of the Park area. The gardeners who manage the family allotment gardens in the Western fringe of the site founded an association involved in the process. The landowners represent the business actors: the social agricultural cooperative of CoBrAgOr, who has cultivated a portion of the publicly owned land since the 80s, that is involved in local alternative food network initiatives. The large landed estate of Massara and Vittorini families, those one of Unicredit Bank and the area of the Church. The role played by land property in the Casal del Marmo park is a key issue: there were likewise many actors with conflicting values. Part of the local business community and civil society has also interest in the development of the Parco. The entire area has been earmarked as “collective interest area” in land use planning as “agricultural park” within the last Rome Plan of 2008, the planning process as well as the political decisions that translated into a considerable financial loss for landowners expecting to develop the land. The issues comprises in the Casal del Marmo project at such a large scale within the political and economic context of the city of Rome, with implications for social and natural systems at different scales is particularly relevant.

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The Plan of Rome has identifies “agricultural parks” as rural areas to be protected and enhanced due to a unitary systems of their natural, landscape, historical, archaeological values. The tool identify in terms of planning is a “program unit intervention” to be implemented through public interventions, farms planning and “agreements with owner or lessee of farms, also gathered according to the different forms of representation for testing specific projects environmental rehabilitation and agricultural conversion”. The vision developed within the Turas’ framework is that the Parco should become the heart of a locally grounded, community‐based food system that combines the ecological production of food with leisure, tourism and educational activities for the neighbours and institutions in its local system but also for the entire city. The model identified by BIC Lazio in the project is linked to an application already conducted in Lazio, which would have a more articulated form in the Park, also including land management. The model is mainly oriented to the food chain: primary agricultural production, manufacturing, processing, packaging and marketing of agricultural products. The goal is to support a highly innovative entrepreneurial activities associated with systems agrifood, forestry, agricultural production and food quality, especially organic. The key element of the implementation strategy is the establishment of a Public‐Private Partnership that should act as the engine of the transition process and bring together the key stakeholders (including the private and public landowners). Within Turas project the research group has identify the case of Community Interest Company (CIC), which is a type of company introduced by the United Kingdom government in 2005, designed for social enterprises that want to use their profits and assets for the public good. 6.

Some final remarks

We introduced the concept of agriculture and food as an infrastructure (Cavallo et al., 2014), who refers to agricultural activities and food practices as a fixed social capital: physical as well as immaterial components of interrelated systems providing food and services essential to enable, sustain, or enhance living conditions, considered as a determinant of economic, social as well as environmental growth. The idea of infrastructure aims to focus on the role played by flows (of food, resources, knowledge, work, innovation, waste) between people, areas (urban, agricultural, rural) or neighbourhoods and landscapes beyond divide. The project configures the Parco Agricolo of Casal del Marmo, within roman food practices framework, as a device of resilience for the city, made up of places where flows, relationships and processes become increasingly more sustainable, and where both physical and intangible spaces act as an infrastructure in their exchange with the city. The community perception of the park, as result in the ES assessment, still confirms its role in the neighbour. The multifunctionality of the Park refers to its ability to provide a wide range of ecosystem services to humans, such as provisioning, regulating and cultural services. The Parco Agricolo provides many ecosystem services, furthermore the relationships between different stakeholders and land ownership greatly will influence the provision of these benefits for the whole local community as well as the governance process of the area itself. Moreover, it is seems interesting apply the ES assessment to all different roman practice defined by a strong space approach – Borghetto Flaminio and Tor de Cenci farms within the common public land as well as in the context of Rome City Council’ Farms – to understand impacts in terms of knowledge and perceptions and better direct the City Council strategy.

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The Parco Agricolo of Casal del Marmo represents a context where farming is answering urban demands in re‐building innovative relationships between city and agriculture, citizens and farmers, between private and public (or collective) space. In this sense, the on‐going process should play a role in terms of endogenous innovation catalysing farmers’ attitudes of responsibility to the community. It is also related to the idea of the civic economy, where the economic value is directly connected to the organisation of relational goods. Local actors – new farmers or social workers, Community Supported Agriculture and box scheme initiatives – can be able to act as a network in a wider perspective of change, following the principles of social innovation and transition theory, where people involved in organising political arenas and planning/policy networks develop and re‐ organize solutions and negotiate change among sectors and places. However, local institutions ‐ Municipality, Rome City Council, Metropolitan government, protect areas – play a crucial role. As we discuss in the paper, the on‐going process is strongly bottom up – even considering the role played by TURAS project ‐ it is clearly also both cause and effect of feeble planning and policy action, that is, the role of institutions and decision‐making in governing the processes, where planning and policy chases rather than directs the change. Moreover the local institutions should rebalance the relationship between actors in a case such Casal del Marmo where large landowners force the process toward the private and income interests rather than those of local community. Finally, adequate governance, procedures and tools have to be considered in order to built an inclusive, effective and multilevel government action, in this fields further research efforts are required. 7.

References

Cafiero G., Conte G., Lucatello G. 2004. Il Parco Agricolo di Casal del Marmo: un’ipotesi di attuazione. Ecomed. Cavallo A., Di Donato B., Guadagno R., Marino D. 2014. The agriculture in Mediterranean urban phenomenon: Rome foodscapes as an infrastructure, in Proceedings of 6th AESOP Sustainable Food Planning conference Leeuwarden, the Netherlands, 5 ‐7 November 2014 (ISBN 978‐90‐822451‐2‐7). Cavallo A., Di Donato B., Guadagno R., Marino D. 2015. Cities, Agriculture and Changing Landscapes in Urban Milieu: The case of Rome, Rivista di Studi sulla Sostenibilità, n. 1, 2015, pp. 79‐97. EEA. 2014. Spatial analysis of green infrastructure in Europe. EEA Technical Report. Luxembourg. Gómez‐Baggethun, E., & Barton, D. N. 2013. Classifying and valuing ecosystem services for urban planning. Ecological Economics, 86, 235‐245. Kandziora, M., Burkhard, B., & Müller, F. 2013. Interactions of ecosystem properties, ecosystem integrity and ecosystem service indicators—A theoretical matrix exercise. Ecological Indicators, 28, 54‐78.

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Emanuela Saporito, “Roof‐top orchards as urban regeneration devices. OrtiAlti case study”, In: Localizing urban food strategies. Farming th cities and performing rurality. 7 International Aesop Sustainable Food Planning Conference Proceedings, Torino, 7‐9 October 2015, edited by Giuseppe Cinà and Egidio Dansero, Torino, Politecnico di Torino, 2015, pp 365‐373. ISBN 978‐88‐8202‐060‐6

ROOFTOP ORCHARDS AS URBAN REGENERATION DEVICES. ORTIALTI CASE STUDY Emanuela Saporito1

Keywords : rooftop farming, urban regeneration, participation, social innovation Abstract: This paper explains how grown rooftop gardens can work as urban regeneration devices, by combining environmental and social benefits. In particular, it describes OrtiAlti project, a research project and a start‐up, set up to boost up and to coordinate collaborative processes, involving profit sector, public institutions, third sector and citizens, aimed at building community rooftop gardens and connecting them in a supportive urban network. OrtiAlti is a metaphor, a way to demystify the old categories of spatial planning, a real new ontology that redefines the conflicting relationship between the public and private sectors in the use of resources such as the soil; that recognizes as multi‐ dimensional certain categories of urban spaces and activities; that includes new economic and social actors that operate as subjects able to produce values of collective interest to the community. 1.

New challenges, new solutions

According to data compiled by the United Nations, in the incoming 10 years more than half of the world population will live in urban areas (UN HABITAT, 2010). Cities are in fact the places where environmental issues occur more evidently, due to gas emissions, energy consumption, waste production, heat islands and rainfall events; where the reduction of open spaces, the high demand for increasingly scarce resources such as water, energy and fresh food supply contribute to increase social conflicts and segregation. Nevertheless, cities are also the ideal spatial conditions for research and innovation and for active participation: by opening the field to new models of sociability, urban policies have been implemented, supported and informed by “bottom‐up” urban communities' initiatives, often filling up the limits of a “top‐down” politics. As a creative response to these dynamics, in 2013 in Turin was established OrtiAlti, a social innovation project, that aims to interlace environmental sustainability, with ethical food production and participation. The idea at the core of OrtiAlti is to activate a collaborative methodology between the local communities, social enterprises (Zandonai, Venturi, 2014), private owners and profit organizations, by recovering abandoned flat roofs and converting them into productive community gardens. OrtiAlti combines in its approach two main urban problems, common to the most of contemporary European cities. The first concerns climate change impacts and the need for ensuring adaptation strategies for urban development and management; the second is related to the progressive increase of urban relicts: old factories, abandoned public facilities even private real estates, contended between a saturated market and the inability of public policies in promoting and investing on effective requalification processes (Saporito, 2015). The main goal of the project is then to facilitate and boost bottom‐up practices of urban re‐use and regeneration through urban farming, that can be certainly considered one of the main adaptation strategy for climate change (Dubbeling, 2014; World Bank, 2010), especially when integrated in architecture through green roofing solutions (Acherman & Al., 2014). Food, in fact, appears as the ideal medium through which to design sustainable places and to contribute to the growth of the public city of tomorrow. In fact, next to the impact on the urban environment, due to the opportunity of greening the city and re‐using abandoned lands or buildings, 1 DIST, Polytechnic School of Turin, emanuela.saportito@polito.it

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stands the opportunity of empowering urban inhabitants by allowing them to have direct access to food production and food procurement, which is increasingly seen as a matter of social justice (Mees & Stone, 2012), and to reclaim urban spaces for collective uses, like community gardens. Urban farming is hence opening the way to a renewed urban landscape, levering on a growing and widespread culture of green and sustainable urban life styles. In a period of recession in which 7 families out 10 are forced to cut spending on food, urban gardens are becoming increasingly popular. In Italy there are about nine million city farmers (+ 9% compared to 2012)2 who take care of a vegetable garden in the suburbs, for a total of 1.8 million hectares. The demand for these spaces is growing and not always administrations are able to satisfy it. In fact, for some cities, land availability constitutes a big challenge for urban food production: although there might be large resources of brownfields that could be made accessible and suitable for agricultural purposes, this would imply high decontamination costs, often not affordable for public administrations (Specht & Al., 2014). Moreover, in densely built‐up areas, low‐space technologies, from green roofing tech to vertical farming3, would offer tremendous opportunities for space‐confined cultivation (Quesnel & Al., 2011). In the light of ever more reduced public investments and of further impoverishment of weaker sections of urban societies, alternative approaches to urban development and food access, like the one proposed by OrtiAlti, appear necessary and more effective. The activation of local resources, the exploitation of the different identities, creating living spaces that facilitate collective social ties, foster new alliances, creating new job opportunities, make clear the link that necessarily exists between the processes of social innovation, urban regeneration and urban farming. OrtiAlti has recently been awarded with the first prize of the national contest “WE‐progetti delle donne”, announced by WE‐Women for Expo and Italian Pavillion for Expo Milano 2015. 2.

The OrtiAlti case study

In the city of Turin, almost the 10%4 of the territorial area is made of unused flat roofs – from garages, to residential buildings, supermarkets and industrial sheds‐. To convert these parts of the city in roof gardens planted with vegetables, managed by citizens and connected in a supportive network represents a powerful tool for urban transformation and renewal, and cities environmental and social regeneration. As a first experimentation of that, in 2010 was realized the first community rooftop garden in Turin, known as “Oursecretgarden”5(Fig. 1). This first installation was built over the roof of an architectural office (STUDIO999), located in the courtyard of a residential block in one of the most dense and populated neighborhoods of the city, San Salvario. Since then, the orchard has been cultivated and managed by the architects that work “under the garden” and by the inhabitants of the block, who have participated to the recovery process since the beginning. It was technically a simple project, but an innovative concept. This first experience received a lot of media attention, because it was able to intercept, in a more or less explicit and conscious way, many sensitive issues which are increasingly falling into common understandings and public policy‐making practices: environmental sustainability and energy conservation, urban agriculture and the short chain, new forms of proximity and sharing practices, as well as sharing economy. The success of Oursecretgarden triggered an 2

This data is drawn from CIA, the Italian Confederation of Farmers, from 2013. With the expression “Vertical Farming” is defined as the concept of cultivating plants or animal life within skyscrapers or on vertically inclined surfaces. For a deeper study, see Despommier, D. (2010), The vertical farm: Feeding the world in the 21st Century, Thomas Dunne Books, New York 4 Source C.S.I. Piemonte (Informative System Consortium) 5 Oursecretgarden has been awarded in 2010 with the Legambiente Prize “Innovazione Amica dell’Ambiente”, and in 2011 was included among the Best Private Plots from an Austrian prize for gardening and design. 3

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immediate reflection about the potential impact at the urban scale of similar actions. The flat roofs appear as unused resources available to urban inhabitants, and the roof garden as a device capable of integrating immediate environmental benefits, with important social effects, linking urban re‐use, to collective green places, and promoting horticultural production as a practice of food security, solidarity, education and care. OrtiAlti was born in 2013, while working on the candidacy at the European competition LIFE+, thanks to a collaboration between the designers of Oursecretgarden, the Departments of Urban Planning, Environmental Engineering and Energy of the Polytechnic School of Turin and the company Harpo Trieste, producer and supplier of green roof technologies. A first application of the project was proposed for the City of Nichelino (Turin) and consisted in creating a network of rooftop community gardens on public buildings like schools and libraries, through the direct participation of local inhabitants and users.

Figure 1. Ousecretgarden, San Salvario, Turin. Ph. Lena Cagnotto

From this first confrontation of the project, OrtiAlti evolved into a social enterprise project, able to work on urban regeneration through virtuous collaborative processes between different subjects: profit and nonprofit, local and institutional actors, individuals and communities. The social innovation model proposed by the project consists in aggregating different functions and new opportunities for local actors, thanks to the installation of a farmed roof. In particular, the collaborative methodology developed consists of complementary steps: co‐design the intervention with direct users, empowering them in taking care of the garden; involve local social enterprises employing disadvantaged people, or working in the health care service, as operative partners, both for roofing installation and gardens management; engage nonprofit associations working on food security to share the surplus produce; organize cultural and entertainment activities open to everybody on the recovered roofs. OrtiAlti thus induces social value and contributes to design and activate new th

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community spaces, overcoming the public‐private dichotomy. Each ortoalto is a unique project, contingent in time and space. In fact, it grows from the coordination of a plurality of subjects with potentially different interests and values, whose action can be mediated only because it takes place around that specific project. The subjects coordinated by OrtiAlti are: Harpo, the company that produces its own technology for green roofs; The Cooperative and Social Enterprise Agridea, that thanks to OrtiAlti has certified its gardeners for the installation of green roofs, thus expanding its market and offering new opportunities of employment and training for its beneficiaries; the building owners, which benefits from the valorization of the property, because of the improvement of buinding energy performance and its aesthetical quality; the householders and users of the space reclaimed, who can benefit from fresh zero food miles every day. The approach to urban re‐use and farming proposed by OrtiAlti is easily scalable. It can be applied on different typologies of buildings, with different direct users, but still combing private and public rationalities: rooftop gardens can be placed on individual homes, institutional and office buildings, and roofs of restaurants and serve either home consumption, use of fresh produce in restaurants or institutional kitchens or commercial production. Related to that, the OrtiAlti team is today working on two main prototypal interventions. The first involves a restaurant and a hostel in Turin, both run by a social enterprise that employs disadvantaged young and organizes cooking classes for its beneficiaries. Thanks to its new ortoalto, this cooperative will be able to refurbish the building where its activities are located –an old factory from early 30’s, owed by the Municipality ‐ ; to produce fresh vegetables for the restaurant; to extend their set of services, by adding gardening classes for its beneficiaries; to provide the neighborhood with a new and high quality community space, open for schools and several public activities. The other implementation is with Carrefour Italia: the project consists in a new ortoalto for educational activities in Carrefour new mall in the city of Nichelino – next to Turin ‐, as part of its corporate social responsibility. Carrefour has allocated 600 sqm for this new function and is working on a management plan, that will include the direct involvement of local inhabitants, associations and schools, in order to make this space publicly accessible. 3.

An urban regeneration device: combining multiple impacts

OrtiAlti combines two innovations: a technological one and a social one. According to literature on green roofs and urban farming, a farmed green roof can at the same time value the real estate, and work as a new ecosystem (Oberndorfer, Lundholm, Bass, Coffman, 2007) and a climate change mitigation solution. The technology for green roofs, in fact, consists of the superposition on the flat surface of a series of insulating elements/layers: a root‐resistant waterproofing PVC membrane; a water storage and mechanical protection felt; a drainage, aeration and water storage element; a filter sheet and the cultivation soil6. The latter is particularly important, since it needs to be composed in order to have enough nutrients for the cultivation, to be effective within no more than 20‐25 cm of thickness, and to be lightweight. From an environmental point of view, green roofs improve air quality, by filtrating particulates and creating re‐oxygenation zones. If put in a network, green roofs can create a real ecosystem, able to reactivate biodiversity in urban environments, to prevent “heat‐ island” effects and to ensure better management for rainfalls, reducing episodes of urban flooding. A green roof, in fact, imbibes and “stores” water and blocks instant flow. Furthermore, it allows the reintroduction and the re‐use of sewage into the building‐apparatus. In regards of energy 6

The technology used by OrtiAlti is the one produced by HARPO Group, an Italian company from Trieste. For more informations, see www.harpogroup.it th

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consumption, green roofs improve buildings performances, by intensifying thermal insulation and improving indoor micro‐climate of rooms in the floors below and thus contributing to reduce heating and cooling systems costs as well as C02 emissions. In addition, this solution absorbs sound waves and controls their diffusion, allowing to achieve better room acoustic insulation. Table 1. Environmental benefits of a green roof in urban areas

Improvements

Roof external temperature

‐ 20° C

Heat Island effect

‐ 2 °C

Air quality

> Oxygen

Building energy demand in winter

‐ 10/30 %

Building energy demand in summer

‐75,00%

Noise pollution

‐ 5dB

Rain water contained in the drainage system

35,00%

100 mq of leaves can filter up to 10/30 mg of pollute (Susca, Graffin, Dell'Osso, 2011) Sources: (Tehodosius, 2003; Dunnett and Kingsbury 2004; Oberndorfer & al., 2011)

Since it is cultivated, a farmed green roof can satisfy fresh vegetables requirements of several families ‐ for example, 100 sqm of tomatoes can produce 2 tonnes per year‐, combining private benefits with collective ones. It can contribute to ensure food security and promote KM0 food supply chain (Bohn & Viljoen, 2011; Wilson, 2009). Moreover, it enables to recycle the biggest part of organic domestic waste of an entire residential building that, transformed in compost, can be used as natural fertilizers for the soil. The experience of Ousecretgarden has shown that even if 40 sqm of a grown garden are not sufficient to guarantee the yearly needs of the 6 families living in the overlooking condo, it can certainly integrate part of the vegetables required and offer them a new urban living experience. However, if one of the reason behind urban farming is the desire to reconnect production with consumption, roofs dimensions matter in case of soil‐based farming. In response to similar limits, some of the most futuristic systems for roof farming propose to intensify production through multilevel urban structures or greenhouse systems, with very sophisticated growing methods, like hydroponic or aquaponics7, so that to exploit as much as possible the available roof surface (Thomaier & Al., 20015) and still obtain relevant environmental effects (Delor, 2011). From the social impact point of view, the innovation boosted by OrtiAlti approach is systemic: building owners ‐private or public‐, which pay for the rooftop garden, can benefit from the risen value of their real estate property, the reduction of their expenditures, and the return of image –especially in case of investors like companies or G.D.O‐, while they contribute to environmental sustainability and social cohesion; P.A. can leverage on these interventions integrating their public policies on green areas and food security, especially thanks to the potential involvement of local O.N.G. engaged in fighting urban poverty; local communities can satisfy part of their requirements for fresh vegetable, but, most of all, they can benefit of a new pleasant collective green area. A grown garden cultivated and looked after by citizens favours sociability between them, exchanges between generations ‐ 7

Hydroponics is a subset of hydroculture and is a method of growing plants using mineral nutrient solutions, in water, without soil. Aquaponics is even more sophisticated, since it integrates plant and fish production, in re‐ circulated closed system (water tank). th

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especially between elders and kids ‐ and different cultures, and the pursuance of healthy and economical physical activity.

Figure 2. Multi‐scalar positive impacts of OrtiAlti approach.

