Alternative Food Projects, Localization and Neoliberal Urban Development

Abstract

Recent years have witnessed the emergence of alternative food movements responding to growing dissatisfaction with the global, industrial, and corporate food system. In particular, scholars and activists have called for a re-localization of food systems as a way to foster health, justice, sustainability and other goals. Although a growing scholarship views food initiatives that shorten supply chains, such as farmers markets and community gardens, as forms of resistance against the capitalist pressures that strain the food system, other researchers provide evidence indicating that these have become increasingly popular among affluent and white urban residents. Such contradiction puts into question the claim that local food will foster democracy and justice. This article builds upon recent geographic research on scale and urban governance to explore the growth of local food practices in urban southern California and their role in resisting, challenging and reproducing neoliberal urban agendas. We focus specifically on farmers’ markets, which have grown exponentially. After investigating their geographic distribution in the County of San Diego, we turn our analytical gaze to three markets that uniquely illustrate the ambivalent relationships between neoliberal urbanism and alternative food systems. Conceptualizing the local scale as a strategy, we pay particular attention to the agenda of institutional actors in supporting alternative food initiatives and their role in reshaping cities along the lines of race and class. The research combines quantitative and qualitative data, including interviews of community stakeholders, to map the changing landscape of alternative food practices and the contradictions local actors face in creating a more just city.