491
• the establishment of food policy councils (see 18.4.1 for a case study example);
• the establishment and operation of market facilities for local farmers and smallscale food manufacturers and vendors;
• the adoption of regulations to permit small-scale crop and animal production in
residential areas;
• the adoption of municipal curbside compost pickup (as seen in Austin, Boston,
Chicago, and Victoria); and
• declaring food to be a right of citizenship (as seen in Belo Horizonte, Brazil).
Some cities also use their own purchasing activities to favor fair trade foods and
foods with other types of ethical certification. Some cities make public land available for household or small-scale commercial food production, and/or adopt policies that encourage the use of vacant land for those purposes (the affordability
criterion). See 18.4.2 for an illustrative case study of Detroit, MI.
Schools, hospitals, and prisons can be either public or private enterprises, but all
have been influenced by local, state, and federal policies that foster farm to institution linkages. Schools can contribute to the awareness of the local food system by
developing school gardens.
Local and regional governments increasingly incorporate food production, distribution, and consumption, and the management of food system wastes such as
through composting in urban planning activities, especially with discussions of productive landscape infrastructure and ecology.
Even in cities that encourage innovative food-related policies and practices, challenges still exist. For example:
1. Water-related costs may negatively impact the feasibility of raising urban food
(the criticality and affordability criteria) such as costs of obtaining water from
the municipally treated drinking water system, treating stormwater run-off from
farms and gardens in cities that have a stormwater utility fee, and adhering to
stringent building codes, which can hinder the widespread use and cost-savings
of rainwater capture, storage, and reuse devices.
2. Labor related-costs may also be higher in cities than in rural areas due to the
increased cost of living (which may be in part an artifact of the high per-capita
cost of providing water, energy and other infrastructure in the relatively vacant
urban centers that have the land capacity to support gardening).
3. Policies for tax assessment may prevent small vacant properties from being combined to result in the lower per-area rates offered to other industries, and urban
zoning and land use policies may conflict with food production (for example,
restricting vegetation height or animals such as chickens, or allowing building
height to be increased in a way that casts too much shade on adjacent gardens).
4. The public process for updating policies may be obscure, cumbersome, or controlled by players who are unaware of or do not support food–energy–water
innovation.
These financial, political, and administrative dynamics create pressure, even in
high-vacancy cities without commensurate pressure for development, to treat urban
gardens as temporary or interim uses only, rather than as permanent ones.
18 Cities at the Nexus
• the establishment of food policy councils (see 18.4.1 for a case study example);
• the establishment and operation of market facilities for local farmers and smallscale food manufacturers and vendors;
• the adoption of regulations to permit small-scale crop and animal production in
residential areas;
• the adoption of municipal curbside compost pickup (as seen in Austin, Boston,
Chicago, and Victoria); and
• declaring food to be a right of citizenship (as seen in Belo Horizonte, Brazil).
Some cities also use their own purchasing activities to favor fair trade foods and
foods with other types of ethical certification. Some cities make public land available for household or small-scale commercial food production, and/or adopt policies that encourage the use of vacant land for those purposes (the affordability
criterion). See 18.4.2 for an illustrative case study of Detroit, MI.
Schools, hospitals, and prisons can be either public or private enterprises, but all
have been influenced by local, state, and federal policies that foster farm to institution linkages. Schools can contribute to the awareness of the local food system by
developing school gardens.
Local and regional governments increasingly incorporate food production, distribution, and consumption, and the management of food system wastes such as
through composting in urban planning activities, especially with discussions of productive landscape infrastructure and ecology.
Even in cities that encourage innovative food-related policies and practices, challenges still exist. For example:
1. Water-related costs may negatively impact the feasibility of raising urban food
(the criticality and affordability criteria) such as costs of obtaining water from
the municipally treated drinking water system, treating stormwater run-off from
farms and gardens in cities that have a stormwater utility fee, and adhering to
stringent building codes, which can hinder the widespread use and cost-savings
of rainwater capture, storage, and reuse devices.
2. Labor related-costs may also be higher in cities than in rural areas due to the
increased cost of living (which may be in part an artifact of the high per-capita
cost of providing water, energy and other infrastructure in the relatively vacant
urban centers that have the land capacity to support gardening).
3. Policies for tax assessment may prevent small vacant properties from being combined to result in the lower per-area rates offered to other industries, and urban
zoning and land use policies may conflict with food production (for example,
restricting vegetation height or animals such as chickens, or allowing building
height to be increased in a way that casts too much shade on adjacent gardens).
4. The public process for updating policies may be obscure, cumbersome, or controlled by players who are unaware of or do not support food–energy–water
innovation.
These financial, political, and administrative dynamics create pressure, even in
high-vacancy cities without commensurate pressure for development, to treat urban
gardens as temporary or interim uses only, rather than as permanent ones.
18 Cities at the Nexus