Towards a new ontology for urban planning

At the core of the OrtiAlti approach there was the idea that urban farming and urban regeneration could have been associated if framed within the concept of “urban resilience”, meaning the ability to adapt at changes without changing the systemic structure. In particular, this concept has recently migrated into the urban debate as umbrella for the planning and design strategies needed to support cities to develop the necessary capacity to meet the challenges of the future. Urban resilience is the degree to which cities are able to tolerate alteration before reorganizing around a new set of structures and processes. Hence, a resilient city is a settlement able to activate strategies to innovate its own internal equilibrium, according to the evolutions of contextual conditions; it is a city that adapts to climate change and that opts for the re‐use and reconversion of its own urban fabric, rather than investing on no longer sustainable edification. Moreover, a city is resilient when it’s able to plan and implement permanent strategies for social homoeostasis, through mechanisms of smart collective governance. According to this new paradigm for urban development, the ortoalto concept unveils the tangible opportunity to consider urban equipment – buildings, infrastructures, squares, green areas, ecc.. ‐ as

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dynamic resources, able to aggregate different communities of users, different public policies, different functions, hence different stakeholders. To reintroduce sustainable food infrastructures in the urban space becomes thus a “boundary strategy” to coordinate a wide range of functions, able to meet not‐only production‐oriented spaces, but many societal and ecological aims. According to Lovell (2010) the real challenge is hence to design multi‐dimensional urban landscapes. The ortoalto can work as a metaphor, a concept that demystify the old categories of spatial planning. A real new ontology that redefines the conflicting relationship between the public and private sectors in the use of resources such as the soil; that recognizes as multi‐dimensional certain categories of urban spaces and activities; that includes new economic and social actors that operate as subjects able to produce values of collective interest to the community. The OrtiAlti case study, in fact, demonstrates the integrationist role of urban space, as at the same time prompter and recipient of different public policies: on the ortoalto meet welfare and educational policies, but also environmental and economic public initiatives. It also underlines the widespread commitment of private subjects – professionals, neighborhood organizations, social enterprises, inhabitants, ecc. – in taking care of the urban spaces and in designing new urban services through collaborative relationships. We are facing an important paradigmatic change in urban planning, which implies some important reflections about meanings and methods: ‐ First, the overthrow of the traditional consideration of externalities produced by the phenomena of urban transformation and territorial policies. In Italy we are used to consider real estate initiatives and urban development projects as economical activity that involves generally positive externalities for the promoters, and as such subject to some form of direct payment of money in favor of the administration, by way of refreshment ‐ in addition to the so‐ called burden of Urbanization ‐. This relationship between private parties ‐ developers ‐ and public ‐ the municipalities ‐ is regulated by laws from about half a century. Transformation initiatives of the city described in this note constitute a real reversal of the traditional public / private relationship: here is the public that is to take advantage of urban transformation made by private subjects. We are facing eventualities that require to update traditional assumptions on the redistributive aim of public action in urban planning. ‐ Second, the policy‐maker is necessarily called to reconsider its decision‐making process according to a renewed pragmatic rationality. This means to start and to learn from what already exists; from the “intelligence of democracy” (Lindblom, 1959) and from the social capital, the organizational capacity and the bottom‐up initiatives spread all over the urban territory.

In particular, to build orchards on roofs matches with the tangible attempt to reconsider buildings in a renewed form and according to integrated uses, in the light of land consumption reduction and participatory practices. However, for being implemented correctly it still calls for innovations in urban policies and land use planning tools, particularly concerning the zoning codes. Major obstacles for constructing rooftop orchards and rooftop greenhouses are related to local building regulations and land‐use laws: first, the change of the intended use of the surface – from not accessible, to accessible, for instance – implies procedures and precaution measures, which make the intervention too costly and time consuming. Rooftop greenhouse are even considered additional usable space, exceeding the floor‐to‐area ration in most cities. Interestingly enough, especially in Northern European countries like Austria, Germany and, across the Ocean, in Canada or United States, local regulatory bodies have started to adjust their urban planning tools in order to facilitate rooftop farming initiatives. This is the case for Monaco, Paris or Basilea, for instance, that have adopted specific policy tools to facilitate the th

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green roofs installations, as means for pursuing urban biodiversity, ecologic conservation and urban requalification. At the same time, the city of Vancouver or Toronto have developed specific urban food policies, according to which available flat roofs, especially those publicly owned, are included in their urban agriculture plans, as complementary spaces for food production. Other cities like New York and Boston have just started the revision of their zoning codes in order to introduce in their land‐use urban agriculture, by including also rooftops as suitable spaces for farming. 5.

Conclusions

This paper has been the occasion to reflect upon the OrtiAlti case study, as the exemplification of social innovation initiatives for urban re‐use and urban farming. Differently from land based urban agriculture, the ortoalto has multiple functions and produces a wide range of non‐food and non‐ market goods (Specht & Al., 2014), that contribute to create a new urban setting, sustainable and inclusive. It provides innovative architectural solutions for buildings reuse and urban regeneration, reducing food mile and improving resource and energy efficiency. In terms of social impacts, it contributes to improve community food security, to provide educational facilities, connecting consumers to food production, to empower urban inhabitants in taking care of the gardens. This has important effects also in economic terms, since it creates local circuits of produce exchange, and productive collaborations that can act as factors of local development. Being rooftop farming a relatively unexplored field in urban planning discipline, especially in Italy, a lot of further research is still required. 6.

References

Acherman K. & al. , (2014), “Sustainable Food Systems for Future Cities: The Potential of Urban Agriculture”, The Economic and Social Review, Vol. 45, No. 2, pp. 189–206 Bohn K., Viljoen A., (2011), “The Edible City: Envisioning the Continous Productive Urban Landscape”, Field: a free journal for architecture, Vol. 1, n.1, pp. 149‐161. Delor M., (2011), “Current State of Building‐Integrated Agriculture, its Energy Benefits and Comparison with Green Roofs”, University of Sheffield, Sheffield, UK. Dubbeling M., (2014), “Urban agriculture as a climate change and a disaster risk reduction strategy”, UA Magazine, n. 27, March, pp. 1‐56 Dunnett N. Kingsbury N., (2004), Planting green roofs and living walls, Timber Press, Sheffield Durhman A, Rowe DB, Ebert‐May D, Rugh CL. (2004)., ”Evaluation of crassulacean species on extensive green roofs.”, Paper presented at the Second Annual Greening Rooftops for Sustainable Communities Conference, Awards and Trade Show; 2–4 June 2004, Portland, Oregon. International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (2010), “Cities and Climate Change: An Urgent Agenda”, in Urban Development Series ‐ Knowledge Papers 10 (Washington DC: World Bank, 2010). Lindblom C., (1959), “The Science of “Muddling Through”, Public Administration Review, Vol. 19, No. 2 Lovell S.T., (2010), “Multifunctional Urban Agriculture for Sustainable Land Use Planning in the United States “, Sustainability 2010, 2,pp. 2499‐2522 Open Access, available at www.mdpi.com/journal/sustainability Mess C. & Stone E., (2012), “Zoned Out: The Potential of Urban Agriculture Planning to Turn Against its Roots”, Cities and the Environment, Vol. 5, No. 1, Article 7. Oberndorfer E., Lundholm J., Bass B., Coffman R., Doshi H., (2007). ”Green Roofs as Urban Ecosystems: Ecological Structures, Functions, and Services”, in BioScience, Vol 57, n. 10, pp. 823‐833 Quesnel A., Foss J., Danielsson N., (2011), “Solutions from Above : Using Rooftop Agriculture to Move Cities Towards Sustainability”, School of Engineering Blekinge Institute of Technology, Karlskrona, Sweden. Saporito E., (2015), “Vuoti a Rendere”, Editoriale Labsus, Rivista on‐line, 21 Apile 2015.

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Susca T., Gaffin S.R., Dell’Osso G.R. , (2011), ”Positive effects of vegetation: Urban heat island and green roofs”, Environmental Pollution, Vol 159, Issues 8/9, 2119‐2126 Specht K. & Al., (2014), “Urban agriculture of the future: an overview of sustainability aspects of food production in and on buildings”, Agric Hum Values, 31, pp. 33–51 Theodosious, T.G, (2003), ”Summer Period Analysis of the Performance of a Planted Roof as a Passive Cooling Technique.”, Energy and Buildings, vol. 35, no. 9, pp. 909–917. Thomaier S. & al., (2014), “Farming in and on urban buildings: Present practice and specific novelties of Zero‐ Acreage Farming (ZFarming)”, Renewable Agriculture and Food Systems. Wilson, A., (2009), “Growing food locally: integrating agriculture into the built environment”, Environmental Building News, Vol. 18, No. 2, February 1. (available at www.buildinggreen.com).

Websites www.ortialti.com www.harpogroup.it www.oursecregarden.biz

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Joe Nasr, June Komisar, “Rooftops as productive spaces: planning and design lessons from Toronto”, In: Localizing urban food strategies. th Farming cities and performing rurality. 7 International Aesop Sustainable Food Planning Conference Proceedings, Torino, 7‐9 October 2015, edited by Giuseppe Cinà and Egidio Dansero, Torino, Politecnico di Torino, 2015, pp 374‐380. ISBN 978‐88‐8202‐060‐6

ROOFTOPS AS PRODUCTIVE SPACES: PLANNING AND DESIGN LESSONS FROM TORONTO Joe Nasr1, June Komisar2

Keywords: rooftop cultivation, Toronto, urban agriculture, sustainable building systems Abstract: While the use of rooftops has long been common in some countries for various purposes, in many others, the roof has been one of the most underused spaces in cities. In recent years there has been increasing interest in rooftops as a valuable neglected resource, particularly for use to produce food. Much excitement as well as questioning has arisen about the potential for creating new productive roofs, for transforming unused rooftops, and for adapting existing green roofs into productive spaces. As it moves from hypothetical proposals to an increasingly common practice, rooftop gardening and farming is starting to mature as a practice. Given the fast spread of widely varied experiences with rooftops used for food growing over the past decade, lessons are becoming available on the opportunities, challenges and solutions to food growing on rooftops. This talk will offer some reflections based on these experiences, particularly as they pertain to planning and design considerations. The lessons will be drawn from the authors’ participation in the Carrot City initiative that continues to identify exemplary cases of designing for urban agriculture, as well as their knowledge of productive roofs in Toronto, particularly the campus‐based Rye’s HomeGrown project. Examples considered here will be discussed in light of infrastructural and technical obstacles that faced the designers and cultivators of the projects, the regulatory issues (from bylaws to building codes) that helped or hindered implementation, and the ongoing challenges faced by the cultivators. Finally, broader implications for the built environment, and for the roles of different professionals involved in shaping it, will be discussed.

Introduction

While the use of rooftops has long been common in some countries for various purposes, in many others, the roof has been one of the most underused spaces in cities. As interest in the rooftop as a valuable neglected resource has increased, its use as a space that can be used for food production has been received particular attention in recent years. Much excitement (as well as questioning) has arisen about the potential for creating new productive roofs, for transforming unused rooftops into actively cultivated ones, and for adapting existing green roofs into productive spaces. Despite many challenges to this type of production, the benefits are numerous. In some cases, such as production in schools, the proximity of rooftop growing spaces to learning spaces is seen as a distinct advantage. In other cases, there is scarce affordable land for growing, and there is no other alternative to rooftops as a space for growing food. Extensive green roofs (usually a thin layer of growing medium sown with sedum, wildflowers, grasses or equivalent) have become increasingly used or even required in many cities in Europe, and more recently in North America and some other regions. As cities begin to see the benefits of green roofs – including, for example, the reduction of both storm water runoff and the city’s heat‐island effect – the question needs to be asked: if green roofs are going to be installed anyway, why not install productive (intensive) green roofs instead of merely green roofs? Is a productive green roof 1

Ryerson University, Toronto, Canada Ryerson University, Toronto, Canada

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necessarily more difficult or expensive to install or maintain than an extensive, non‐productive roof? And are the benefits from the extra effort worth it? Answering such questions depends on understanding the variety of forms of rooftop food production systems, the many types of roofs, and the different types of contexts for these roofs – particularly the type of building and its construction, the way the building is used, and a number of related questions such as access, exposure, stakeholders, etc. Looking at the great variety in rooftop growing conditions can provide insight into the problems and solutions, the feasibility and suitability, of different types of rooftop production choices. Given the fast spread of widely varied experiences with rooftops used for food growing over the past decade, lessons are becoming available on the opportunities, challenges and solutions to food growing on rooftops. Some large cities, such as Montreal, New York, Paris, Seoul and Tokyo, have by now developed a range of experiences in rooftop growing in varied settings. This short paper will offer some reflections based on experiences from Toronto, particularly as they pertain to planning and design considerations. The number of Toronto‐based cases since around 2000 provides a good basis for analyzing the variety of settings and to raise a range of issues around the use of roofs for food production. The lessons will be drawn from the authors’ participation as coordinators of the Carrot City initiative that continues to identify exemplary cases of designing for urban agriculture, as well as their knowledge of productive roofs in Toronto. Examples considered here will be discussed in light of infrastructural and technical obstacles that faced the designers and cultivators of the projects, the regulatory issues (from bylaws to building codes) that helped or hindered implementation, and the ongoing challenges faced by the cultivators. Finally, broader implications for the built environment, and for the roles of different professionals involved in shaping it, will be discussed. 2.

Learning from Toronto: A partial typology of rooftop production settings

While the proliferation of productive rooftop projects in Toronto is relatively recent, ideas for such projects have been proposed for some years before that. Some greenhouses with productive elements had existed in Toronto in the past, including some historic ones many decades ago to supply the city with some vegetables, but these had largely disappeared by 2000. Some precedents did remain, such as the pioneering greenhouse that was attached against the upper level of the industrial building where FoodShare, the largest food advocacy organization in Toronto had been based until a decade ago. This small greenhouse was managed by FoodShare’s first Urban Agriculture Coordinator and served as incubator to early urban farming enterprises. This building was demolished and FoodShare considered added a greenhouse in its current location at a school building, but did not proceed with such plans (it has a ground‐level cultivation and composting area). In the second half of the 2000s, while few new productive roofs were installed, a number of conceptual proposals were put forward. Several student thesis projects, such as some by Ryerson University architecture students that helped form the basis of the Carrot City initiative, included proposed cultivated roofs or greenhouses. Another thesis project, Vertical Farm Arcology by Gordon Graff, a student at the University of Waterloo, was devoted to conceiving a farm that covers a series of new housing blocks. A competition called Cities Alive, organized by Green Roofs for Healthy Cities, was won by team of students from Ryerson University which proposed transformed the

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transformation of a whole neighborhood consisting of old shopping strips and a low‐rise housing estate by covering all existing buildings with productive roofs and walls. Visionary proposals were not limited to students; Chris Hardwicke, a Toronto architect, proposed Ravine City/Farm City, a detailed vision for the transformation of some of Toronto’s many ravines into new low‐rise housing that cascades down the slope with a series of cultivated terraced roofs. While many conceptual proposals have been suggested in the past years, many more realistic ones have been also conceived for different real sites across Toronto. The remainder of this section will concentrate on realized case studies. Additional projects have been proposed but not realized yet. In Downsview Park, the potential for using one the enormous flat roof of a former aeronautic building for a large farm was explored but not pursued. On a smaller scale, a new community center was designed to include a small community garden with raised beds on part of its roof – this is still planned in the building currently under construction. At this time, in Toronto, there is already a wide diversity of realized rooftop project, from container rooftop growing spaces to more farm‐like conditions that use different forms of growing media applied directly on top of a soil‐ready roofing surface. Some roofs combine these two strategies. In addition, some roofs are fairly closed off to visitors and some are purposely designed to be either teaching or demonstration gardens that provide interest, pleasure, and incentives for people to try this themselves. The remainder of this section will provide a panorama of these projects, according to the type context for the roof. The projects will be grouped into six main groups. Some of the projects will be analyzed to highlight planning and design dimensions. 2.1

The school garden

Five non‐profit organizations have allied to champion the creation of a productive garden in every school in Toronto. Realistically, many of the schools will not have growing space on ground level, so it made sense for the potential of rooftops to be explored at some schools. So far, rooftop projects are very few and small, but one of them stands out. One of the non‐profits in this initiative, Foodshare, runs schoolyard farming projects teaching students to run market gardens. In partnership with Toronto’s Eastdale Collegiate School, they operate a large container rooftop garden called GrownRoofTop. This school building has a 1000 m2 roof space originally built as an outdoor tennis court area, which is very fortunate because, to create this original tennis court, the roof had to be engineered to be strong and tolerate foot traffic. In addition, a high parapet and proper fire egress make this an ideal roof for a teaching garden. Designed with a café/event area, most of the roof is filled with hundreds of large modular growing containers built from highly durable thermally modified wood and filled with soil. Originally, it was thought that these containers would be moved for events, increasing the dining area or adapting for a variety of curricular or seasonal reasons. However, once placed, these containers were never relocated. The students learn growing, harvesting, cooking and marketing the food. 2.2

The university garden

Several universities in Canada now have rooftop growing projects, though the nature of these projects varies greatly. In Toronto, both universities have such projects, illustrating well this variety. The University of Toronto’s was begun with a small pilot project on the roof of the Engineering building in 2009. The ‘sky garden’ comprises a container gardening (semi‐hydroponic) system with th

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linked reservoir containers that uses a drip irrigation system for watering. The containers, made by Quebec‐based BioTop, resemble a standard windowbox and are relatively lightweight. The “bioponic” hybrid growing system uses plastic slotted inserts (called culture baskets) that hold the root systems in a granular medium, not ordinary soil, providing access to water in a bottom reservoir. Participating students have been experimenting with a variety of crops and other variables to develop moveable, lightweight rooftop gardening systems. Now hives of honeybees augment the rooftop vegetable gardening. Ryerson University meanwhile has set up a proper urban farm after starting with several smaller ground‐level sites run by a student‐focused garden group called Rye’s HomeGrown. A small farm‐like rooftop productive garden on the university’s engineering building was created by adding soil, replacing daylilies that had populated an extensive green roof. Ryerson’s Grounds Maintenance department no longer has to maintain the green roof, to keep it free from trees taking root, etc. Rye’s HomeGrown was fortunate to have access to a roof that was built to support a green roof, although an extensive green roof with sedum or flowers is not designed in the same way a soil‐based farm would be designed. The biggest hurdle is that the roof was not designed for people to access it regularly to farm or visit. The university had to invest in higher fencing since the roof parapets were too low to safely allow human occupation, and access to the roof strictly requires being guided there by the coordinator or one of her trained assistants. A service elevator and a fire stair access the roof, helping transport produce on harvest days, but making it inconvenient for allowing people to tour the innovative garden site. Run by a professional urban farmer and a host of student volunteers, the hands‐on learning component is as rewarding as the high yield which is given to the volunteers, sold in the on‐campus farmers’ market and used in the school cafeteria. 2.3

The community space garden

Increasingly, the rooftop is sometimes seen as a potential community space, serving for outreach, education, socializing, and other purposes. In Toronto, two contrasting examples illustrate the range of ways in which a gardening‐focused rooftop can act as a space for community‐building. AccessPoint on Danforth Community Hub is a community health center established by Access Alliance, a not‐for‐profit organization that provides a number of services (from basic health advice to employment training to support to recent immigrants. This community hub was established by transforming an abandoned low‐rise tile manufacturer and retail store. Seeking to address a variety of health improvement needs through gardening, Access Alliance decided to create a large teaching garden on part of the roof. Taking advantage of the fact that half the building was one floor higher than the other half, the architect was able to create a highly accessible garden, even with an elevator. While it is not open to the general public, it is used by a wide variety of users of the health center for hands‐on activities. The placement of different types of materials in the garden was carefully based on the instructions from the building engineer so as to distribute loads appropriately. Hence small trees, a trellised shade structure, teaching objects and a sitting area are placed where the roof structure can withhold that weight. A few subway stations away along Danforth Avenue can be found the Carrot Green Roof, an even more fully publicly reachable multipurpose rooftop space. It sits atop Carrot Common, a retail strip anchored by a well‐known cooperative supermarket, the Big Carrot. When the roof developed a leak and had to be replaced, the board that governs the not‐for‐profit cooperative decided to invest into

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transforming the space into a usable space. The result is a hybrid space, including an equipped outdoor kitchen, a gathering space for a variety of activities (including meetings and even a summer play). The largest part of the roof is devoted to a demonstration garden that is intended to show many growing techniques for edible, medicinal and herbal plants that can be cultivated successfully on the roof. The variety of plants is related partly to the varying load capacity of the roof. Thus different container techniques are placed against strong bearing walls, while the thinnest part of the roof is used for light herbs. An open stair from the outside was added to ensure full public access – on nice days, eaters can thus grab lunch from the supermarket and eat while watching the garden. 2.4

The residents’ amenity garden

A trend that has particularly emerged in recent years in Toronto and in other cities is that of gardening as an amenity for building residents. This is an interesting trend as it has physical consequences for many types of buildings by reconceiving the cultivated landscape as a space for direct intervention by residents in a building, who become active rather than passive users of the landscape. Four different examples illustrate this phenomenon in its diversity. ‐ In the largest transformation of a social housing area in Canada, Regent Park, the first building to be constructed is One Oak, a 10‐story apartment building for seniors. The roof of this building was nearly entirely covered by raised beds that are tall enough for the elderly residents to access them without bending. By designing these beds from the start, they could be built with solid stone facing that gives the rooftop project an unusual solidity. ‐ This project was undertaken by the Daniels Corporation, a large developer that is starting to integrate raised beds into their projects routinely. In particular, several of their condominium apartment complexes across Toronto now include such features, which they advertise as one amenity among others. ‐ Such productive rooftops and balconies are starting to be included in some social housing. One recent building, 60 Richmond East, was erected to target workers from the hospitality industry, in collaboration with a union that represents these workers. The unusual design includes, along with a teaching restaurant, some terraces that are intended for the residents of the building. ‐ A final example pushes the concept of residents. 401 Richmond Street is a former factory that has been adapted into artists’ studios, offices for civil society organizations, and other tenants. The artists in particular, while not residing in the building, spend extended periods in it. Part of the roof of this solidly built brick building has been transformed into a lush garden that the building ‘residents’ use, including many edible plants.

