For urban planning that improves our lives and our nutrition
Agro versus urban. Food versus commercial impulse. Tradition versus innovation. This dichotomy, so typical of Western thought, was already present in antiquity. Whether we look at ancient Egypt, Greece or Rome: the confrontation between the rural and the urban was already part of a vision of the world that we have inherited and in which we have been living for centuries. But the time has come to break with this approach.
And why now? Because, for centuries, the agrarian world needed as much labour as urban economic activity and, therefore, there was an equal relationship between the two areas. But since the middle of the 20th century, mechanisation has been emptying the countryside, causing overpopulation in the cities and giving rise to a serious imbalance that affects us profoundly.
According to the United Nations, cities occupy 3% of the planet’s surface but are home to the majority of humanity. In fact, estimates assume that by 2050, two thirds of the world’s population will be living in them. This is why more and more voices are calling for greener, more sustainable cities that are directly involved in the production of healthy, quality food for their inhabitants. Among these voices is the FAO, which in September 2020 launched its Green Cities initiative to improve urban life.
Reversing the urban-agricultural imbalance
Last summer, the International Green Infrastructure Congress was organised in Berlin and was attended by academics, scientists, entrepreneurs and administrations. The meeting showed that, if the trend towards green urbanism was already strong, the Covid-19 pandemic, the acceleration of climate change and European policies have driven this transformation. And the experts have multiplied their proposals.
The congress discussed a new green architecture, following the path initiated in 2014 in Milan by the Bosco Verticale building, which turned its façade into a real forest and created a new way of understanding urban gardening. Other urban proposals were also presented, such as the one in Singapore, which has led a high-impact green transformation with the support of its citizens. Or changes in classic gardening, which in many cities is giving way to low-maintenance, indigenous systems.
Urban policies and infrastructure were also discussed. But what interests us most is that time and again, green cities, the cities of the future, see urban agro-ecology as a substantial part. Copenhagen is one of the great examples.
Food production in urban and peri-urban areas
Copenhagen is growing according to a model devised after the Second World War that is constantly being revised and has been joined by other challenges (see here for more details), one of the most recent being to become the world’s first carbon-neutral city. One of the most recent is to become the world’s first carbon neutral city. The date? The year 2025. To achieve this, it is on a path that combines the creation of “five-minute neighbourhoods”, access to public transport, cycle lanes and green infrastructure. And a huge number of urban gardens. Some sources put the number at 60,000. There are urban farms in restaurants, community gardens with shared canteens and even regenerative algae crops that absorb nutrients from the sea.
The FAO has long been committed to including food production in the planning of sustainable cities. As the organisation states in last year’s report, “urban and peri-urban agriculture is a vital strategy for building resilience in urban food provision, reducing poverty and increasing employment, improving nutritional outcomes and mitigating environmental degradation of urban spaces”. There are too many advantages not to consider these agricultural spaces in cities.
The same publication gives examples such as Arusha (in Tanzania), which already sources 23% of its food from urban and peri-urban agriculture, and Quito (in Ecuador), which raises this proportion to 26%. But this percentage must continue to grow worldwide. More importantly, it must help to recover the connection between nature and the city, between the food on our plates and its production. Because, as architect and urban planner Carolyn Steel says, “feeding cities requires a gargantuan effort, an effort that has a greater physical and social impact on our lives and on the planet than anything else we do”.
Steel’s forceful approach invites us to rethink our relationship with food… and to reorder our cities. Because every day we must be more aware that, as the academic reminds us, food does not magically appear on our plates!
The planning and redevelopment of cities should therefore take into account these three major challenges:
Integrate and promote urban and peri-urban agriculture for proximate food sources.
Incorporating more and more space for urban and peri-urban agriculture requires an innovative and efficient approach to land use, e.g. having garden plots for agriculture that can alternate with building roofs (which would have a combined use for energy and food generation), incorporating forests or vertical farming and also taking on hydroponic farming systems. This allows urban buildings to share the limited space with oxygen and food production.
And further out, on their perimeter, cities should allow more gardens and farms to flourish that use sustainable practices and can be managed by community or family farmers. This will maintain a productive green belt around cities that can provide jobs for small businesses and family producers while improving the supply of fresh food.
Ensure that all citizens have access to fresh and healthy food.
Experience shows that in cities, people eat what is available and affordable. And the products that meet these two characteristics tend to be, at present, processed and unhealthy foods. This is why their consumption is on the rise, especially in lower-middle income countries, causing a real public health problem.
In response to this reality, the answer must be urban planning that favours access to fresh food. In addition to having agriculture within the city, it is important to spread specific areas for local food markets throughout the city and to make it easier for local farmers to sell their products directly.
Such a thoughtful urban design can (and should) also include educational spaces that promote awareness of the importance of healthy eating. School gardens, open classrooms and events focusing on local agriculture can play an essential role.
Plan cities to avoid long food movements.
With more food produced in or near the city and with markets accessible to the entire population, much of the problem would be solved, short of proactively addressing the logistics related to food supply, avoiding long journeys.
The aim is not only to bring fresher and healthier food to urban centres, but also to shorten supply chains to increase local food security and environmental sustainability.
In search of food resilience in cities
More gardens, more proximity markets, short chain logistics. Reviewing these three parameters should help us to better address the urban food of the future, promoting the health of the people who live in them and ensuring that, in the event of crises (pandemics or natural disasters), they are resilient thanks to local production and the diversification of food sources.
But how to tackle such a complex issue?
The famous sociologist Saskia Sassen encourages us to create multidisciplinary teams to “make every surface of the city work with the environment, and that means bringing in the knowledge of scientists, biologists and other experts”. And that is what the United Nations Innovation Technology Accelerator for Cities (UNITAC) initiative is doing, where urban planners, data scientists, artists, economists and communication experts support cities. Because all cities, big and small, must ensure that in the near future their design is people-centred and helps to leave no one behind.
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