2.5

The employees’ amenity garden

Gardening is starting to be seen as an amenity for other groups too, including employees at various work settings. Providing workers with areas to grow food to supplement their income has an older history, but this practice had largely disappeared. The current revival of the staff garden is taking a different form: it is now approached as an amenity for employees, particularly at larger corporations – just like an office gym. One recent example is the garden at the Toronto headquarters of Telus, one of the largest Canadian telecommunications companies. The recently constructed building includes several gathering spaces for employees, including a roof garden five floors above ground. This terrace as with other planted

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terraces, also served for storm water catchment, as part of the strategies that earned the building LEED certification as a ‘green’ skyscraper. Low enough to avoid the extreme winds of its tower roof, the employee terrace also has enough sun exposure to be able to support plants in large containers. The parapets and egress requirements comply to safety codes and the walking surfaces are appropriate for general use. Loading was calculated for planters of varying depth when the space was designed. Under the impetus of a small group of committed employees, this space was transformed over the past three years into a space for production, not just for relaxation. Instead of just ornamental plants, they have hired a gardener to lead a group of volunteers from the company in creating a well‐designed productive garden space. Clearly it is not producing enough quantity to contribute much to the diets of any of the employees, but as a demonstration space, it showcases easy‐to‐grow herbs and vegetables for the local climate. Volunteers learn how to grow and what to grow in their own future gardens. Others spend their break time in this pleasant space that demonstrates how edible landscaping can be both productive and attractive. 2.6

Restaurant garden

In Toronto as elsewhere, several restaurants have gotten into the practice of producing some of the food they transform into meals – often led by the chefs themselves. These include established restaurants like Parts & Labour, Vertical and Beast. One notable pioneering rooftop productive garden predated the current trend to develop rooftop spaces for production. For more than a decade, the Fairmont Royal York Hotel, built in 1929 by the Canadian Pacific railway as a grand hotel, has used one of its roofs with southern exposure to produce greens, herbs and arctic berries for its restaurant. High platforms for the growing containers help the chefs to harvest easily on this oasis 18 stories high. A commitment to beekeeping has also provided honey for the restaurant. As with many projects where urban agriculture is added on a roof that is not designed for this activity, access is through a mechanical space, obviously not ideal for access by hotel or restaurant guests. Despite this awkward entry, touring the site has been a popular activity. 3.

Challenges in setting up and operating a productive rooftop

The number of examples cited above using Toronto as a focus shows that, within a few short years, the inclusion of spaces for food production has become more common without being pigeonholed into a single type of production method, urban context, category of stakeholder, or other criteria. This shows the great variety of possibilities for creating places for urban agriculture on urban roofs. However, to realize these possibilities, a number of challenges had to be surmounted in these various examples. Here are some of the categories of challenges that we have identified across these examples and many other cases of rooftop food production that we have examined. 1. Finding/rebuilding the roof (particularly where an existing building is concerned) 2. Securing tenure for the roof (dealing with landlords, lawyers, funders…) 3. Getting permits to use the roof (zoning, construction permits…) 4. Ensuring safety on the roof (structural load, fencing, attaching objects…) 5. Delivering soil and water to the roof (figuring out appropriate/light soil, bringing up the soil, providing water sources…) 6. Incorporating ancillary structures on the roof (sheds, shade, seating…)

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7. 8.

Securing physical access by growers to and from the roof (stairs/elevator, getting inputs up and harvest down…) Dealing with public demand for access to the roof (dealing with demand by volunteers and visitors, spatial separation between growers and public, accessible paths, event space, differences in access with type of production and garden purpose) Gaining technical knowledge for growing on the roof (containers, extensive green roofs, intensive green roofs, greenhouses, growing mediums, watering issues…) Dealing with growing conditions that are typical of roofs (sun, wind, snow…).

10. This long list shows that, to realize a rooftop that includes food production in one form or another, a number of challenges have to be dealt with. Some are infrastructural and technical in nature, others require addressing regulatory issues (such as bylaws and building codes). Moreover, many common cultivation challenges and practices have to be figured out to achieve any success in the specific growing conditions on a roof: season extension, appropriate crops, pollination, and so on. Yet despite these numerous challenges, quite a few new productive rooftops have been implemented in recent years. This shows that on roofs, as with elsewhere in the built environment in the urban context, many different solutions can be found to the extensive list of challenges in this regard. Thus in Toronto, we can glimpse the outline of what may be possible above our heads, literally, in terms of urban agriculture.

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H.C. Lee, R. Childsa, W. Hughes , “Sustainable Food Planning for Maidstone, Kent, UK”, In: Localizing urban food strategies. Farming cities th and performing rurality. 7 International Aesop Sustainable Food Planning Conference Proceedings, Torino, 7‐9 October 2015, edited by Giuseppe Cinà and Egidio Dansero, Torino, Politecnico di Torino, 2015, pp 381‐390. ISBN 978‐88‐8202‐060‐6

SUSTAINABLE FOOD PLANNING FOR MAIDSTONE, KENT, UK H.C. Lee1, R. Childs2, W. Hughes3 Abstract: The use of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) was explored for mapping habitats, wildlife, landscape and land use for Maidstone, Kent, UK. Through meetings with various stakeholders, maps were generated showing landscape character areas and habitat biodiversity for the Maidstone area, followed by a zoned characterisation of agricultural land types and areas of land available for food production, which suggests a total potential area of available land of 372 ha and 1899 ha in the urban and peri‐urban zones respectively. Various factors affecting potential yields from this land are discussed, but require further study. It is suggested that next steps should include a detailed biodiversity inventory and the construction of an integrated assessment framework in order to produce a useful and sustainable food planning strategy for Maidstone.

Introduction

Farming in the UK is currently unable to feed all resident citizens (Lee, 2015). Furthermore, the balance of imported food has been demonstrated to be vulnerable to interruptions of supply (Defra, 2010). Whilst international trade in food continues to be an ongoing and important component of the national economy (Department for Business Innovation & Skills, 2013), it would seem prudent to explore measures to improve security of domestic supply if that trade should be interrupted. Whilst there have been discussions about Sustainable Intensification (SI) as a means of enhancing food security (Kuyper & Struik, 2014) (Tittonell, 2014) such a holistic approach has yet to be applied to urban and peri urban production, at least for developed nations (Lee, 2012). As nearly 80% of European, including UK, citizens live near to towns and cities (Antrop, 2004) there is clear potential to explore holistic sustainable food planning (SFP) for urban yield improvements via urban agriculture (UA). It is posited that this will best be achieved by using an array of tools that allow towns and cities to be surveyed and mapped. So far, published literature includes the use of surveys and photography, but as (Rupprecht & Byrne, 2014) note, more technical Geographic Information Systems (GIS)‐augmented and other mixed method approaches are still scarce. GIS is seen as central to SFP, providing a means of analysing spatial relationships in enable more informed decision making (Freeman, 1999). This paper reports on a case study for the town of Maidstone (UK), which utilises maps and other information sources to start the process of SFP. Whilst there have been some attempts in Maidstone to develop land use strategies (MaidstoneBoroughCouncil, 2013), an integrated use of GIS maps for SFP is still needed and this paper presents the results of a collaborative project to start that process.

Materials and Methods

Maidstone, the county town of Kent, UK, was mapped using ArcGIS. This was verified via face‐to‐face meetings with KCC officials (especially Ms Ruth Childs), informal meetings with the HadLOW CARBON 1

Hadlow College, Hadlow, Tonbridge, Kent, UK TN11 0AL.. Kent County Council, County Hall, Maidstone, Kent ME14 1XQ. 3 Hadlow College, Hadlow, Tonbridge, Kent, UK TN11 0AL. 2

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Community (HCC, 2015) and expert advice from staff at Hadlow College (especially Mr Alan Harvey, Mr Stefan Jordan, Mr Will Hughes) during 2014 and 2015. The project outcomes were intended to: 1. Review a range of ArcGIS mediated maps, to cover Habitats, Wildlife Designation, Landscape Characters, Land Use; 2. Develop a tighter focus upon Agricultural Land types, and the generation of a detailed map‐ based assessment of land areas available for food production; 3. Consider the factors affecting the optimal urban and peri urban yield potential for Maidstone; 4. Speculate on the way forward as SFPs are developed more thoroughly by reviewing existing knowledge and options for future action. The maps shown here were generated by data from ArcGIS version 10.2.2 overlaid upon OS 1:25,000 base maps (Figures 1 and 2), Edina Digimap using a 2007 land use classification (Figure 3) and ArcMap to isolate land‐use attributes and drape over a 3D model using ArcScene (Figure 4). Maps shown in this paper are as screen saves, due to the large memory requirements of the original files. As a conceptual introduction, Figure 1a shows the location of Hadlow College and the study site town, Maidstone in Kent, UK and 1b shows an aerial photo of the Maidstone study site.

Figure 1a. Map of Kent to show study site of Maidstone. Source: (HadlowCollege, 2015)

In Figure 1b it can be seen that the town is bordered by the M20 to the north and interfaces with rural land on other sides. One major river (the Medway) flows through the town. There is a clear

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delineation between the inner urban zone of Maidstone housing and adjoining land for agriculture and horticulture, though evidence of sprawl. Some ribbon development of housing is also evident, and this leads to one clear satellite site ‐ Royal British Legion village in the north‐west corner of Figure 1. This layout is broadly typical of many UK town and city plans, where ‘green belt’ land surrounding urban centres has had only partial success in limiting urban sprawl (Hennig, et al., 2015). The interest for this paper is how the layout of Maidstone can be understood holistically, to enable the SFP process to start. This assumes that the primary aim is the food production potential of the town, and Figure 1 indicates at least one site where allotments are already being managed. The challenge is how to develop a SFP approach which maps the extension of this and other types of local food growing across the town, whilst balancing that against the other needs of citizens.

M20

River Medway

Figure 1b. Aerial photograph of Maidstone, showing M20 motorway across northern border. The town is surrounded by agricultural land and has the river Medway flowing through it. An existing allotment site is marked. Source: Childs, KCC

Results and discussion

Consultations The various informal meetings with stakeholders described above took place in Hadlow College (HadlowCollege, 2015) on the main campus but also at venues in the village of Hadlow, which is situated in west Kent, approximately 15km from Maidstone (Figure 1a). Discussions also occurred at College sustainability workshops, which involved staff, students and residents of the village and nearby. There is much potential for further engagement with residents of Maidstone for a full SFP and the authors are keenly aware of the need for this.

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The maps The maps presented here attempt to lead towards a consideration of Maidstone as an integrated system, comprising a wide collection of plants and animals, varied landscapes and habitats, and how this links to food production potential. Figure 2. shows landscape character areas across the town and indicates a shallow valley (vale) to the north, which contains sections of the motorway. To the east and south, landscapes are dominated by heath farmland and fruit production, respectively. To the west the landscape is dominated mostly by a suburban extension from the town and one satellite development (Royal British Legion village) as noted for Figure 1b. Within the fringes of the urban zone can be seen four parks ‐ clockwise Oakwood, Invicta, Vintners and Mote.

Figure 2. Maidstone Landscape Character Areas. Source: Childs, KCC The diversity of all non‐managed species (ranging across mammals, birds, invertebrates, plants, fungi) is of considerable interest and is well known to be dependent upon the diversity of habitats available (Freeman, 1999). This is shown in Figure 3 and indicates considerable biodiversity. An attempt to generate an inventory of species for Maidstone has not so far been achieved but is considered to be an important component of a systems approach to SFP.

Other research has established the importance of urban biodiversity (Farinha‐Marques, et al., 2011) and is supported by a recent major review of green space planning in cities (Haaland & van den Bosch, 2015). The latter has highlighted the significance of ‘densification’ for biodiversity although th

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positive or negative trends for this are contrary and unclear. The inner zone for Maidstone is quite densely populated by people (though exact data are currently unavailable), and little is known about habitat and species biodiversity. The land surrounding the town is more heterogeneous in terms of habitats and is probably more biodiverse. This is reviewed by (La Rosa, et al., 2014) from a European perspective, who refer to the: “…relationship between the agricultural landscape and the city [which] is reflected in the particular contemporary peri‐urban landscapes, where residential low‐density settlements are intertwined with farmlands that have been partially modified and reduced by urbanisation.” (p. 290).

Figure 3. Map of habitat diversity for Maidstone. Source: Hughes, Natural Environment Research Council

Whilst well known species of vegetables and fruit may have use for food production, many others will be present for wildlife and aesthetic reasons (Altieri, 1999). Additionally, a more thorough understanding of the biodiversity of Maidstone is seen as important, since such species have value for local landscapes and human appreciation ‐ i.e. quality of life (Egoh, et al., 2007) and urban zones in general are known to contribute useful ecological services, such as: 1. “Supporting services (biodiversity, habitat, soil formation, ecological memory, seed dispersal, pollination, storage and cycling of nutrients); 2. Cultural services (recreation, enhancement of property value, community cohesion, source of knowledge); 3. Provisioning services (food, water, fuel); and 4. Regulating services (carbon sink, microclimate control, flood prevention, noise reduction, temperature modulation, pollution control, protection of water quality,etc.).” (Farinha‐ Marques, et al., 2011), 253. The next stage of this study is the generation of Agricultural Land types and land areas available for food production. This is shown in Figure 4.

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Figure 4. Agricultural Land types and land areas available for food production. Source: Mosco, University of Greenwich.

This map can be seen to include zones 1‐3. This has been adapted from that by Growing Communities (GrowingCommunities, 2015), a London based community food growing organisation. They refer to a zone system for cities: 0 = urban domestic, 1 = urban traded, 2 = peri urban, 3 = rural hinterland, 4 = rest of UK, 5 = rest of Europe, 6 = further out. We have adapted this in Figure 4 to show our interpretation of zone 1 as their 0 and 1 combined and our zones 2 and 3 the same as theirs. City or town zoning for food planning has been poorly published elsewhere but is seen here as a useful means of rationalising food planning policies, since zones 1 and 2 are posited as considerably different: zone 1 has a higher density of citizens, town or city centre shopping areas which are often traffic free and less space for growing food, whilst zone 2 has a lower density, more commercial land use as trading sites, edge of city/town supermarkets etc. and more available land. There is no fixed formula for exactly where to allocate these zones on a town or city map, so those in Figure 4 are currently admitted as approximate and requires further study to rationalise a more consistent approach. For this paper, calculations for Zone 3 – the rural hinterland – are not pursued due to lack of accurate area data for Maidstone. Figure 4 suggests a total potential area of land available for growing food as: Zone 1 – 372 ha Zone 2 – 1,899 ha The factors affecting the optimal urban and peri urban yield potential for Maidstone This paper reports the start of a process of urban agriculture (UA) yield determinations for Maidstone. Very little data exist for other urban projects: some have been reported by (Lee, 2012) th

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for unprotected (open plot) fruit and vegetable production, where yields varied from about 20‐40 t.ha‐1.year‐1. This high variability is further affected by potential increases due to protected management under glass or polythene type covers, where colleagues have reported up to ten times that of the yield in open plots (Harvey, 2015). Other factors affecting potential yields are numerous and shown in Table 1 Table 1. Examples from the literature of research on factors affecting UA Factors affecting potential UA yields Method of production – e.g. raised beds, open v. protected, hydroponics, soilless media, green roofs with concentrated fertility v. more extensive open plots Efficiency of nutrient provision for crops – chemical/synthetic or organic Methods of weed, pest and disease management for crops – chemical/synthetic or organic Livestock – species and breed, space, housing, feed, welfare, security etc. Water availability for irrigation as required for crops and livestock Energy available – fossil/renewable, labour, biomass etc. Choice of vegetable and fruit species and cultivar Seasonality ‐time of year that cropping takes place Post‐harvest treatment, storage, processing Urban food transport Waste management Relative presence or absence of soil contaminants Knowledge, experience and health of participants Conflicts with other land needs – aesthetic, recreation, sport, wildlife etc. Other socio‐political factors such as theft, vandalism, refugees, cultural diversity, local political priorities etc. Implications of climate change and extreme weather

Sources (Paranjpe, et al., 2008); (Vogl, et al., 2003); (Chenani, et al., 2015) (Cui, et al., 2015) (Tomlinson, et al., 2015) (Huang & Drescher, 2015) (Minhas, et al., 2015); (Barthel & Isendahl, 2013) (Springer, 2012); (Denny, 2012a) (Moniruzzaman, 2015) (Denny, 2012a) (Denny, 2012b) (Vedovato, et al., 2015) (Denny, 2012a) (Denny, 2012b) (Minhas, et al., 2015) (Izquierdo, et al., 2015) (Munoz‐Plaza, et al., 2013) (Moroney & Jones, 2006); (Millard, 2004) (Porter, et al., 2014); (Cabannes & Raposo, 2013) (Lisle, 2010)

Further studies are required for Maidstone to clarify many of the above factors. A wide range of stakeholders need to be interviewed, including allotment holders, community project members and local government officials. Additionally, some demonstration projects – already proposed by (Lee, et al., 2014) ‐ are required in the town to explore the local factors affecting yields and obtain a realistic assessment of yield possibilities. Thus, no confident estimates can currently be made for likely yields of UA in Maidstone until the above issues have been investigated further. A critique of determining a SFP for Maidstone There are about 113,000 people living in Maidstone (KCC, 2015) and feeding them from production generated within zones 1 and 2 will be an enormous challenge. To help move towards a viable plan for this, a SFP for Maidstone needs to be investigated within an agroecological context. There have already been some excellent studies, such as that for Almere, Netherlands, by (Jansma, et al., 2012), where various management scenarios were considered in terms of energy dynamics, and combined with a useful assessment of local food consumption patterns. A wider and more detailed consideration by (Ravetz, 2000) used an integrated assessment (IA) approach to urban sustainability, constructed schematics for ‘material metabolism’ (see Figure 4 in that paper) and then an IA framework (Figure 5 in that paper). These ideas are an excellent attempt to develop a more holistic framework for sustainable development in cities. It is suggested here that Jansma’s and especially

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Ravetz’s ideas can be further developed for the generation of a SFP plan for Maidstone which involves: ‐ A detailed, spatial biodiversity inventory across zones 1 and 2 of the town to look for key indicators of sustainability for UA, such as beneficial species; 4 ‐ An exploration of material metabolism options – especially mass balance flow, nutrient budgets, as recently demonstrated for P in ecological agriculture by (Wu, et al., 2015) and water balance modelling as demonstrated by (Branger, et al., 2013); ‐ Building this into an IA – which in essence is an ecosystem study of stocks and flows of key components; ‐ Seeking outcomes for a SFP: how can we generate a useful food planning strategy for Maidstone that optimises the benefits for citizens in terms of amenity and landscape attractiveness, yet actually feeds people efficiently in terms of inputs v. outputs? 4.

Conclusions

‐ ‐

A GIS‐mediated study of Maidstone, Kent, UK has attempted to clarify landscape character areas, habitat diversity and land available for urban agriculture; The development of a Sustainable Food Plan for Maidstone is discussed as the next step, involving a detailed biodiversity inventory and the construction of an integrated assessment framework.

Acknowledgements

The authors are grateful to Shelley Mosco (University of Greenwich) for the ArcGIS map in Figure 4 and Rosalind Fisher (Hadlow College) for helpful contributions to the text. 6.

References

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“The law of conservation of matter states that matter is conserved ‐ that is, neither created nor destroyed. Thus, if we know the amount of material that enters a chain of processes, and keep an account of all the amounts in different paths, we can calculate quantities of materials that are hard to measure. For example, we can calculate the amount of material entering the atmosphere if we know the amounts that went in, the transformations, and the waste streams to land and water. This method is called the Mass or Material Balance technique.” See http://environ.andrew.cmu.edu/m3/s4/matbalance.shtml th

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Cui, S. et al., 2015. Changing urban phosphorus metabolism: Evidence from Longyan City, China. Science of the Total Environment, Volume in press, p. in press. Defra, 2010. UK food security assessment, London: Defra. Denny, G. M., 2012a. Reducing fresh produce CO2e emissions through Urban Agriculture,seasonality, and procurement dependency: Life Cycle Analysis for tomato,potato, and apple consumption in East Anglia and Greater London, Cambridge: University of Cambridge. Denny, G. M., 2012b. Urban agriculture and seasonal food footprints: an LCA study of tomato production and consumption in the UK. Wageningen, Wageningen Academic Publishers, pp. 323‐335. Department for Business Innovation & Skills, 2013. Can trade improve food security?, London: Department for Business Innovation & Skills,. Egoh, B. et al., 2007. Integrating ecosystem services into conservation assessments: A review. Ecological Economics, Volume 63, pp. 714‐721. FAO, 2001. Human energy requirements, Rome: FAO. Farinha‐Marques, P. et al., 2011. Urban biodiversity: a review of current concepts and contributions to multidisciplinary approaches. Innovation ‐ The European Journal of Social Science Research, 24(3), pp. 247‐ 271. Freeman, C., 1999. Geographic Information Systems and the conservation of urban biodiversity. Urban Policy and Research, 17(1), pp. 51‐60. GrowingCommunities, 2015. Growing Communities start up programme. [Online] Available at: http://www.growingcommunities.org/start‐ups/what‐is‐gc/manifesto‐feeding‐cities/explore‐food‐ones/ [Accessed 16 September 2015]. Haaland, C. & van den Bosch, C. K., 2015. Challenges and strategies for urban green‐space planning in cities undergoing densification: a review. Urban Forestry and Urban Greening, Volume In press, pp. 1‐45. HadlowCollege, 2015. Hadlow College. [Online] Available at: https://hadlow.ac.uk/ [Accessed 16 September 2015]. Harvey, A., 2015. pers. comm. [Interview] (16 September 2015). HCC, 2015. HadLOW CARBON Community. [Online] Available at: https://hadlowcc.wordpress.com/ [Accessed 14 September 2015]. Hennig, E. I. et al., 2015. Land Use Policy, Volume 49, pp. 483‐498. Huang, D. & Drescher, M., 2015. Urban crops and livestock: The experiences, challenges, andand opportunities of planning for urban agriculture in two Canadian provinces. Land Use Policy, Volume 43, pp. 1‐14. IndexMundi, 2015. Index Mundi United Kingdom Median Age. [Online] Available at: http://www.indexmundi.com/united_kingdom/median_age.html [Accessed 16 September 2015]. Izquierdo, M., De Miguel, E., Ortega, M. F. & Mingot, J., 2015. Bioaccessibility of metals and human health risk assessment in community urban gardens. Chemosphere, Volume 135, pp. 312‐318. Jansma, J.‐E.et al., 2012. The impact of local food production on food miles, fossil energy use and greenhouse gas emissions: the case study of the Dutch city of Almers. Wageningen, Wageningen Academic Publishers, pp. 307‐321. KCC, 2015. Kent County Council Population and Census. [Online] Available at: http://www.kent.gov.uk/about‐ the‐council/information‐and‐data/Facts‐and‐figures‐about‐Kent/population‐and‐census [Accessed 14 September 2015]. Kuyper, T. W. & Struik, P. C., 2014. Epilogue: global food security, rhetoric, and the sustainable intensification debate. Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability, Volume 8, pp. 71‐79. La Rosa, D., Barbarossa, L., Privitera, R. & Martinico, F., 2014. Agriculture and the city: A method for sustainable planning of new new forms of agriculture in urban contexts. Land Use Policy 41, Volume 41, pp. 290‐303. Lee, H., 2012. How food secure can british cities become?. In: Sustainable Food Planning: evolving theory and practice.. Amsterdam: Wageningen Academic. Lee, H., 2015. Educating for food security in the UK: Planning for an uncdrtain future. Local Economy, 30(3), pp. 330‐341. Lee, H., Jordan, S. & Coleman, V., 2014. The devil is in the detail: Food security and self‐sustaining cropping systems. In: A. Viljoen & K. Bohn, eds. Second Nature Urban Agriculture: Designing Productive Cities. Abingdon, UK: Routledge, pp. 240‐243.

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Katrin Bohn, André Viljoen, “Second nature and urban agriculture: a cultural framework for emerging food policies”, In: Localizing urban th food strategies. Farming cities and performing rurality. 7 International Aesop Sustainable Food Planning Conference Proceedings, Torino, 7‐ 9 October 2015, edited by Giuseppe Cinà and Egidio Dansero, Torino, Politecnico di Torino, 2015, pp 391‐398. ISBN 978‐88‐8202‐060‐6

SECOND NATURE AND URBAN AGRICULTURE: A CULTURAL FRAMEWORK FOR EMERGING FOOD POLICIES Katrin Bohn1, André Viljoen2 Keywords: Urban Space Production; Urban Food Production; Ecological Place Making; Urban Transformations; Continuous Productive Urban Landscape (CPUL) Abstract: Given the increasing attention of research, practice and policy to urban food strategies, the paper explores appropriate frameworks for placing these strategies' spatial aspects into cultural contexts. Within the AHRC‐funded research network Urban Transformations, we have debated current policy‐driven responses to the definition of urban food strategies and the significance both may have on spatial quality. We noticed that, whilst a new common language is developing in relation to food systems governance and planning, a cultural framework has become (and always was) equally important for the planning and design of food‐productive urban space. Such cultural frameworks are much needed to enable the steady linking of urban food strategies to space making processes ‐ including urban agriculture ‐ and both of them to users' desires, routines and capacities. This is especially true within education and research where qualitative approaches are indispensable if lasting change in our collective aims for food‐productive urban spaces is to be achieved. We contend that more practice‐based theory ‐ and philosophy ‐ is required to successfully initiate space‐focused urban food strategies as well as to back them up with supporting policy in the longer term. In recent writing, the concept of Second Nature has been introduced to discuss, from different angles, the future of urban landscape in relation to the future of urban food production. This paper explores whether and how the concept of Second Nature could contribute to a cultural framework which, in turn, can support the formulation of a durable urban‐space‐focused food policy.

Introducing Second Nature '… Instead I do believe with Adorno that everywhere where the same word means something different, “the oneness of the word reminds us of the oneness of the issue however hidden it may be” (Adorno 1954: 3). One must not understand the differences between the various usages of the term Second Nature as different definitions, but instead as different linguistic and conceptual sedimentations of the issue that is meant with the term Second Nature.' (Hogh 2011: 1)

To put it simply, the food‐productive city, town or metropolitan region – i.e. an entity including urban agriculture ‐ requires three things: − it needs to boast urban landscapes that produce food (and digest food waste), − it needs an urban population that likes this food and wants to work with it, − it needs purpose‐built, food‐focused interconnections between its productive urban landscape and its food‐producing population. 1 2

University of Brighton and Bohn&Viljoen Architects, k.bohn@brighton.ac.uk University of Brighton, a.viljoen@brighton.ac.uk

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Each requirement ‐ maybe slightly differently described ‐ is known to involved planners, practitioners and researchers since the last 20 or 30 years. The benefits of urban agriculture have now also widely been accepted, and cities are now frequently talking about the need to readjust their current urban food systems. Recent developments in practical implementation have taken the subject beyond the pure case study stage into policy consideration with thousands of projects worldwide to show urban food growing, experiment with it and consume its fresh produce. Still, there is no widespread implementation. And there is no widespread acceptance. What is missing? How do we more fully achieve each and all of the above requirements in the near future? Is there an overarching theory or philosophy that enables us to discuss all these aspects in a joint‐up manner? Can this theory, philosophy reach a wide range of citizens better than the existing theories? With this is mind, the authors started a few years ago to investigate the usefulness of the Second Nature concept to further the case for urban agriculture and food‐productive landscapes (Viljoen and Bohn 2014). We wanted to establish whether and how exemplary meanings of Second Nature could inform our own assumption of the all‐encompassing potential of the term: The future of urban landscape can be linked to the future of urban food production. Food production happens on cultivated land. Cultivated land is man‐made, be it urban or rural. The man‐made has been linked to the concept of Second Nature [‐‐‐> one meaning]. (Re‐) introducing food‐productive landscapes into urban sites may allow for new infrastructures and ecologies which can be considered that urban site's Second Nature [‐‐‐> another meaning]. The production of food – sowing, tending, harvesting, but also processing, preparing ‐ constitutes for many people a very embedded, regular activity, a custom, and, even more so, that food's consumption as exemplified in people's diverse, but distinct food cultures and eating habits. A personal custom, a habit can be seen as the person's Second Nature [‐‐‐> a third meaning]... These three exemplary interpretations are themselves interlinked, but could the term, the concept 'Second Nature' indeed form the basis of a culturally‐driven urban agriculture discourse? Could it convey to the urban farmer, the policy‐maker, to the researcher and educator – and, above all, to the wider public ‐ what we mean when we imagine the future city to boast of continuous productive urban landscapes? And, by doing so, can this strengthen the policy development towards urban food strategies from a qualitative, spatial point of view? 2.

Three interpretations of Second Nature

The concept of Second Nature has numerous meanings of whom we have chosen three, major ones, that seem especially relevant to discussions on the future of urban food production: * Second Nature describes BEHAVIOUR: embedded, normalised habits and customs – everyday activities – that take place regularly, without a thought ‐‐‐> [ Second Nature as (part of) human nature ] ‐‐‐> habit ‐‐‐> custom ‐‐‐> everyday activities. * Second Nature refers to THE MAN‐MADE: especially to man‐made space – usually urban – surrounding us in a similar way to 'first nature', the natural ‐‐‐> [ Second Nature as anti‐nature ] ‐‐‐> the urban ‐‐‐> the urban defined as 'assemblies and encounters' ‐‐‐> non‐nature.

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* Second Nature proposes A NEW WILDERNESS: the re‐introduction into the urban of new landscapes that focus on ecologies and infrastructure ‐‐‐> [ Second Nature as designed nature ] ‐‐‐> ecologies ‐‐‐> ecological systems ‐‐‐> infrastructure. Each of the three interpretations of Second Nature, from their specific angles, seems to be able to explain, reflect and compliment strategies or desires behind the current and projected practices of urban agriculture and their qualitative effects on urban food production as well as on urban space production. 2.1

Second Nature as (part of) human nature ‐‐‐> BEHAVIOUR ‐‐‐> HABIT

One of the first usages of the term is attributed to Greek philosopher Aristotle who, around 330 BC, wrote: 'It is easier to alter one’s habit than to change one’s nature. For the very reason why habits are hard to change is that they are a sort of second nature, as Euenus says — “Train men but long enough to what you will, And that shall be their nature in the end.”' (Aristotle 330 BC: VII. 10, 5) Whilst Aristotle's observation on human behaviour has no direct relation to food, it not only introduces the idea of habit and its inseparableness to the “natural characteristics” of humans, but also suggests that habits are mouldable, transformable. Either way, our cultivated and cultural acts of food production, food processing, food consumption etc. are probably some of the easiest examples to refer to when looking for practical application of Aristotle's thought. In the early 19th century, German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel produced one of the most extensive investigations into the behaviour‐related interpretation of Second Nature as part of his writings on human habit: '[H]abit has quite rightly been said to be second nature, for it is nature in that it is an immediate being of the soul, and a second nature in that the soul posits it as an immediacy, in that it consists of inner formulation and transforming of corporeity pertaining to both the determinations of feeling as such and to embodied presentations and volitions.' (Hegel 1830: §410A) We make a note of this reading of Second Nature as a habit ‐ as an 'immediacy' ‐ because this concept interests us in relation to food and people. We will come back to it later on. 2.2. Second Nature as anti‐nature ‐‐‐> THE MAN‐MADE ‐‐‐> THE URBAN 300 years after Aristotle, around 45 BC, the term was used by Roman orator Marcus Tullius Cicero delivering one of today's most powerful spatial images in relation to Second Nature. It was Cirero who at such early time in history singled out the effects of human productivity on nature and on the urban environment. He delivered the first interpretation of Second Nature referring qualitatively to man‐ made urban space: th

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Katrin Bohn, André Viljoen, “Second nature and urban agriculture: a cultural framework for emerging food policies”

'…we sow cereals and plant trees; we irrigate our lands to fertilize them. We fortify river‐ banks, and straighten or divert the courses of rivers. In short, by the work of our hands we strive to create a sort of second nature within the world of nature.' (Cicero 45 BC: §152)

Even though Cicero's quote is nowadays well known amongst urban planners and designers, it was, according to German philosopher Norbert Rath, only in the early 19th century – i.e. at a similar time to Hegel's work ‐ that the term 'Second Nature' started again to be studied intensively as meaning more than normalised habits by also being used to define the man‐made, the cultured, as a development of the natural. These studies suggested that culture represents a somewhat higher, but different entity. Rath also describes that the contraposition of “nature” and “culture”, as it was still sustained in philosophy at the beginning of the 20th century, 'could no longer be upheld towards the century's end' (Rath 1996). Henri Lefebvre's interpretation of Second Nature is helpful when envisioning a sustainable urban future and questioning methods for its design. For Lefebvre, urban environments are socially productive environments, and they are 'of second nature'. According to Erik Swyngedouw and Nikolas Heynen, it is this notion that 'paves the way to understanding the complex mix of political, economic and social processes that shape, reshape and reshape again urban landscapes' (Swyngedouw and Heynen 2003). Again not referring to food, but to the social production of urban environments instead, Lefebvre suggests: 'Nature, destroyed as such, has already had to be reconstructed at another level, the level of “second nature” i.e. the town and the urban. The town, anti‐nature or non‐nature and yet second nature, heralds the future world, the world of the generalised urban. Nature, as the sum of particularities which are external to each other and dispersed in space, dies. It gives way to produced space, to the urban. The urban, defined as assemblies and encounters, is therefore the simultaneity (or centrality) of all that exists socially.' (Lefebvre 1976: 15) What at first sight seems to be like a death blow to urban agriculture, could be equally seen as supporting its development. Focusing on social space ‐ on the man‐made, according to Cicero ‐ food may be far removed from Lefebvre's thinking. However, we make another note of his notion of 'produced space' in the Second Nature as he understands is ‐ the urban. We will come back to it later. 2.3. Second Nature as designed nature ‐‐‐> A NEW WILDERNESS ‐‐‐> ECOLOGIES Very recently, in 2009 and 2010, landscape architects Matthew Skjonsberg and Adriaan Geuze have reappropriated the term 'Second Nature' in their writings about the future of urban landscapes: 'Our redefinition of the term “second nature” takes both Cicero's definition and behavioral connotations into account, but it differs in that for us “second nature” specifically describes a designed nature created in adjacency to existing urbanisation, capable of absorbing future city growth into itself while maintaining ecological systemic continuity.' (Geuze and Skjonsberg 2010: 25)

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For Geuze and Skjonsberg, the concept of Second Nature could provide a new strategy for an infrastructural landscape urbanism that redefines the relation between city and nature. Here, 'the ambition of second nature is the radically humane reformulation of the relationship between the urban and rural, one that amplifies civilisation's cultural legacy' (Geuze and Skjonsberg 2010). Skjonsberg and Geuze don't speak about food, but we make yet another note , this time of these authors' notion of a 'designed nature' and of the infrastructural dimension of Second Nature. We will come back to it later.

A framework for productive urban landscapes

So, can urban agriculture be part of a Second Nature – in this term's various meanings ‐ to people, cities and urban landscapes in the 21st century? If yes, can or should planners, architects, designers play a role in making urban agriculture our Second Nature, given that their professions are engaged with the production of man‐made space as well as with influencing people's behaviour? The interdependencies of First Nature and Second Nature most significantly influence the authors' thinking about productive urban landscapes. It is the term 'productive' that establishes a valuable link between the urban and the landscape – or, in a way, between the “first” and the “second” ‐ both of which, often, are still considered opposites in the public perception of space. In relation to urban agriculture, there seems to be great opportunity for the 'town..., yet second nature', [that] 'heralds the future world', as Lefebvre said, to become productive and, at the same time, for that town's inhabitants to make a sustaining production process their own Second Nature. Such new lifestyle choices re‐introduce experiences of First Nature into the urban, whilst, at the same time, generating a new type of urban space, of Second Nature. Both transformations have the potential to lead within the urban realm to a greater unity of nature, in a designed form, and culture. One may say, that, in general, urban food strategies aim for such qualities. However, how do we reach the supportive public perception and active public participation necessary to implement these strategies or even just to fully develop them? How can we maintain public interest across longer timespans? And even with enough public interest, how do we ascertain the strong spatial focus which spurred those planners and architects who, more than 30 years ago, started to put the food question onto the table? It is a great achievement that, internationally, food policy is starting to be created and addressed. This is a slow process due to the complexity of food issues as well as to the still widespread lack of acceptance. The discussed cultural framework for productive urban landscapes needs to branch out substantially in order to capture the breath of the urban food debate. Within the AHRC‐funded research network Urban Transformations, we have debated current policy‐ driven responses to the definition of urban food strategies and the significance both may have on spatial quality. We noticed that, whilst a new common language is developing in relation to food systems governance and planning, a cultural framework has become (and always was) equally important for the planning and design of food‐productive urban space.

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Following on from their investigations, the authors argue that an extended Second Nature concept can contribute to the cultural framework in question by addressing three realms significant to urban food systems planning and design (as per AESOP call): * PLACE ‐‐‐> Second Nature can aid to (re‐) construct cultural identity and values in relation to food and urban agriculture and to enhance the cultural potential of new relationships between the urban and the rural ‐‐‐> THE MAN‐MADE

* SOCIAL INNOVATION ‐‐‐> Second Nature can create new ways of supporting public involvement in the shaping of productive urban space and ignite opportunities and alliances between unlikely partners ‐‐‐> BEHAVIOUR * INFRASTRUCTURE ‐‐‐> Second Nature can provide a framework to discuss, implement and assess the physical urban agriculture allowing for a bio‐diverse and continuous productive urban landscape ‐‐‐> A NEW WILDERNESS. Geuze and Skjonsberg, Hegel, Lefebvre, Cicero and Aristotle: All the writing discussed here – apart from our own – does not include food even though it also does not exclude it. However, the same writing taken together creates a web of thought centred around Second Nature and concerning space and lifestyle that, at the same time, provides ample networks and immediate connections for the subject of urban food. From the authors' perspective, Skjonsberg and Geuze's concept of Second Nature ‐ as a new designed, infrastructural “natural” landscape reshaping existing urban space 'while maintaining ecological systemic continuity' (Geuze and Skjonsberg 2010) ‐ can well be aligned with concepts around food‐productive urban space, such as the CPUL concept (Viljoen 2005). The benefits would be mutual: One the one side, the landscape architects' notion of a 'designed nature' receives with the food subject a strong impulse for its envisioned ecologies spreading across all seasons and ranging from seeding a landscape to composting it. The human becomes active, productive part of this Second Nature rather than remaining observer or consumer of it. On the other side, the integration of dramatic typologies of nature and the superposition of various layers of infrastructure services as envisaged by Geuze and Skjonsberg, can wider the reach of mostly food‐centred productive urban landscapes. For both sides, planners and urban/architectural designers will be at the centre of translating theory into practice. Thinking about food‐growing activities as becoming people's Second Nature is fundamental to the longer lasting success of urban agriculture. Whenever ideas and emerging projects around urban agriculture are presented – to the wider public as well as to expert audiences – the required human processes and interactions will be questioned. 'Individual and collective behaviour' as well as 'behaviour change' are always on the agenda when discussing urban food strategies. To be able to address lifestyle and daily routines with reference to Lefebvre, Hegel or Aristotle will be of great advantage. People as well as institutions can find themselves in accounts of routines, pleasures and historical precedences. Whilst proponents of more sustainable urban food systems may anyway have argued along such lines, drawing on philosophical thought will strenghten their arguments and begin to place them among other fundamental societal theories. With the steady growth of urban populations as well as urban and metropolitan areas the impact of infrastructure and building construction, i.e. of one reading of Second Nature, will continue to th

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increase. Urban space production is entirely man‐made, and drawing on philosophers such as Cicero and Lefebvre will enable an informed discourse about origin, present and future of such man‐made urban fabric. But man‐made is not like man‐made. The question is how that fabric is being produced and which aims it endevors to achieve. Once more, we can see how urban and architectural design – and especially food‐system conscious design – can influence and determine the spatial qualities of our environments. To be man‐made is the great virtue of urban agriculture. Cities might enter a new era of Second Nature, when the man‐made coincides with the natural and the cultured in what will constitute the food baskets of urban populations.

Conclusions

Whilst most of the theory that exists around urban agriculture and productive urban landscapes stems from a planning and design perspective, it often remains unconnected to other spheres of urban life. Policy therefore often overlooks the spatial necessities of urban food growing. Additionally, large numbers of the public remain unreached, and even when reached, they often shy away from confronting the necessary food‐focused transformations that will strongly impact on everyday life and cities' cultures and identities. Cultural frameworks are needed to enable the steady linking of urban food strategies to space making processes ‐ including urban agriculture ‐ and both of them to users' desires, routines and capacities. The term and concept 'Second Nature' ‐ because of its versatility and polemical capacity – can break down the multiple barriers between the public, city administrators, politicians and food‐connected industries and allow discussion, dispute and commonly shared visions of a food‐literate urban future. Linking the concept's origins in Ancient Rome (Cicero 45 BC) via its role in philosophical discussions in th the 20 century (Lefebvre 1976) to the future of open space planning in contemporary cities (Geuze and Skjonsberg 2010) can serve to ground, describe and speculate on the fundamental and radical transformations to urban form and functions that will be a consequence of adapting to the multiple st challenges of 21 century food supply. By extending its main readings – Behaviour, The Man‐Made, A New Wilderness – to include food production, the Second Nature concept is able to support a more widespread understanding of the multiple interdependencies of issues as diverse as spatial quality, urban space production, everyday activity and pleasure, food sovereignty, urban resilience, sustainability and urban landscape and architectural design ‐ always in relation to food. The usefulness of the Second Nature concept has been explored and tested on practical examples as part of the research network Urban Transformations. Three projects in Switzerland, Germany and the UK show how food‐related transformations can be better explained and understood when referring to Second Nature. This is especially important for future education and research where qualitative approaches are indispensable if lasting change in our collective aims for food‐productive urban spaces is to be achieved.

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The concept of Second Nature can contribute to a cultural framework for the planned and designed production of food in and on urban space. This, in turn and maybe only later, can support the formulation of a lasting urban‐space‐focused food policy.

References

Adorno, T.W. [1954‐8] Der Essay als Form, in: Tiedemann, R. (ed) (1997) Theodor W. Adorno: Gesammelte Schriften, Bd. 11, Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp. Aristotle [ca. 330 BC] Nichomachean Ethics, in: Peters, F.H. (trans.) (1893) The Nichomachean Ethics of Aristotle, 5th edition, London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Truebner & Co. Cicero, M.T. [ca. 45 BC] De Natura Deorum [The Nature of the Gods], in: Walsh, P.G. (trans.) (1997) The Nature of the Gods, Oxford: Clarendon Press. Geuze, A. and Skjonsberg, M. (2010) Second Nature: New Territories for the Exiled, in: Aquino, G. (ed) (2010) Landscape Infrastructure, New York: Birkhäuser. Hegel, G.W.F. [1830] Philosophy of Subjective Spirit, in: Lumsden, S. (2013) Habit, Sittlichkeit and Second Nature ", in: Special Issue of Critical Horizons on “Hegel's Subjective Spirit 2013”, referring to: Petry, M.J. (ed. and trans.) (1978) Hegel's Philosophy of Subjective Spirit, Boston: D. Reidel. Hogh, P. (2011) Zweite Natur: Kritische und affirmative Lesarten bei John McDowell und Theodor W. Adorno, at: XXII. Deutscher Kongress für Philosophie, Ludwig Maximilians‐Universität München. Note: The quote by Hogh was translated from German by the authors. Lefebvre, H. (1976) The Survival of Capitalism: Reproduction of the Relations of Production, London: Allison and Busby Ltd. Rath, N. (1996) Zweite Natur: Konzepte einer Vermittlung von Natur und Kultur in Anthropologie und Ästhetik um 1800, Münster: Waxmann. Swyngedouw, E. and Heynen, N.C. (2003) Urban Political Ecology, Justice and the Politics of Scale, in: Antipode Special Issue, vol. 35, issue 5, pp. 898‐918. UTPPP (2014) Urban Transformations Pathways from Practice to Policy, Online available: <http://arts.brighton.ac.uk/projects/utppp> (accessed 27 Sep 2015). Viljoen, A. and Bohn, K. (eds) (2014) Second Nature Urban Agriculture: Designing productive cities, London and New York: Routledge. Viljoen, A. (ed) (2005) Continous Productive Urban Landscape: Designing urban agriculture for sustainable cities, Oxford: Architectural Press.

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Biancamaria Torquati, Giulia Giacchè, Chiara Paffarini, “Panorama of urban agriculture within the city of Perugia (Italy)”, In: Localizing th urban food strategies. Farming cities and performing rurality. 7 International Aesop Sustainable Food Planning Conference Proceedings, Torino, 7‐9 October 2015, edited by Giuseppe Cinà and Egidio Dansero, Torino, Politecnico di Torino, 2015, pp 399‐413. ISBN 978‐88‐8202‐060‐6

PANORAMA OF URBAN AGRICULTURE WITHIN THE CITY OF PERUGIA (ITALY) Biancamaria Torquati1, Giulia Giacchè2, Chiara Paffarini3

Keywords: urban agriculture typologies, societal benefits, governance, Perugia. Abstract: Agriculture has always existed within the city but new relationships between cities and agriculture are emerging, and new geometries of spaces are arising. While in the late nineties, family or allotment gardens started to spread up, over the years other types of urban agriculture (UA) arose. UA performs several functions, besides that of food supply, as an instrument of civil activism, a place for educational or social activities, rehabilitation and integration and it responds to different goals according to the actors involved, to spaces and socio‐economical contexts. The aim of this study is to identify the goals of UA and the social benefits generated in order to detect the potential of its development. The main questions are: Do different types of UA play different roles? Do different types of UA have different value of societal benefits? What policies and actions are in place? We interviewed the promoters of 5 projects of UA within Perugia municipalities to understand the origin, benefits and goals of the projects and public policies in place and expected. The overview shows the diversity of actors and the multifunctional nature of the projects that have the ambition to draw on different objectives. The main goal of these projects is not economic, while different issues are addressed: cultural, educational, therapeutical, social cohesion. The initiatives are supported by different sectors of public policies (agricultural, social‐care, educational, environmental). Several actions (creation of multimedia meeting platforms for actors and spaces) and tools (ex. a plan for temporary use of space management) are proposed to enhance the UA within the city.

Introduction

Urban agriculture (UA) has strong historical roots and over the years the linkages among cities and agricultures have evolved and new geometries of spaces are arising. During the years several types of UA have taken shape around the world, related to different socio‐economic and territorial contexts and many authors deal with its characterisation. Simt et al (1996/ updated in 2001) and van Veenhuizen and Danso (2007) outline a rather detailed and complex UA in the world, but they avoid any kind of generalization and theoretical conceptualization describing actors, spaces, functions and impact. Cohen et al (2012) underline that each UA project arises in response to the particular needs and opportunities of a given community, organization, and they identified four types of urban agriculture sites (institutional farms and gardens, commercial farms, community gardens, and community farms) within the city of New York. Newly, within the COST‐Action TD1106 on “Urban Agriculture Europe” (UAE) and starting from the actors involved and functions performed, UA has been unfolded on two levels (farming and gardening) and three main categories: Urban food gardening, Urban Farming and not Urban oriented farming. In particular for Urban food gardening means “Gardening activities with mostly low economic dependence on material outputs but making use of agricultural procedures for 1

University of Perugia, Department of Agricultural, Food and Environmental Sciences, Italy, bianca.torquati@unipg.it 2 PhD on Rural Development, Territory and Environment (University of Perugia, Italy) and Land Management (ABIES, France), ggiulia@hotmail.com 3 University of Perugia, Department of Agricultural, Food and Environmental Sciences, Italy, paffi@hotmail.com

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achieving other, mostly social goals”, while for Urban Farming means “Intentionally materialized business models taking advantage of the proximity to the city by offering local/regional agricultural products or services. A wide bibliography demonstrates that UA can provide substantial health, social, ecological, and economic benefits to communities. Concerning the economic aspects few studies point out that UA promotes economic direct impact as the creation of job, business incubation, skills training (Smit et al., 1996; Feenstra et al., 1999; Conner et al., 2008; Kobayashi et al., 2010; Metcalf and Widener, 2011; Vitiello and Wolf‐Powers, 2014) or indirect impact considering the cost savings thank to the growing of food (Blair et al., 1991; Suarez‐ Balcazar, 2006). Patel (1991) listed some socio‐economic benefits. Concerning the social impact several studies reveal that UA promotes social capital and social interaction. Most of the studies focus on community gardens and their role for gathering and socializing (Patel, 1991; Saldivar‐Tanaka and Krasny, 2004; Teig et al., 2009) or in improving interracial relationships or in decreasing crime (Shinew et al., 2004; Ferris et al. 2001). Concerning the health impact researches show that UA increases the consumption of fresh fruit and vegetable among participants (Parmer et al., 2009; McCormack et al., 2010) and the greening is a benefit outcome in terms of visual quality and human health and well‐being (Smardon, 1988; East et al., 2009). The qualitative analyses are more numerous than the quantitative ones, and the first are usually focused on a specific case study or a particular aspect. Some authors starting from an empirical survey in order to evaluate the benefit generated determining quantitative data as the increase of the consumption of fruit and vegetables (Alaimo et al. 2008) or level of self‐sufficiency (Pourias, 2014). Cohen et al. (2012) proposed an interesting metric framework to evaluate the benefits of UA proposing some indicators for each category of benefit (economic, health, social and ecological). In this paper we quantify the societal benefits generated by UA focusing on the urban food gardening initiatives within the city of Perugia, referring to the methodology developed within the working group “Entrepreneurial models of urban agriculture” of UAE Cost‐action. After selecting different types of UA within the Urban food gardening category, we take into account four categories of societal benefits: social, economic, environmental and cultural. The results obtained allow to describe the diversity of UA typologies and propose a strategy for developing UA within the city considering the actors involved and their suggestions. In this context our research questions are: what are the goals and the societal benefits of UA initiatives? Do different types of UA play different roles? Do different types of UA have different value of societal benefits? What policies and actions are in place? The research method of this paper has been developed in the second paragraph. In paragraph 3 the empirical analysis is illustrated and in paragraph 4 the results have been presented which are then discussed in the paragraph 5. In the last paragraph some final remarks are included. 2.

Research Methods

This paper is a first outcome of a research still in progress and it is based on the results of an empirical investigation conducted from January to August 2015 in Perugia. The city of Perugia was chosen for several reasons related to the characteristics of the city and the interest for this topic. First of all, Perugia, capital city of Umbria Region with 165,668 inhabitants (ISTAT, 2015), is one out of 105 medium‐sized cities Italian cities that have been assigned a functional and strategic role within the European development policies (Tortorella, 2013). Secondly, the

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Province of Perugia fostered in the seventies one of the first public program for promoting UA, and in the last years several projects are arising: community gardens promoted by local associations and the university, a synergistic therapeutical garden promoted by a social cooperative and city farms where citizens can grow fresh produce, with the help of farmers. Before starting the survey a preliminary review4 has been conducted and we identified 7 typologies of UA within the urban settlement and in the surrounding (1 km from the border of the city), as defined by the UAE Cost‐ Action (Tab.1). Table 1 ‐ Typologies of Urban food gardening in the City of Perugia and case studies Typologies of Urban Food Gardening

Case studies

Family garden

50 private gardens5

Allotment garden

Social Garden of Santa Margherita Park and Social Garden of Ponte della Pietra

Allotment garden in local food farm

Elaia farm

Educational garden

University Garden

Therapeutic garden

Synergistic gardens

Community garden

Ortobello

Squatter garden

Other garden types

Orto di Porta Eburnea

We have not taken into account the private gardens and the “Orto di Porta Eburnea” considering that their performed functions that are strictly private or projects that were born less than a month before the time of survey. The investigation is based on a qualitative methodology using the techniques of participant observation and semi‐structured interviews. The observation has always been done taking notes of the situation considering the actors, the speeches, the practices and the dynamics between them. Data were collected through semi‐structured interviews, using a questionnaire (Alfranca et al., 2013)6 organized in six parts: socio‐economic data, origin and goals of the project, social benefits of urban agriculture, public policies in place and needs and ideas to the development of the project or initiatives. From January to June 2015, twenty people involved in the five UA projects types selected have been interviewed (urban farmers, representatives of institutions and associations and the users). The data were analysed through a qualitative analysis of the responses and the societal benefits were evaluated on the basis of eight benefit indicators (production, occupation, volunteering, educational activities, rehabilitation and care activities, agrobiodiversity, landscape and cultural heritage maintenance cost), belonging to four macro‐categories (economic, social, environment and cultural 4

Made through photo interpretation, visits and interviews with key stakeholders. Estimated by photo interpretation 6 The questionnaire was developed by participants at the Working Group on Entrepreneurial Model within the UAE COST‐Action 5

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heritage) (Polling et al., 2014). For each indicator six value classes have been determined in order to compare the indicators and measure the weight taken by each of them (Tab.2). The indicators have been established by empirical investigation conducted during the UAE Cost Action (Polling et al., 2015). Table 2. Macro‐categories, indicators and six levels visualising societal benefits Macro‐categories

level 0

level 1

level 2

level 3

< / = 1,000

>1,000 – 5,000

> 5,000‐ 20,000

>20,000‐ 100,000

> 100,000 – 500,000

> 500,000

Paid full‐time jobs (Person per year, in full‐time equivalent)

< 0.25

>0.25 – 1

> 1– 5

> 5– 10

> 10

Non‐paid full‐time jobs (Person per year, in full‐time equivalent)

< 0.25

>0.25 – 1

>1– 5

>5 – 10

> 10

Number of hours dedicated to social activities (person‐ hours per year)

< 100

>100‐1,000

>1,000 ‐ 5,000 >5,000 ‐ 10,000 > 10,000

Number of hours dedicated to educational activities (person‐hours per year)

< 100

>100 ‐ 1,000

>1,000 ‐ 5,000 >5,000 ‐ 10,000 > 10,000

ENVIRONMENTAL Agrobiodiversity (number of different races and species produced)

2 ‐5

6 ‐ 10

11 ‐ 20

21 – 30

> 30

Managed green open space land (ha per year)

< 0.1

>0.1 ‐ 1

>1‐ 10

>10 ‐ 50

> 50

Maintenance costs preserving historical buildings and natural monuments (€ per year)

< 5,000

>5,000‐ 20,000

>20,000 – 50,000

>50,000‐ 100,000

> 100,000

ECONOMIC

SOCIAL

CULTURAL HERITAGE

Classes /indicators Production value (€ per year)7

level 4

level 5

Source: Alfranca, O. et al., 2013 The production value was estimated considering a standard level of productivity (3 kg of crop per square meter) and a value price (1 euro per kg). The price is too low considering that the production is organic but we prefer to establish fixed values considering that all actors were not able to define the quantities produced and their market value. Information on goals and public policies in place or expected was extracted from the interviews.

Estimated a production of 3kg per square meter sold for 1 €/kg th

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The UA Projects investigated

Allotment gardens During the 70’s,the Province of Perugia promoted the first social program for the creation of two allotment gardens located in the suburbs of the city. In this period of time, entire rural families, especially former sharecroppers, migrated to the cities. In particular in the Umbria Region they migrated to Perugia, the chief town of the Region, searching better conditions of life and work and aspiring to the improvement of their social status. On the contrary the reality often did not respond to their expectations. The former farmers started to work on factories and they lived in a situation of marginalization and exclusion in the peripheral areas of the city. In order to improve this situation of marginalization and to reduce the traumatic separation from the countryside that gets worse with retirement, the Perugia Province created few allotment gardens. So the Province carved up an area in the suburb of the city, Ponte della Pietra district, assigned plots to retired people for gardening: an opportunity to occupy their leisure time and to regain confidence in their own abilities. A resolution of 6th July 1976 was drawn up to define the directions of allocation and organization agreements. The Province, assigned to applicants a lot of 150 square meters for one year the assignment time was automatically renewed. The institution provided land, water and a tool shed. The retiree, in turn, committed to cultivate the lot, provide tools, seeds and other materials. The first funding allowance of 10 million liras covered the building of 30 lots, considering that the investment required to build each lot was about 500‐600 thousand liras. Following the great number of applications to the program, the Province decided to create more lots in Ponte della Pietra and extend the project to another area which belongs to the former farm of the Santa Margherita psychiatric hospital (closed by the time). The Resolution 167 of June 4th 1991 envisaged the enlargement of the program in this area and some orientations to the management of the gardens that should be conducted activating committees and defining management regulations. Over the years, the Province created a total of 340 lots of which 198, located in Ponte della Pietra. A further review of the Regulation 167 was done in 2011. Two are the main additions: compulsory organic method of cultivation and 5% of the lots assigned to subjects with disabilities. 95% of lots is always assigned to retired over 65 years‐old residents of the city of Perugia. The allocation, provided for four years, would be raffled at end of the period if the number of available lots is less than the number of applicants. The technicians of the Province, that manage the program, pointed out that in May 2015 in Ponte della Pietra were 198 lots cultivated and one of them is assigned to a person with psycho‐physical disabilities and in the Santa Margherita area there were 106 lots 5 of them unoccupied. So in total there are 309 lots a bit less than the 340 initial lots. The profile of participants is different in the two zones. In Ponte della Pietra the participants live in the neighbouring areas and are for the most part former factory workers. They belong to a lower‐ middle income bracket and 34 are women (17% of the total). In this area conflicts and tensions among users are frequent. Santa Margherita allotment garden is mostly attended by former professors or public employees. They have an average income and they live in the city center or in the suburbs (as Ponte San Giovanni or Ponte Felcino). 33 are women (30% total). The conflicts between the participants are not so frequent and for three years they have also been planning a party each September. Over the years, despite the goal of the program is unchanged, the profile of the participants changed. Forty years ago, when the program started, the participant already had a previous experience with farming in fact most of them had a rural origin, in recent years the "new" retired people in most cases did not have any contact with agriculture before and are on their first experience. Usually the

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users give up to cultivate only for health reasons or inability to continue the activities, with rare the waivers for lack of interest. The program is currently running and is orientated to retired people with the aim to "keep them in their social environment and encourage employment activities which stimulate participation in collective life" (Article 1 of Resolution 167). The managers of the Province underline that the program has a social purpose, but for the participants also other goals are important as: self‐consumption, food security, environmental protection, leisure and recovery of traditions and culture (Tab.3). The sale of produce is not allowed. The managing staff point out that in both areas there have been cases of theft and vandalism as in fact those are both marginal areas and unfenced, even though the presence of the gardens provides some kind of safeguard for the territory. In both areas a space to stimulate meetings and socialization is missing and should be provided. As for the social benefits of this program (Fig.1), the economic aspects are more relevant in terms of production value, considering the extension of the area and the production of fresh organic vegetables, than in term of employment, considering that the participation is free and voluntary and there are only two staff technicians of the Province that are paid to follow the program. The social aspects are very relevant in term of social activities, considering the purpose of the project and the numbers of people involved and in terms of volunteering, not as relevant are the educational activities that are not organised by the users. There is only one association that sometimes organises some casual school visits. The environmental aspects in terms of agro‐biodiversity is high considering that the organic method of production and the function that is self‐consumption so the diversity and variety of crop lots guarantee a better supply of fresh vegetables, aromatic and medicinal herbs. The total area occupied is quite big so also the open spaces managed have a high value. Allotment garden in local food farm The project "AgricityUmbria" promoted the creation of a few allotment gardens within nine farms. The project is the result of a wide partnership among nine farms, the Technology Agribusiness Park of Umbria, the association of producers "Impresa Verde" and the Department of Agricultural, Food and Environmental Sciences of University of Perugia as coordinator. The project was financed by the measure 1.2.4 of the Rural Development Plan of the Umbria Region (2007‐2013) on "Cooperation for development of new products, processes and technologies in the agriculture and food and forestry sectors". At the beginning, in January 2015, nine farms, located in the peri‐urban areas of several Umbrian city centres, have been involved in this project. The project had ten months lifetime (until September 2015). Eight out of nine farms provided a part of their land divided in lots of variable size to be assigned to city‐dwellers. 18,000 square meters in total are involved in the project. Only one farm, Elaia farm, is located in the peri‐urban area of the city of Perugia. The project was promoted for spreading the "rural culture", respect for the environment and the food culture and the gardens were designed as a green space for leisure and connection with the farmers and the agriculture. The gardens built in the two day‐care centers involved in the project, assumed an important role in social inclusion for the young autistic people and rehabilitation for disabled young people. We presented the allotment garden realized within the Elaia Farm that it is located very close to the city centre of Perugia. The farm provided an area of 3,000 square meters that has been divided in lots of different sizes (between 100 and 150 square meters each) according to the participant request; the irrigation water was pumped from a small artificial lake, located near to the lots. All the lots were cultivated with organic agriculture. The farmer and the farm workers prepared the soil, built the garden paths and

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planted the plants. During the project lifetime, the tools to cultivate the horticultural plants and the aromatic herbs were available for everyone in the farm. All the costs ‐ for work, land, and tools ‐ were covered by the project funding, as the city‐dwellers that decided to manage a plot into the urban garden of Elaia did not have to face any cost during the AgricityUmbria project lifetime. Twenty‐one lots of land were prepared within the farm and 15 families have participated in the project. In particular participants included twelve children/teenagers, one family without children, five retired people (a couple and two single men and one single woman) and one group of three friends. Various are the objectives of the project, which differ according to the actors. The farmers diversify their activity to have an income supply. For the city‐dwellers (Tab.3) the main objective was the self‐ production of fresh products and aromatic herbs. Specifically all the families decided to manage the assigned lot to help their family income, especially those with a single‐income. The secondary goal for the families was the educational aspect: the horticultural activities represent a way to enjoy the connection with nature, particularly important for the children. In fact these agricultural activities had a strong educational function: they made the children able to understand where the food they eat comes from, and they helped to build and reinforce the respect for the environment. However the city dwellers that have cultivated the farm lots have established good relationships exchanging suggestions and knowledge on horticultural practices. During the meetings among the farmers, the project coordinators and the participants, it was pointed out an important result: the teenagers improved their initial interest by asking specific questions on horticulture and agriculture, demonstrating an increasing sensitivity to the topic. They have also expressed their willingness to continue the horticultural activities after the end of the project. A family with a five years old child was assigned a single lot of land to cultivate and the experience was very educational for all of them, especially for the child: he demonstrated to be very interested in the activities and amused by the new experience, mainly because he had the chance to share it with his parents and grandparents. Another lot of land was cultivated by a young couple who lives very close to Elaia; the girl, who was unemployed, lived the participation in the project as a great opportunity of joining her personal passion for horticulture and agricultural work in general, with the actual necessity of improving her means for family livelihood. During the project the retired couple was in its first experience with agriculture: they were very motivated to participate at the project, both of them attracted by the idea of eating healthy, fresh, better‐tasting products and to do daily physical activity outdoor. The retired couple involved two friends of them, a paediatrician and a lawyer both retired; who decided to cultivate further plots into the Elaia urban garden. The retired man that was assigned with another lot of land had been a farmer in his teenage, before moving from the country to the city area during the industrial boom. He decided to participate to AgricityUmbria project both to grow fresh products “getting his hands dirty” and to share his knowledge and his passion for gardening and to transmit them to the younger generations. Another plot of land was managed by three friends who were approaching to horticulture for the first time: they wanted to try to produce their own organic vegetables, and, not less important, to spend valuable time together outdoors. The participation of Elaia to the AgricityUmbria project was primarily a way to diversify the activities of the farm, in a multifunctional perspective. Indeed, although the project was an experimental activity with a nine months lifetime, it represented a relevant opportunity to connect the farm with the inhabitants of Perugia. The farmer would like to carry out the project and he estimated the cost of 1.20 €/square metres a year for that ones who are going to manage the lot after the end of the

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project. This cost is calculated to cover the plot rent and the irrigation water; for example 60 € is the rent cost for 50 square metres a year lot of land. Additional cost (from 70 to 90 €) is required for the water system according to the size of plots. The city‐dwellers that have participated to AgricityUmbria project will continue to manage the urban garden plots into Elaia farm paying a rent for using land and water. The project redraws the connection between agriculture and cities by establishing a new relationship between producer and city dwellers, including training on issues of food security, fairness of price, integration and social inclusion of weak people. The project has also proved a new opportunity to offer a service that fits perfectly into the multifunctionality concept for farms located in urban and peri‐urban areas and so it could be an income support. AgricityUmbria project is pilot for Perugia while similar initiatives was arranged in other Italian cities (Bevagna, Padua, Milan) and in Europe (Aachen, Germany). Community garden Another project analysed is the Ortobello community garden. It is the first running community garden within the city of Perugia. The project was promoted within the Caro Vicolo (Dear Alley) Project started in 2014 from the collaboration between the Umbra Institute8 and the Borgo Bello Association9. The Umbria Institute hosts American students for short period courses on various theoretical and practical issues. In 2014, within the course on sustainable architecture some American students have the possibility to work on urban projects in collaboration with the Borgo Bello Association. They started thinking about the revitalization of the Borgo Bello area and the requalification of the alleys within the district. They selected Fiorenzuola Street, an abandoned and dangerous lane, dimly lit and prone to unlawful uses. The students started to embellish the street with paintings including, a paint on the wall, Saint Ercolano, the patron of the city, who holds a tomato on their hands. Then the process of reflection about the improvement of the quality of the space continued. The semester later, the two Professors that hold the courses on sustainable architecture propose to develop with the students and the Borgo Bello Association a participatory planning activity using the place‐making method. They decided to improve the quality of the urban space of the area creating a community garden. Once kept this shared decision they thought how to do it, considering the limited space, a rectangular area of around 24 square meters, and the typology of the area, a crossing point at the exit of escalators. On the 15th of April 2015, after few months of theoretical and practical workshops the garden was created. They realized four bins to cultivate and two benches to sit on and everything realized with wooden pallets. The space was decorated with flowers and pinwheels made with recycled materials. They haven’t a formal concession for the use of space that is public yet. The old administration had granted the formal patronage to initiative and the use of the space that it had not been formalized though. The dialogue with the new administration, elected in 2014, is in progress but the department in charge is changed. Before it was the department of “Urban Center” now it is the “Urban Decor”. The participants, about twenty those most dedicated, meet once a week, on Tuesday evening, to make some labours (ex. planting, maintenance, etc.) and take joint decisions (ex. which plants to plant, how to organize the garden, the organisation of events for promoting educational and recreational activities, etc.). In the garden there is a showcase and inside there is a notebook where the participants can indicate the turn of watering to avoid overlapping or long periods of drought. 8

The Umbra Institute was founded in 1999 in Perugia in cooperation with Arcadia University. The center offers academic programs for higher education for students of American colleges and universities. 9 Borgo Bello is the association of residents and friends of the neighborhood of Corso Cavour and Borgo XX Giugno. The association offers monthly cultural and social events. th

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In order to understand the collective perception about the goals of the project, 10 participants have been interviewed collectively. According to their opinion, as the Table 3 shows, the main purpose of the garden is the redevelopment of urban space and a significant importance is given to social activities; educational and recreational roles and to environmental protection. As for the societal benefits detected (Fig.1), the higher value was attributed to the agro‐biodiversity considering the high number of species cultivated. Also the social aspects are relevant related to other, in particular the voluntary work and the social and educational activities will tend to increase in importance over the course of the project that is only active for a few months. On the contrary the economic aspects are irrelevant. The participants of Ortobello community garden imagine that the garden itself could expand on the private adjacent space and there are discussing with the owner to establish an agreement for the free use of the area. They also aspire to the diffusion of community gardens that could spread up, leading to the creation of several community gardens, which could invade the entire neighbourhood and the city as the case of Todmorden in England. Obviously, they considered the municipal administration as the main interlocutor, attending from them a support for these initiatives. The participants of Ortobello community garden are in contact with the University of Perugia where an idea to realize another garden within the Faculty of Agriculture. The idea came from the desire by the Department of Agricultural Sciences, Food and Environmental to reactivate the students’ gardens, more or less abandoned in 2012. They realized, in June 2015, five batches of four squares meters each that could be cultivated by members of the association with the students of the Faculty of Agriculture. The main goal of garden is the social integration among students and the residents of Borgo Bello, the area where the faculty is located. This collaboration emerges for a dual motivation on the one hand to ensure the vegetable garden during the summer when students normally are not there and at the same time create a space for integration and social cohesion between students and city‐dwellers. The Department of Agricultural sciences would like to achieve a greater number of lots and cultivate the entire area also activating few greenhouses for producing seeds that now are in a state of decay. At the moment, this initiative does not have specific funding. Therapeutic garden Another project it is the synergistic gardens. This is a therapeutic garden carried on by the Nuova Dimensione (New Dimension) social cooperative. The cooperative runs a day care center, the Casa Famiglia Taralla (Family Home Taralla) for people with mental health problems. During the morning, two social workers conduct activities in the garden involving seven guests of various ages. The project was created in 2012 thanks to the enthusiasm of a social worker. In 2010 he attended a two years course on hortotherapy at the Hortotherapy School of Monza. Then he proposed to the cooperative to realize a synergistic garden within their center. The local health unit has allowed him to carry on this project investing his time on it. Over the last three years the project grows extending out of a total of 7,000 square meters composed of two big lots. The main goal of this project (Tab.3) is therapeutic but other goals are considered important as: educational, social, protection of environment, cultural; considering the strong ties sought with local food traditions. Commercial and food security are less important. The social worker underlines that one of the objectives that the program achieved is the working integration. The social operator involved the people less problematic and more interested on these activities on the maintenance works of other areas and one of them it is the “Giardino dei Semplici” in Assisi. The Assisi Nature Council Association takes in charge the cost of the garden’s maintenance that is realized by the New Dimension Cooperative. The social worker proposed to the Italian Environment Fund (FAI) the creation of a synergic vegetable garden. During few months between 2014‐2015, the social worker

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and three guest of the daily care centre worked on the project (from the ideation to the realization) of the garden. It was opened on June 7th 2015 and it has as main objectives educational and ornamental purposes. The Assisi Nature Council Association financed this project. These experiences show that gardening could be a real job opportunities for people who could be hardly allocated in the job market. Concerning the societal benefits (Fig.1) that the project generates, it is not surprising to note the positive repercussions in economic aspects in terms of production and employment. Both aspects could be improved thanks to major investments in term of financial and human resources. The social activities could be also more relevant if the project could involve more people. The environmental impact are major in term of agrobiodiversity considering that the method of cultivation is synergistic therefore higher is the diversity of species that are planted following the intercropping and rotation techniques. The social worker points out that there is enormous potential for growth and development and diversification, focusing on the services supply (as plant production, seed breeding, transformation, flower nursery, etc.). He also underlines that they could extend the cultivated area considering the large space available within the Santa Margherita Park where they are located. For the moment, however, the project reaches its limit considering the number of people and hours invested. It would require a greater investment in (h/man) and economic resources (ex. To restore an old building that they use as a shed for tools and the purchase of the latter).

Discussion

This overview shows the diversity of the promoter actors (institutional, private firms, farmers, citizens, universities) and the multifunctional nature of this type of projects that have the ambition to draw up different objectives. These initiatives of UA involved different actors and their main goal is not economic while different social issues are addressed (cultural, educational, therapeutical, social cohesion and so on) according to the project and not related to typologies (Tab.3). Tab. 3 The goals of UA projects

Main goal

secondary goals

Allotment garden in local Food Farm (Elaia Farm) Income integration for farmer / production of fresh products for the participants Self‐consumption, food security, environmental protection, leisure and recovery traditions and culture

Allotment Garden (Social Gardens)

Therapeutic Garden (synergistic gardens)

Community Garden (Ortobello)

social integration

Social‐care rehabilitation

Requalification of urban abandoned space

self consumption, food security, environmental protection, leisure and recovery traditions and culture

social and education, protection of environment, leisure and recovery traditions and culture

Social and education, protection of environment, leisure and recovery traditions and culture

In fact it can be noted that the same type has different goals, for example the allotment gardens present as main goals different focus but they have in contrast to other typologies the food security and self sufficiency as secondary goals. It is noteworthy that all projects have as secondary goals the protection of environment, leisure and the recovery of traditions and local culture. The method of

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cultivation is organic and in most of the projects local varieties are cultivated and the participants rediscover the pleasure of producing and cooking their own food. The production is oriented to improve self‐consumption and education and recreational activities rather than to market the products. Nobody indicated the production of energy as a goal of theirs activity. The figure 1 shows the UA initiatives produce different benefits related to economic, social, environmental and cultural heritage aspects.

Figure 1. The societal benefits of UA projects

Concerning the economic aspects (jobs and production value) the results vary related to the size of cultivated area and number of people employed. The production generally does not cover the needs of people involved especially in the wintertime considering that for most of the people involved it is a part‐time and recreational activity that they prefer do in the spring and summertime. As for the production value, the participants are not able to quantify their production because it can vary during the seasons according to the time invested and the weather and the skills needed. The value of the production indicator should be rethought on the basis of the experiences and a survey of the organic products market. In fact, according to the observation made during the search it was found that the quantity produced varies related to the experiences of the people and the time invested. Important to underline that only five people (social worker, the two staff of the province and the farmer of Elaia farm) are paid for working within these initiatives that are based above all on volunteer work. Moreover it is possible to create new possibilities and paid‐jobs on this sector (ex. social worker specialists on hortotherapy, facilitators of strategic planning, gardeners to maintain edible community gardens, ect.). The social aspects are relevant in all experiences considering the number of people involved directly and indirectly in the practice of UA and in the activities (educational and social) and the impact on their lives. The Ortobello community garden presents a very low value considering the limited th

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extension and the focus of the project. Also the AgricityUmbria project has had an interesting social aspect; in fact, even if it was a pilot project with only ten months lifetime, it was an opportunity to bring together different city dwellers (like retired people, family with children, single and so on). Concerning the environmental aspects in most of the cases the indicator with the highest value is the agro‐biodiversity because of the method of production that is organic and with a high variety of species cultivated. The cultural heritage aspect is not relevant because the initiatives are not located in a cultural and historical site and there aren’t historical buildings to maintain. Only a few initiatives are supported by a political sphere, which varies (agricultural, social‐care, education, environment, urban planning, ect.) according to the project. In the case of the cities of Perugia it is interesting to note that the initiatives are supported by the Culture and Social Promotion Service of the Province that supports the allotment garden program; the Local Health Unit that support the synergistic garden allowing two operators to engage in this activity and the Rural Development Plan of the Region that oriented some resources to the AgriCityUmbria project. 5.

Final Remarks

The questionnaire was useful to understand the goals of the different experiences of UA in the city of Perugia and also to identify and quantify their societal benefits. As pointed out in the discussion the economics aspects concerning the production value is not easy to define and a method should be chosen to calculate it. The societal benefits that we took into account did not consider the health aspects that should be integrated. The results of the analysis confirm that urban horticulture from the original purpose of food production have since evolved (La Malfa, 1997; Hynes and Howe, 2004; La Malfa et al., 2009) assuming aesthetic and recreational, educational (Taylor et al., 1998; Wells, 2000), social (Westphal, 2003; Tei et al., 2009) or therapeutic functions (Crouch, 2000; Lorenzini and Lenzi, 2003) in relation to the economic and socio‐cultural changed context (Tei and Gianquinto, 2010). The majority of respondents consider that while many private and public subjects are engaged in urban agriculture, until today there is no citywide policy or plan to coordinate the different projects. It is the responsibility of the administration to design a policy and a strategic vision to implement UA within the city. Newly the municipality of Perugia demonstrates more interest in developing UA within the city and the last 29th of September the Vice Mayor of the municipality of Perugia announced that they have identified 12 public areas available to cultivate. The idea is based on the Regional Law of Umbria Region 3/2014, which promotes the destination of the urban and peri‐urban areas owned by the municipality to "social gardens" privileging the people that want to cultivate for charity or self‐ consumption using organic method. The support of Regional Policy was fundamental for the Elaia case study because the AgricityUmbria project was financed by Rural Development Plan of the Umbria Region (2007‐2013). The results of the project (in terms of social aspects, creating knowledge on horticultural activities, educating to consume vegetables and last but not least creating income support for farmers) have showed the high interest both of the city dwellers and the Policy makers concerning UA in Umbria Region. It is hoped that this interest will strengthen in the next Rural Development Plan of the Umbria Region (2014‐2020). This survey can give some orientations to develop AU within the city based on the needs expressed and the public policies in place or potential. However these experiences seem to be isolated from each other. Several projects are located in the same areas and

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they are not connected (as synergistic gardens and allotment garden of Santa Margherita). This fragmentation does not allow either the creation of a network of exchange (know‐how, tools, etc.) and collaboration (ex. the cooperative new dimension would need a support in human and economic resources and the retired people would perhaps time to help and cooperate with the social workers) and it is not conducive to the disclosure of these experiences. The municipality through the implementation of appropriate tools could carry out this function of connection among initiatives, disseminating the good practices. For example a platform, where indicated the spaces and experiences underway emphasizing strengths and needs, could be realized considering the increasing use of technology. For the dissemination of practices and increased knowledge they may also be organized the open day by opening these facilities to the citizens and tourists can see and experience for a day to be farmers in the city. The agricultural practice has shown over the years, starting from the pedagogical theories of John Dewey, the dissemination of civic values (respect public space, learn to stand in public and relate to others, etc) (Ralston, 2012). Moreover it would be important to enhance and improve the measures for the realization and implementation of those initiatives through regional funds (ex. Rural Development Plan), and to increase and invest in human resources (ex. operators of health local unit or persons who receive income citizenship, refugees, etc.) in this sector. Moreover could be encouraged the use of the intra‐ urban spaces (ex. Regulation of green, activating a call for the management of temporary public spaces as the Pla Bruits of Barcelona) for agricultural activities. Over the years the changing socio‐economic conditions should lead to a reflection on the function of the gardens and of the social categories, to be admitted to this experience. It would necessary to think how to make this experience more rational updating it to changing needs. Today UA could be improving also as support to families in economic difficulties and in food insecure state. So the social program of Province could be extended at this category in addition to retired people. To realise these strategies and reflecting on this reality the involvement in all local public institutions (municipalities, unit of local health, province, region, ect) is critical. Furthermore the institutions showed certain inertia could change thanks to the thrust of sensitize of city‐dwellers, several regional or local territorial issues (as. safety of urban areas, degradation of environments, economic crisis, ect). It is necessary now take advantage of this moment of intense activity, creativity, ideas and actors involved in order to improve connections and synergy to implement these initiatives. Furthermore we show that to develop these initiatives and to multiply the experiences of UA within the city the institutions, private citizens, associations and farmers should operate in more synergistic and efficient way. 6.

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Tei F., Benincasa P., Farneselli M. and Caprai M., 2009. Allotment Gardens for Senior Citizens in Italy: Current Status and Technical Proposals. 2nd International Conference on Landscape and Urban Horticulture, Bologna, 9‐13 June 2009. Acta Horticulturae. Tei F. and Gianquinto G., 2010. Diffusione e ruolo multifunzionale dell’orticoltura urbana amatoriale. ItalusHortus 17 (1): 59‐73. Teig, E., Amulya, J., Bardwell, L., Buchenau, M., Marshall, J. A. and Litt, J., S., 2009. Collective efficacy in Denver, Colorado Strengthening neighborhoods and health through community gardens. Health & Place, 15(4), pp. 1115–1122. Tortorella W., (ed), 2013. L’Italia delle città medie. Quaderni di Analisi ANCI‐IFEL. I Comuni, Centro Documentazione e Studi dei Comuni italiani ANCI‐IFEL Vitiello, D. and Wolf‐Powers, L. 2014. Growing food to grow cities? The potential of agriculture for economic and community development in the urban United States. Community Development Journal 49(4): 508‐523. Wells N., 2000. At Home with Nature: Effects of “greenness” on children’s cognitive functioning. Environment and Behavior, 32 (6): 775‐795. Westphall L.M., 2003.Urban greening and social benefits: a study of empowerment outcomes. Journal of Arboriculture, 29 (3): 137‐147.

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LEARNING AND TIPS FOR MORE SUSTAINABLE URBAN ALLOTMENTS IN PORTUGAL Ana Maria Viegas Firmino Keywords: urban allotments, gentrification, good practices, holeriturisme, Portugal Abstract: The recent interest in planning horticultural gardens in urban and peri‐urban areas in Portugal, confronts us with incongruent effects, a tricky situation that generates controversial discussions. On the one hand, we can accept wholeheartedly the setting up of infrastructure, such as water, sheds for tools, rainwater catchments and fences, but on the other hand it is regrettable that people who always worked a certain plot of land, although possibly illegally, must often look for an alternative location, because either they do not know how to apply for a plot, they do not want to accept the regulations inherent to the planned horticultural park, or they refuse to pay to go on using the plot. This creates a gentrification of the gardeners associated with the planning and legalization of the plots that has not been properly studied. This affects mainly immigrants and older people, who work informally plots that they do not own, but which are fundamental to their self‐sufficiency even if only partially. These plots are usually located along the main roads around the larger cities, and these gardeners are often blamed for producing products that are polluted by the fumes expelled by the vehicles and by the sewage water used in irrigation. The paper will discuss as to what can be done so that CPUL’s can continue to fulfill the strategic task to feed the cities and do not become a mere playground for the middle classes and will give good examples on how to contribute to social inclusion. 1.

Introductory Remark

In the thirties, when Lisbon enlarged its built area to the North (the New Avenues Quarter) the buildings were planned in order to offer a small backyard, where the neighbors could plant cabbages, salads, flowers, or even breed a couple of small animals such as chicken, rabbits, pigeons … Some of these gardens still exist, surprising the visitors with the presence of fruit trees, occasionally olive trees (for instance in Defensores de Chaves Avenue or Rom Avenue). However little by little, many backyards were transformed into garages or were covered with concrete, much easier to keep (no weeds, nor watering). According to Mata (2014) over the last decades the poor environmental conditions, were, together with real state issues, expensive (land) prices, reduced availability of good public spaces and decline in associated quality of life, responsible for the abandonment of the inner city of Lisbon by its inhabitants. In order to revert this situation a “Green Plan” was launched in 1997, under the coordination of Ribeiro Telles, where a new element of the urban planning was created – the Urban Ecological Structure, as a subarea of the Urban Green Structure (Ribeiro Telles, 1997, p. 126). This was intended to guarantee a better functioning of the fundamental ecosystems and larger biological diversity. The Urban Allotments and Backyards are here presented as an important typology that contribute to a better environmental quality of the city, and should be emptied of any edification or impermeable pavement and be covered by vegetation. Ribeiro Telles considered that the non‐observation of these premises would drive to a more and more dusty city, dryer and hotter in Summer and colder in

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Winter (ibid, p. 130). Besides these small green patches are important step stones for the urban avifauna. Thus in 2008, and based on the Green Plan, the Lisbon City Council adopted some preventive measures in the Master Plan and in 2012 the New Master Plan “includes several specific work fields of the “Green Plan” such as Urban Allotments, Green Structure Areas, Water Cycle improvements, among others”, Figure 1 (Mata, 2014, p. 1).

http://www.urbanallotments.eu/fileadmin/uag/media/Lisbon/2‐GVSF‐CML‐paper_COST‐LNEC_FINAL.pdf Figure 1 – Urban Allotments Gardens Program for Lisbon 2011 – 2017. Source: Mata, D. 2014, p. 3

The actual trend to create horticultural parks and other green areas in the city is a valid contribution to a better environmental quality and offers leisure and recreational spaces to its inhabitants. But is this being achieved at the expense of the former users of these areas (even if often they are not their legal owners) and do the new gardeners really contribute to the so much praised food security, or do these urban parks constitute a nice piece of design whose multifunctional activities are indeed reducing the areas formerly effectively cultivated by people who needed them for their nutrition? And what can be done to integrate the most needy and bring some added value to these areas? This is what will be discussed next based on literature review, consultation of information available on the internet, as well as interviews with gardeners at “Quinta da Granja”, technician of the Municipality of Lisbon and the coordinator of the project “Hortas do Mundo”.

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1.1

Gentrification in the organized Urban Allotments?

The majority of the urban allotments inside and around Lisbon occupy derelict land and they are cultivated by elderly people, often retired, such as in Quinta da Granja, or younger people employed or unemployed as in Chelas Valley. Recently young and more educated people have also shown interest in having a plot, namely the groups working on permaculture. According to the areas, a predominance of migrants, namely from Cape Verde, may occur. Mata (2014, p. 2) informs that “before 2011 all urban allotments were spontaneous on the Landscape” but their area has been decreasing as follows (Table 1): Table 1. Urban Allotments in Lisbon (Ha) Year

Area (Ha)

1987

304

1995

190

2014

Source: Adapted from Mata, 2014, p. 2

Nowadays from the existing 84,0 hectares of urban allotments in Lisbon almost 12,0 hectares are constituted by organized municipal parcels being located in 8 Municipal Urban Allotments Parks, some of them such as the one of Chelas Valley, of considerable size (16 ha and about 200 parcels) and 20 new urban allotment parks are planned in Lisbon up to 2017. According to the same source Lisbon has still 70 ha of other types of agriculture, such as olive trees, cereals and pastures for cattle. The construction of buildings and large infra‐structures has contributed to the destruction of many spontaneous allotments that illegally occupied land not owned by the gardeners. Indeed it is common to find such plots along the motorways and railroads as well as in the interstices of the built fabric, often close to social quarters, where people with low income and/or spare time due to retirement or unemployment cultivate a diversity of crops basic to their food needs. They are easily identifiable since these gardeners use all kind of waste to create hedges, build improvised sheds and rain catchments. Some of these invents are very ingenious and functional (see examples in Figures 2 and 3). However both are jerry‐built structures that may easily hurt the sensibility of some who have a different interpretation of landscape in spite of the fact that they accomplish three very important premises propelled for sustainable development: reduction, reuse and recycling! As Matos, R. and Batista, D. write (n/d, p. 1) “the landscape reflects the free creative action of man as a result of an anthropogenic action aimed at changing nature towards the useful and the beauty. Landscape is an aesthetic but also an ethical reality because it is linked to an action and to a human being in his own environment and community”. Thus what we find in these spontaneous urban allotments corresponds to the feeling of their gardeners which, whether we like it or not, represents their way of living and being. We can, in a certain way, compare it to the “graffitis”, formerly considered vandalism but that evolved into what is called today “urban art/street art”, an artistic expression with participation in festivals and financed by some municipalities (Figure 4). th

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Figure 2. Rainwater catchment in Apelação Quarter, Loures Municipality, North of Lisbon

Figure 3. Containers made of large plastic bottles in Guimarães, near Porto (North of Portugal).

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Figure 4. Spontaneous urban allotments and “urban art” in the social quarter of Apelação (Loures)

Perhaps someday the same will happen with these spontaneous gardens! In regards to the quality of their products, they are blamed for using water from dubious sources such as sewerage systems, since most of these plots have no drinking water; air pollution, caused by vehicles along the main roads, are additional problems that may occur as is the accumulation of waste. However air pollution also occurs in other areas of the city, namely Alta de Lisboa, where a relatively recent urban allotment succeeded in winning prizes, in spite of the fact that it is polluted by carbon dioxide from the motorway running alongside its boundaries and the kerosene from the planes that operate at the nearby airport. In this case nobody seems to be worried with the pollution! Is it because this is a planned infrastructure? As a positive remark, part of this garden is accessible to people in wheelchairs who can work the plots, since these were built as raised plant beds, designed to suit their special needs. Indeed pollution is a serious problem that affects many urban areas, as stated by Costa (2015, p. 8) quoting examples of studies carried out in cities such as Berlin, where levels of heavy metals (cadmium, lead, zinc, nickel, chromium) in salad items produced mainly in allotments close to the roads with more traffic were above the concentrations found in the same products on sale in the supermarkets (Säumel et al, 2012). Pinto (2007) conducted a similar research in Braga, North Portugal, looking for the presence of heavy metals in salad items produced in 5 allotments inside the urban perimeter and 3 located outside. He found out that inside the urban perimeter the values of cadmium, lead and zinc in salad items and in the soils were higher than in the outside ring. These studies raise the question of food safety in urban areas in general, and not only in the marginal spontaneous allotments, mainly cultivated by

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immigrants, although these, being often located along the roads, may be more affected, but not only these, as the example of the urban allotment of Alta de Lisboa shows. Finally the gardeners who cultivate land that does not belong to them, are often disregarded although they may have more or less consent from the legal owner or who work the land for a long period without having been pursued by the law, which according to usucapio principle entitles them as its future owners. Notwithstanding in general they are a vulnerable population who ignore their legal rights and prefer to look for another plot. The fact that, when integrated into a legalized urban allotment, these gardeners have to respect a list of regulations (and pay a certain amount of money, even if this is calculated according to their income and do not exceed about 70 Euros/Year) and still face precariousness in the use of the plot, since they may not be entitled to continue after a certain period of time, contributes to gentrification, because some of them will not match the “model” and will leave. Even if this may not be the intention of the municipality, there is a change in the profile of the actors and their submission to the dominant power, as discussed by Giroud (2015). Last but not the least, not only the ethnical groups and less favored/elderly people face problems to be part of some urban allotments. Communities that advocate a different model of society, such as those who practice permaculture as a life philosophy, may incur in conflicts. “Horta do Monte” (The Vegetable Garden from Monte) took over a small steeply sloping plot that had been previously cultivated during three years by a group of young people. They presented themselves as having a project different from the other traditional urban allotments because they were a collectivity open to the public with pedagogical activities aimed at promoting healthy and sustainable life styles in the city. They had a blogspot, which in the meanwhile has been discontinued, where they presented their activities (Figure 5).

Figure 5. Images of the Community “A Horta do Monte”, Graça, Lisbon Source: Errore. Riferimento a collegamento ipertestuale non valido., in: Loupa Ramos, I. et al., 2011

The decision of Lisbon’s municipality to rehabilitate the area, faced them with the dilemma of staying and accepting the conditions that were offered by the Municipality (but diverged from their fundamental principles) or leave. First they tried to fight for the project that during three years they had been implementing in the area. Their intention was not to own the plot but only to spontaneously work in a place that pleased them and where they had planted about 500 perennial species.

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Although they have been informed by the municipality that they could continue in the place if they agreed with the conditions, they could not accept that the machines would destroy everything they had planted, namely fruit trees, neither did they agree with the terms of the contract that gave them no guarantee to stay for a long period nor allowed them to plant new trees. The day the municipality started pulling out the trees with the bulldozers some of their members opposed this action. The confrontation with the police was unavoidable (Figure 6). In a work about ethics and aesthetics of allotment gardens, Matos (2013, p. 1) writes about the “work that has been developed to regulate, to improve and to include” spaces such as Quinta da Granja and Chelas Valley allotment gardens in the city planning, “both in terms of ethics – social, environmental, emotional and economical aspects – and in terms of aesthetics – namely its importance in the urban regeneration and city design”. In spite of the recognition that it is not easy to deal with situations such as the described above with Horta do Monte, it is important to recall the emotional link that usually ties all those who care for Nature and who have planted something. Crouch explains that “because an allotment provides a means of freedom to deploy effort in relation to numerous constraints as well as dreams and possibilities, what results on a plot of land can be an expression of many feelings and encounters between people and the ground they use. In this way the plot holder produces a representation of his or her own life; a temporary, changing aesthetic worked with influences even the best plant cultivation cannot control” (Crouch, 2003, p. 2).

Figure 6. Confrontations between police and supporter of Horta do Monte (2013) http://www.publico.pt/local/noticia/dois‐detidos‐e‐tres‐feridos‐em‐desocupacao‐de‐horta‐comunitaria‐em‐ lisboa‐1598320

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The example of Horta do Monte presented here aims at stressing the susceptibility of such actions and the difficulty in getting unanimity, as it is clear from the reading of the dialogues in the blogs, where some welcome the intervention of the municipality and others condemn it. Basically it is once more the aesthetic (and hygienic) elements that seem to play in favor of the municipal decision, which can be summarized in comments, such as: “the area is well organized, free from rubbish and makes good use of a small steeply sloping piece of land” opposing to those who support the emotional and material investment carried out by the former gardeners. Notwithstanding the Horta do Monte community gave rise to the Horta do Mundo (World’s Vegetable Garden) and keep active organizing workshops on how to create a vertical vegetable garden on the balcony according to permaculture, how to prepare meals according to the Ayurvedic principles or how to produce artisanal soaps. But, at the moment, they are a “World’s Vegetable Garden” without a garden of their own! (Figure 7).

“The World’s Vegetable Garden, we “Cultivate” People is a collective of permaculture which promotes healthy and sustainable life styles. Permeated by a creative and constructive spirit we work out solutions that contribute to a more human and responsible society at the social, cultural and environmental level.

Figure 7 . The “World’s Vegetable Garden” Logo and presentation

1.2

Urban Agriculture: more than only food production

The fact that more than half the world’s population live in cities, and in 2030 this may reach 60%, raises much concern about the supply of food to a growing population that is not involved in the production. However “although urban agriculture refers, in general, to activities connected to the production of fresh vegetables in the city, it does not mean that it has to be strictly related to production; urban agriculture is also fundamental in including ecological, cultural, recreational and aesthetic concerns, related to the landscape. This means, urban agriculture can integrate, and be, a structuring continuum that assures the occurrence of the processes and flows of the various systems that constitute the landscape” (Matos, n/d, p. 459). The design of the urban allotments and horticultural parks in Lisbon follow the Continuous Productive Urban Landscape (CPUL) concept, designed by Viljoen and Bohn in 1998, which advocates the creation of a network of multifunctional open spaces giving urban agriculture a complement and support of the constructed environment. They aim at a multifunctionality that may attract different people, not only the gardeners themselves but also those looking for a moment of relaxation, practice of sport, conviviality with friends, a pause for coffee, a walk in contact with Nature. Thus, and according to their location, these parks offer to the local population something that may be of their interest.

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One of the largest pieces of equipment built in one of such parks in Lisbon was the Skate Park Rock in Rio, located in the Urban Park of Chelas Valley, comprising 2000 square meters where the young can practice skateboarding, BMX and inline skating, side by side with the largest horticultural park in the country (16 ha). The fact that Chelas has many social quarters where life is not always easy, and is frequented by a large number of youth, restless, many unemployed, explains this initiative which intends to keep them occupied and contribute to a better image of the area. But why not involve them in gardening too? That is what social agriculture is for! Although it is understandable the choice made by the municipality, this shows that, at least in densely populated areas such as the Metropolitan Area of Lisbon, urban agriculture has a modest contribution to supply the food necessary to guarantee the certainty of food security to its population, because there is not enough land available and many of the gardeners enjoy gardening for pleasure and not for need, which may not be motivation enough to try to maximize their production. However urban agriculture is important also for other benefits as Matos explains: “‐ Social (leisure, fomenting local groups, therapy for individuals with special needs, rehabilitation of youngsters). ‐ Environmental (renewal of abandoned urban spaces, diversification of the usage of urban land, increase of biodiversity, preservation of the water, soil and air cycle, reduction of the carbon footprint). ‐ Human (promotion of sociability through the encouragement of personal qualities such as altruism, the improvement of the quality of life through social interaction, health benefits through physical exercise, better food quality and greater diversity) ‐ Economical (stimulus of the local economies, creation of employment and wealth, directly or indirectly). ‐ Emotional (due to the interruption that it can provide to the monotonous and grey everyday life of the citizens, allowing them to realize the real dimension of time)” (Matos, n/d, p. 467). 2.

Learning with the examples

2.1 The urban allotments of Braga and Póvoa de Lanhoso in Portugal Examples of successful projects undertaken by solidarity institutions and municipalities, include one in Braga and another in Póvoa de Lanhoso (both in North Portugal) that contribute to the social inclusion of low income and socially stigmatized families. The first project is named “Garden of Knowledge”, and aims to combine the clients’ training to their learning capacity throughout life. It was an initiative of the Portuguese Red Cross, Delegation of Braga, through its Community Centre in Vila de Pedro, and included 16 family plots (200 m2/plot) and a training course on organic farming (200 hours). The project was based on the characteristics and expectations of the beneficiary families, and included a technical project for organic horticultural production. According to its authors the “Garden of Knowledge”,”an intelligent park and an innovative project with a sustainable proposal” has given these families “a great sense of motivation, commitment and willingness to participate, improving the social relations with the local community. The project by stimulating the families’ skills and self‐esteem, by providing training, creating duties and stimulating their compliance to schedules, as well as promoting environmental awareness and teamwork, has showed a great opportunity towards social insertion” (Silva et al., 2015, p. 2). Besides “the technical strategy aimed to be maximized in its structure, organization and individual space sizes

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to allow the maximum production of food for the families as well as to help the family income by selling their surplus” (ibid, 2015, p. 2). The second project started in 2010 in the municipality of Póvoa de Lanhoso, which presents itself as a pioneer in social allotments in Portugal and is certified as organic operator since 2006. Due to the endeavor of Natália Costa (2015), organic farming has been promoted in different projects, namely Biologic@, which was financed by the European Union. The municipality has a 0,5 ha vegetable garden where 17 beneficiaries of the Social Insertion Income (RSI) work 3,5 hours/day once or twice a week. They do not get a wage for their work but they receive a basket with products from the vegetable garden at the end of the week. Most of the beneficiaries are between 41 and 50 years old and are unemployed. Two of them are retired. The beneficiaries work under the supervision of the project coordinator, who also gives them training in organic farming. Both examples show good practices that can be implemented in order to integrate socially and economically people with lower income.

Figure 8. Social Allotment in Póvoa de Lanhoso Foto: Natália Costa

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2.2 Social City: an example from Germany (Dessau‐Rosslau) Social City is presented by Glaze et al (2014, 59) as a program of an area based policy which intends to wash off the stigmatization of a certain quarter contributing to its better image. Urban Gardens are often part of the program. In Germany, the Ministry of Environment, Nature Protection, Construction and Nuclear Security promotes projects of urban gardens, such as the Garden of Senses, in Desslau‐Rosslau (Sachsen – Anhalt), which intends to offer a diversity of activities that cover themes such as biological diversity, Earth conservation, healthy food, identification of fruits, salads and spices, construction of birds’ nests in an area . It created a social network that supports its activities and it is financed by regional enterprises and individuals. The success of the garden is achieved not only by the project manager and four workers but also with the community that contributes with labour and materials. Besides it has a an intensive activity through protocols established with different official entities, such as the Ministry of Culture and the Ministry of Environment and many social associations at a regional level and with schools. This is a very successful project that in the future, when in Portugal, citizens will be more mobilized to this kind of initiative, may inspire groups such as the “World’s Vegetable Garden” to start similar projects. 2.3 Holeriturisme: a tip to diversify services in the urban allotments Holeriturisme, which means “vegetable tourism” (from the Latin word holus, meaning vegetable) has been developed since 2009 in the Baix Llobregat Agricultural Park (BLAP), a protected farmland in the metropolitan area of Barcelona, as a strategy to reinforce links between BLAP producers and nearby consumers. According to Paül et al (2013, p. 115) this alliance promotes alternative food networks (AFNs) and it has also been presented as “a new form of agritourism, because it incorporates a leisure dimension”. The interviewees consider holeriturisme as a “pretext” or “excuse” to promote specific vegetables to consumers. A daily package includes: 1) A visit to farms and an explanation by the farmers of what organic farming is and whether the farmer is certified; 2) A visit to an interactive museum exhibition where the visitors will get information about each agricultural product used in the holeriturisme experience; 3) A cooking and tasting workshop based on the seasonal products; 4) A restaurant meal using local produce (adapted from Paül, 2013, p. 119 – 120). The experience intends to make the consumer aware of the differences between the locally produced food and that which has to travel from far, as well as the advantages of consuming the products available in each season. 3.

Conclusions

The purpose of this paper was to show that some interventions in areas where spontaneous allotments existed may contribute to gentrification, even if in general not many people will be affected. Indeed elderly people, who are not willing to change their gardening practice to adapt it to the urban allotment regulations, are usually the most affected, or those who do not agree in paying

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for a plot that they already cultivated for free, although this price is not very expensive, taking into account the advantages of the infrastructures that are offered. Some people may also disagree with the intervention during the rehabilitation, due to the destruction of the existing trees and plants and for the fact that they are not allowed to install permanent crops since their occupancy of the plot is ephemeral. In the second part of the paper some examples are given of good practices that contribute to integrate people with less income in social agriculture, contributing to their food supply and self‐ esteem. The Garden of Senses, an example from Germany, shows a different form of organization, based on a bottom up approach, self‐sufficient in resources and mobilizing the local community, offering a large variety of activities, especially for schools. Finally holeriturisme is presented as an initiative that may bring visitors to the horticultural parks, who will buy the local products and will learn about the advantages of eating according to the seasons and can complement the income of the people involved. However, as we have seen in these examples, people have to get organized in associations and be less individualist, a lesson that many Portuguese still have to learn! 4.

References

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Ramos, I. et al, 2011, As hortas como elemento estruturante do espaço urbano. Lisboa: Instituto Superior Técnico, Departamento de Engenharia Civil, Arquitectura e Georecursos. Ribeiro Telles, G. (Coord.) 1997. Plano Verde de Lisboa (Green Plan of Lisbon). Lisboa: Edições Colibri. Säumel, I., Kotsyuk, I., Hölscher, M., Lenkereit, C., Weber, F., Kowarik, I., 2012. How healthy is urban horticulture in high traffic areas? Trace metal concentrations in vegetable crops from plantings within inner city neighborhoods in Berlin, Germany. Environmental Pollution 165:124‐32. Silva, M.L. et al, 2015. “Garden of Knowledge” – Strategic Project to Support Low Income Families, Braga, Pt. In: Rome: Second International Conference on Agriculture in an Urbanizing Society, Reconnecting Agriculture and Food Chains to Societal Needs. Viljoen, A. (Editor) 2005, Continuous Productive Urban Landscapes, Architectural Press, Elsevier, Oxford Acknowledgement: The author wishes to thank to Graham Reed for editing this text.

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Melika Levelt, Aleid van der Schrier, “Logistics drivers and barriers in urban agriculture”, In: Localizing urban food strategies. Farming cities th and performing rurality. 7 International Aesop Sustainable Food Planning Conference Proceedings, Torino, 7‐9 October 2015, edited by Giuseppe Cinà and Egidio Dansero, Torino, Politecnico di Torino, 2015, pp 427‐439. ISBN 978‐88‐8202‐060‐6

LOGISTICS DRIVERS AND BARRIERS IN URBAN AGRICULTURE Dr Melika Levelt, MSc1, Aleid van der Schrier, MSc2 Abstract: Although urban agriculture as a way to come to sustainable urban food systems can be questioned and we have to be aware not falling into a ‘local trap’ regarding its benefits (Born & Purcell, 2006), initiatives for urban agriculture emerge all over the world. Some of these primarily focus on achieving social and educational goals while others try to become an (high tech) alternative to existing food supply chains. Whichever the goals of urban agriculture, in practice many of these initiatives have difficulties in their (logistics) operations. Research on urban agriculture and local‐for‐local food supply chains mainly focuses on environmental and economic benefits, alternative production techniques, short food supply chains (logistics infrastructure) or socio‐economic benefits of urban agriculture. So far, the alignment of urban agriculture goals with the chosen logistics concept – which includes more aspects than only infrastructure – has not gained much attention. This paper tries to fill this gap through an exploration of urban agriculture projects – both low and high tech – from around the world by using the integrated logistics concept (Van Goor et al., 2003). The main question to be answered in this paper is: to what extend can the integrated logistics concept contribute to understanding logistics drivers and barriers of urban agriculture projects? To answer this question, different urban agriculture projects were studied through information on their websites and an internet based questionnaire with key players in these projects. Our exploration shows that the ILC is a useful tool for determining logistics drivers and barriers and that there is much potential in using this concept when planning for successful urban agriculture projects.

Introduction

Urban food systems have evolved over time. Historically food was produced at the edge of town, as infrastructure to transport food over long distances was lacking. With the advances in industrialism infrastructure improved and food production moved further away from cities. Production methods became highly efficient and by sourcing globally consumers could have a complete set of products all year round. Nowadays, a new food movement is erupting, where consumers are regaining interest in the origin and production methods of food. This is one of the causes for food production to return to cities (Steel, 2009). In the book ‘Farming the City’ (Miazzo & Minkjan, 2013) several experts give their view on urban agriculture. Morgan states that “feeding the city in a sustainable fashion – in ways that are economically efficient, socially just and ecologically sound – is one of the quintessential challenges of the 21st century”, while Bohn & Viljoen argue that “commercial‐scale production will be necessary if urban agriculture is to have a quantifiable impact on food production, whilst personalised production is very significant from a social and behaviour change perspective.” Both statements have an indirect link to logistics. Economically efficient (less costs, higher revenues), ecologically sound (less food miles, sustainable production methods, circularity) and commercial‐scale production all suggest that financial viability, and thus reducing inter alia logistics costs and logistics impact, is important for the success of urban agriculture projects. However, looking at urban farming literature and practice, 1 2

Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences/Urban Technology Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences/Urban Technology

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logistics does not seem to get much attention beyond the issue of the design of logistics infrastructure i.e. the location of sourcing, processing and delivery and the transportation of goods. However, to really improve the logistics of urban agriculture and to make it a driver for the achievement of the company mission and strategy, we argue in this paper, one has to look beyond logistics design and also take issues like the logistics control system, information system and personnel into consideration. To do this, we introduce the Integrated Logistics Concept (Van Goor et al., 2003) and show how it can help to design logistics in such a way that it is aligned with the broader goals and strategies urban agriculture businesses have. 2.

Urban Agriculture

Although extensive research has been done, an unambiguous definition of urban agriculture is hard to find. The RUAF Foundation (2015) shortly defines urban agriculture as “the growing of plants and the raising of animals within and around cities”. Ruaf uses the terms inner‐urban and peri‐urban and stresses that the main difference between urban agriculture and rural agriculture is the impact on the urban economic and ecological system. Veenhuizen (2006) refers to urban agriculture as being ‘located within or on the fringe of a city and comprises of a variety of production systems, ranging from subsistence production and processing at household level to fully commercialised agriculture’. Smit et al. (2001) divide urban agriculture in four constituent parts: core, corridor, wedge and periphery. The core refers to the inner city, while the periphery signifies the urban‐rural fringe or the land surrounding the city. Van der Schans (2013) uses a similar division, adding ‘building’ as an extra inner city dimension. Mougeot (2000) argues that urban agriculture consists of several conceptual building blocks. One of these building blocks is location, which covers intra‐urban and peri‐urban areas. From all these definitions it becomes clear that urban agriculture reaches from inner city to city fringe. However, boundaries of the city fringe are either not defined explicitly or differ per study. Moustier (1998, cited in Mougeot 2000) for example uses the maximum distance from where the city centre can be supplied with perishables within one day, while others set a certain radius around one central point, like 30 or 50 kilometres from the city centre. For the case of The Netherlands, being a small country with cities having far less than 1 million inhabitants, these distance definitions would result in most of the country being defined as urban agriculture, while in reality most commercial farms are located in rural areas. To make up for the different characteristics and sizes of cities around the world we decided to refer to the definition of Veenhuizen (2006) and define the city fringe as being inside the official city boundaries. Terms often related to urban agriculture are local‐for‐local and short food supply chains. As with the definition of urban agriculture, the definitions of ‘local’ and ‘short’ differ per study. Bosona & Gebresenbet (2011) define local food as “food produced, retailed and consumed mainly in the specific area”. Kremer & DeLiberty (2011) conclude that “local food system are not merely a delineated geography or a flow of consumer goods from production to consumption, they are natural and social networks formed through common knowledge and understanding of particular places embedded in their localities”. Aubry & Kebir (2013) developed a typology defining short supply chains based on organized proximity and geographical proximity. According to this study short supply chains include amongst others selling to local markets and professionals, farmer’s markets, on‐farm selling and box schemes. Since no standard definition could be found we choose for our study to follow the definition the selected urban agriculture initiatives use themselves for ‘local’ or ‘short’.

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Urban agriculture location and market orientation typology

When looking at farming projects in general two dimensions can be defined: its location and its market orientation. The location of farmers can be inner city, the city fringe or rural, while the market orientation can either be ‘feeding the city’ or ‘feeding the world’. By confronting these two dimensions a matrix as shown in figure 1 evolves.

Figure 1: Urban agriculture location and market orientation typology

Quadrant I can be regarded as being urban agriculture. Farmers produce within city limits and sell to local consumers. Local‐for‐local initiatives belong to the upper part of the matrix, but could be covering quadrant I and II, as rural farms selling within a state or (small) country could be defined as being local. The market orientation of farming projects may differ. The rapid industrialization and globalization of the last decades drove farms out of the city into rural areas, where they became large scale highly efficient enterprises, producing a high output. High percentages of this output were exported and were directed to ‘feeding the world’ (quadrant III). Nowadays some rural farmers move towards quadrant II as they diversify their market strategy by making the national market or even the local market (farmer’s shop or local farmer’s market) more important. Also, some farmers operating at the city fringe or close to the inner city, who primarily focused on the world market, now try to reach the local market through local‐for‐local concepts. This means they move from quadrant IV to I. These two shifts are part of an increase in farmers participating in short food supply chains. The move towards the top of figure 1 is driven by trends like the dissatisfaction with the conventional food system (van der Schans, 2010) and the de‐alienation of city dwellers from their food (McClintock, 2010). These trends have also resulted in newly established urban agriculture projects that are focused on the local market (quadrant I), be it low‐tech community driven vegetable gardens or high‐ tech vertical farming solutions producing niche products which are highly perishable. The shift towards the upper part of our figure can count on elaborate research interest. Extensive research has and is currently being done on the logistics implications of this shift. An objective many urban agriculture projects have is to reduce environmental impact. Sourcing locally is seen as one of the major contributors to this reduction. Shortening of supply chains (Aubry & Kebir, 2013, Bosona &

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Gebresenbet, 2011; Visser et al., 2013, Ilbery and Maye, 2006; Coley et al., 2009) and the reduction in number of food miles and the potential advantages to sustainability (Smith, 2008) are well researched areas. In researches like these, different logistics infrastructures for including local food in existing food supply chains are analysed. Research on newly established inner city and city‐fringe urban agriculture mainly focuses on environmental and economic impact of urban agriculture (Sanyé‐Mengual et al., 2012; Nationale Federatie Stadsgerichte landbouw, 2013; Miazzo & Minkjan, 2013), alternative production techniques (Mulder & den Besten, 2015) or socio‐economic benefits of local food systems (e.g. Kneafsey et al., 2013; Abma et al., 2013). It is hard to find literature on the logistics challenges of starting a farming initiative, focusing on the local market in an inner city to city fringe setting. What we do know is that for the case of small holder producers in Thailand (Boselie (2002), referred to in Trienekens et al. (2003)) it “has proven to be difficult […] to become a supplier within the retail market segment” because of “small production volumes, the inability to supply year‐ round, and the non‐transparent farming practices” (Trienekens 2003, p. 7). These urban agriculture characteristics lead to logistics challenges, as “in most cases of food distribution systems for local food shops and localised farmers markets, where individual companies run their own vans or small trucks, logistics is relatively inefficient and fragmented” (Bosona & Gebresenbet 2011, p. 294). Thus, although research has been in different contexts, it suggests that given the characteristics of urban agriculture (limited scale and limited (year‐round) assortment) optimising urban agriculture logistics is challenging. Research that has been done has mainly been on the logistics infrastructures and their impact on sustainability issues. However, for the design of logistics in line with company goals, these researches have the shortcoming that the focus on logistics infrastructure disregards other important logistics aspects that do have an effect on efficiency and sustainability of the logistics of the company. This paper introduces the use of the Integrated Logistics Concept (ILC) as a way to see how logistics can be designed beyond logistics infrastructure to align it with the overall missions, goals and strategies of urban agriculture businesses. This approach also helps to identify logistics drivers and barriers. In the rest of this paper we first introduce the ILC. Then five examples of urban agriculture are described and analyzed by applying the concept. This study should be seen as a first testing ground, based on student research, for the feasibility of using this concept for urban agriculture businesses to improve their logistics. 4.

Research methodology

In this research five urban agriculture projects were evaluated by third year bachelor students. The urban agriculture cases were selected based on the following criteria: ‐ The farm should fit quadrant I of the typology: located inner‐city or in the city fringe and have enough scale to have a significant contribution to ‘feeding the city’. The intention was to include projects from different countries and different continents; ‐ The farm should produce its own crops; ‐ The farm should sell its crops to the local market. Additionally, both low‐tech and high‐tech farms were chosen. It was found that not many of the existing urban agriculture projects meet all these criteria. Although The Netherlands have a lot of inner‐city urban agriculture projects, only few have a local‐for‐local market orientation. The Dutch projects are mainly community driven, have a socio‐economic character and cater for the need to reconnect to where our food comes from. Additionally, The

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Netherlands do have several examples of box schemes, where boxes filled with local produce are delivered to consumers (HelloFresh, BeeBox and Willem & Drees). However, these businesses do not produce crops themselves, but operate as logistics service providers. As such they are not the focus of our research. Furthermore, we only selected cases in developed countries, although we realize that in developing countries interesting cases exist too. An internet search resulted in the selection of the following five urban agriculture projects: ‐ Lufa Farms in Montreal ‐ Canada ‐ Sky Greens Vertical Farming in Singapore ‐ Greensgrow Farms in Philedelphia ‐ USA Ceres Fair Food in Melbourne ‐ Australia ‐ ‐ Fresh City Farms in Toronto ‐ Canada Next, all aspects of the ILC were described, based on information found on the internet. It turned out that the publicly available information was not enough to provide a detailed (logistics) description of the projects, so an additional questionnaire was sent out by the authors to key persons within the projects. The questionnaire was based on the checklist for the ILC, as developed by Ploos van Amstel (2008). Three of the farms filled out the questionnaire. 5.

Integrated Logistics Concept

Logistics plays an important role in the competitive advantages of companies. This also applies to food producers, since “efficient logistics management has a positive impact on the success of food producers, because logistics activities greatly affect the profit of producers, the price of food products and the satisfaction of consumers” (Brimer, 1995). To gain competitive logistics advantages companies need to have a well‐defined relationship between their strategies, their logistics mission and their logistics concepts. In practice however, incorporation of logistics concepts in strategies and operational plans seems to be quite difficult. The ILC (Van Goor et al., 2003) is a way to structure the logistics organization and operation of a firm. It bridges the gap between the general competitive strategy of a firm and the logistics operation. Figure 2 shows the framework for integrated competitive logistics. The framework starts with the company’s competitive strategy. The most well‐known strategies are cost‐leadership and differentiation (Porter, 1985). In a cost‐leadership strategy a company strives to reduce the total costs of the company, while a differentiation strategy focuses on enhancing the product or service of the company by adopting a unique sales approach. Van der Schans (2015) applied the competitive strategy concept to urban agriculture projects and added three other urban agriculture strategies, being diversification (offering additional functions to cover the costs), reclaiming the commons (involving city dwellers in the project e.g. by community supported agriculture, co‐financing, working at the farm) and experience (experience has more added value than the products alone). Having a clear competitive strategy helps companies to gain competitive advantages and be more profitable. Normally, it is advised to pursue one strategy. However, urban agriculture projects often use a combination of different strategies. Urban agriculture projects generally have much broader goals than gaining competitive advantage. Of course, reducing cost and having a unique selling point is important, but socio‐economic factors also play an important role in their strategies.

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Input Competitive strategy

Logistics mission

Elements

Logistical infrastructure Logistics control system Logistics information system

Logistics personnel organisation Output Logistics performance indicators Figure 2: Integrated competitive logistics framework (Van Goor et al., 2003)

Once the strategy is chosen, following the logistics concept, it is translated to a logistics mission or logistics objectives. If, for example, the competitive strategy of a company is cost‐leadership, the logistics objectives are related to a reduction of the overall costs associated with the logistics operation, like reduction of inventory costs, reduction of transportation costs and/or reduction in production costs. The competitive strategy and the logistics mission are the inputs for the design of the four elements of the logistics concept: the logistics infrastructure, the logistics control system, the logistics information system and the logistics personnel organisation. These decisions are related to each other and are hierarchical. The quality of the company’s logistics concept can be measured by the logistics performance indicators. First, the logistics infrastructure has to be determined. As Van Goor et al. (2003) state “the logistics infrastructure is a model of the physical flow of goods, services and information of an organisation in its most rudimentary form”. The logistics infrastructure models the complete supply chain, showing all actors (like production facilities, warehouses and stores). Second, once the logistics infrastructure is in place the logistics control system has to be designed. This is the system that controls the physical flow of goods. This is about sourcing, production and distribution planning and decisions on whether and how these plans are shared with other actors in

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the logistics chain. Also forecasts are considered here. For the part of the logistics chain where customer orders are not known forecast techniques have to be selected and implemented. Third, directly related to the design of planning and control is the logistics information system. It has to be determined which ICT tools will be used to support the logistics operation. Also, it has to be determined which data is gathered and how this data is used and shared. The fourth and last element in the concept is the logistics personnel organisation. The tasks and responsibilities of the logistics managers have to be determined. The choices made in the logistics planning and control and the logistics information system determine the type of personnel organisation a company needs. Once all elements of the logistics concept are in place the performance of the logistics system will have to be assessed. By measuring the logistics performance indicators and linking them to the logistics objectives the quality of the system can be determined. The deviation of the measured indicators from the objectives requires evaluation and, if needed, adjustment of the design of the elements. Thus, design, implementation and use of the (integrated) logistics concepts can help firms to align their logistics goals and operations with their overall company goals. In our research we have made an inventory of the elements of the integrated logistics concept in five urban farming cases and looked to what extent these elements seemed to be aligned in these cases and where room for improvements seemed to exist. 6.

Results

Publically available information on the internet was used to apply the ILC to the selected projects. It is noted that the following is our interpretation of the information found on internet. Mission and competitive strategy The competitive strategies mentioned on the web sites of the farms refer to the overall mission the farms have. As part of a mission to be sustainable, care for future generations or to enable to feed tomorrows citizens, differentiation is a strategy all farms have. The urban agriculture project tries to differentiate itself from the regular food systems by emphasizing the freshness, localness and sustainability of the produce. Lufa Farms, for example states “We grow food where people live and grow it more sustainably” (Lufa, 2015). The site of Sky Greens reads: “Ensuring food supply resilience is important to land‐scarce countries such as Singapore.” (Sky Greens, 2015). Fresh City Farms has the mission to connect food makers and eaters. They do this by farming in the city “and work with like‐minded makers to deliver a food experience that respects our bodies, our planet and our shared tomorrow. By bringing makers and eaters closer together, we hope to rekindle the intimacy between people, land and food” (Fresh City Farms, 2015). Greensgrow’s mission is “revitalizing livable communities through the practice of sustainable entrepreneurial urban agriculture” (Greensgrow, 2015), while Ceres Fair Food wants to “do good at every part in the food chain” (Ceres Fair Food, 2015). Quite often the differentiation strategy is combined with diversification by adding functions like education and community building. Regaining commons and experience are also part of the overall strategy. Although ‘affordable food supply’ is mentioned quite often, a clear low cost strategy was not found in the analysed urban agriculture projects.

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Logistics mission The answers to our questionnaire reveal that translation of a general strategy into a logistics strategy did not take place. Also web sites do not explicitly state logistics mission of companies. However, for all five projects logistics aspects are mentioned. Most initiatives do have logistics strategies that fit into their general strategy, especially to the strategy of being: ‐ More sustainable ‐ More local ‐ More fresh These aspects can be seen as the main drivers for the logistics design for urban agriculture projects. Logistics missions related to these drivers are: ‐ Proximity to end‐user and reduce food miles ‐ Grow food in the city (all farms) ‐ Source as nearby as possible (Ceres Fair Food, Fresh City Farms) ‐ If sourced abroad, bring produce as sustainable as possible to the distribution centre (Ceres Fair Food) ‐ Source from partners with same values (Lufa Farms) ‐ Minimize packaging (Ceres Fair Food, Greensgrow, Fresh City Farms) ‐ Deliver at the same day products are harvested (Lufa Farms) The general missions in the field of sustainability are also translated into operational strategies for the production of food. Also the nature of urban agriculture (limited scale and assortment) drives the logistics design. Because of the limited variety in crops in urban agriculture additional produce has to be sourced from other farmers / suppliers for being able to offer the customer a complete shopping basket. This aspect adds to the logistics complexity and might result in barriers for achieving optimal logistics performance. Logistics infrastructure As for the logistics infrastructure Lufa Farms, Greensgrow, Ceres Fair Food and Fresh City Farms source extra products to offer customers a broad assortment of goods. They use pick‐up points for delivery to customers. Ceres Fair Food and Fresh City Farms offer additional home delivery services. Greensgrow also uses a farm stand and a mobile market to sell their produce. Sky Greens has its produce incorporated in the retail distribution structure of Fairprice supermarkets in Singapore. As for the delivery of the products from the farmers to the urban agriculture projects no information was found. It is not clear whether this flow of goods is being optimized. For the logistics infrastructure the questionnaire added more detail to the publicly available information. In all three cases the farmers deliver their products to the warehouse or picking location either by themselves, by using logistics service providers or, in two cases, the initiative picks up the produce from the farmers themselves. In only one case the farmers combined their deliveries to increase logistics efficiency. Delivery frequency varies from 3 to 5 times a week. Two initiatives do not keep any stock, while one initiative keeps a small stock in their warehouse. Delivery to the pick‐up points are either done by using a logistics service provider (one) or by using own transport (two). Only one initiatives uses electrical bikes and/or cars. All initiatives combine deliveries to pick‐up points in optimal delivery routes. In the choices for locations of pick‐up points the logistics drivers that were mentioned earlier are translated by basing the location of the pick‐up

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points mainly on concentration of end‐users (more local, more fresh), availability of location and optimization opportunities (more sustainable). Research done by Coley et al (2009) also suggests that an optimal location of pick‐up points could be a driver to reduce carbon emission. Farms seem to be aware of the logistics infrastructure and try to minimize transport kilometers for their own part of the supply chain. Optimization at supplying farms takes place less, which can be considered as a barrier for efficient supply chain logistics. Comparable results were found by Bosona and Gebresenbet (2011) in their Sweden study. They also signal improvement potential in the deliveries from farmers, resulting in positive effects on sustainability goals. Also optimization of transport mode or volume (amount that can be transported at one time and number of deliveries a week) seem to get less attention. Logistics control system In the logistics control system production planning and demand forecasting play an important role. From the websites it became clear that Sky Greens uses contract farming. In that way they know how much to produce. Greensgrow uses the number of CSA members as an indicator for expected demand, while Lufa Farms, Ceres Fair Food and Fresh City Farms can manage demand by adjusting the contents of the weekly bags. It is not clear whether the local farmers who deliver to these organisation, keep stock of the products offered at the online marketplace to cater for unexpected demand variations. In the questionnaire all three initiatives stated that they forecast customer orders. Two initiatives also include the availability of farm land. Demand is regarded as being predictable, although unstable between months. Demand volatility is managed by either marketing (informing the consumer that they buy seasonal items, which are not always available), using historical data or adding a concurrent farm stand with extra items for sale. As such, although not explicitly mentioned, logistics control in the schemes we studied seems to focus on the prevention of over‐production and thus loss of unsellable produce. However, the quality of the demand forecast or the amount of loss of produce is not being measured. Logistics information sytstem Our review of web sites and our questionnaire provide insights on logistics information systems for three cases. All initiatives use ICT to support their business. Only one initiative shares the customer orders with their suppliers by web portal on a daily basis. Compared to the other initiatives they use more advanced ICT systems to support their operation. For the other two initiatives ICT is limited to Microsoft office, combined with a transport and/or warehouse management system. But again, how much this logistics information system is dedicated towards achieving overall company goals remains unclear. Logistics personnel organisation The web sites of the initiatives and our questionnaire gave information on the logistics personnel organisation for two initiatives. One initiative employs a logistics manager, but the tasks of the logistics manager are not described. Another initiative has 8 employees working in logistics, four warehouse personnel and four in transportation. From this it can be concluded that the logistics function is not always explicitly defined, which makes it hard to have someone take responsibility for the logistics performance. This could be a barrier for improving logistics performance.

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Logistics performance indicators Logistics performance indicators (LPIs) are not mentioned explicitly in the publically available information. However, when applying the ILC, the LPIs should be related to the logistics mission and can thus be derived from this. Based on the missions found on the websites the following logistics performance areas seem to fit sustainability goals, goals of freshness and locality of produce well: ‐ Sustainability and locality: ‐ Minimum use of gasoline / CO2 and offset of carbon emission ‐ Minimize food miles/ vehicle movements ‐ Minimal packaging material/ reuse of boxes ‐ Freshness: ‐ Same day delivery/before 3pm However, if and how initiatives measure and monitor these performance areas stays unclear. Only one initiative mentioned in the questionnaire that they measure costs per packed bag and costs per delivery. For the ILC to be fully implemented, companies should think what to measure and how these measurements relate to the logistics and overall goals. 7.

Conclusion

This paper has introduced the Integrated Logistics Concept (ILC) as a way to gain insight in logistics drivers and barriers for urban agriculture initiatives. As stated earlier, this paper should be seen as a first attempt to use the concept for urban agriculture. Five urban agriculture initiatives were selected and analysed, based on publically available information on internet. To (partly) verify and extend the available information a questionnaire was sent out to the five selected projects. Three projects filled out and returned the questionnaire. Given the limited sample used only very tentative conclusions can be drawn. The most important drivers for logistics design urban agriculture initiatives can be derived from their logistics missions. Drivers are: being more sustainable, sourcing and selling more local and delivering fresher produce. Moreover, the logistics design is also driven by the characteristics of urban agriculture, being limited scale and assortment. These drivers make urban agriculture logistics even more challenging. Barriers that were found in this research are: ‐ No integrated logistics approach. A first general finding from our web search and questionnaire is that, just like in literature, the focus with respect to logistics of urban agriculture firms seems to be mostly on the logistics infrastructure. All other aspects included in the ILC get much less or no specific attention. From this it follows that there is a lack of alignment of overall goals and logistics goals and logistics design. This misalignment of the elements of the ILC forms a barrier for urban farming firms to optimally use logistics as a way to reach their company goals. Overall company mission and strategy should be translated in logistics goals, logistics infrastructure, logistics control, information system, and personnel organisation. Logistics infrastructure is more than network design. It also is about which modalities to use, how frequent, and about opportunities to integrate with other supply chains to make things even more efficient. But still then, no matter how efficient the logistics infrastructure is designed, with poor control losses might occur in the supply chain. Also a malfunctioning information system can lead to many inefficiencies. To manage all this someone has to be made

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responsible for the performance of the logistics operation. In that way coherence between all logistics elements can be created, resulting in an aligned, measurable and successful logistics operations. A lack of a holistic view on logistics in the supply chain. From the outcomes of the questionnaire it became clear that in two of the three cases supplying farmers deliver their produce individually to the initiative’s warehouse. In these cases load factors will not be optimal. This might be a barrier in achieving the formulated logistics goals, as low load factors result in higher logistics costs and higher environmental impact. It is important that, when optimising logistics, the whole supply chain is taken into consideration. Optimisation opportunities can be found in cooperation between different actors in the supply chain instead of optimizing only one link in the chain. Limited or no measurement of LPIs. For example, as we have seen, urban farming businesses are not fully aware of their logistics goals and their logistics performance indicators. On the web sites coherence between the strategies, goals and logistics performance indicators was difficult to find. Moreover, according to the answers to the questionnaire the LPIs that we identified are not measured, making it a barrier for optimal logistics performance.

‐

Thus, although logistics is important in their operation – all initiatives have schemes with delivery from different farms and delivery to pick‐up points or retailers (Skygreens) – logistics does not get much explicit attention. The ILC seems to be a powerful tool for designing and/or analysing logistics coherence and to make logistics a tool to reach company goals. Using the ILC helps make deliberate choices on the total logistics design, including what to measure, why to measure and how to measure the quality of the total logistics system and thus resolving potential logistics barriers. Given the challenges urban agriculture initiatives face (being economically efficient, ecologically sound and financially viable) an integrated logistics approach is essential. The use of the ILC shows a lot of potential when planning for successful urban agriculture projects. The results of this research are based on a very limited sample of urban agriculture initiatives. Further research could include an extension in cases and a more detailed analysis of how logistics is designed and organized. Furthermore it would be interesting to see, together with urban agriculture initiatives, how the ILC could be applied in practice. Special attention could be paid to determining the parameters that have to be adjusted in order to resolve the identified barriers. This is especially relevant when initiatives have to grow to a commercial scale and logistics becomes even more complex. 8.

References

Abma, R., Kirchholtes, U., Jansma, J.E. & Vijn, M. (2013) Maatschappelijke kosten‐batenanalyse stadslandbouw, Stichting Dienst Landbouwkundig Onderzoek, Wageningen. Arnold, T., K. Hammel, B. Hsueh, S. Robart & L. Thomson (2013) Greenhouse gas emission of fresh city distribution, Grey Bruce Centre for Agroecology, Park Head. Aubry, C. and L. Kebir (2013) Shortening food supply chains: a means for maintaining agriculture close to urban areas? The case of the French metropolitan area of Paris, Food Policy, 41: 85‐93. Bohn, K. & A. Viljoen (2013) Urban agriculture: designing the productive city, in: F. Miazzo & M. Minkjan, Farming the city. Food as a tool for today’s urbanization, Trancity*valiz/ CITIES, Haarlem, 45‐49. Born, B. & M. Purcell (2006) Avoiding the local trap, scale and food systems in planning research, Journal of Planning Education and Research, 26 (2): 195 – 207. Boselie, D. (2002) Project description Tops Thailand Fresh Chain Project, www.agrichaincompetence.org.

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