Downscaling Food System for the ‘Public City’ Regeneration. An Experience of Social Agriculture in Trieste

Sara Basso,Paola Di Biagi,Valentina Crupi

doi:10.3390/su14052769

Abstract

The relationship between food and cities has been recognized as an area of interest for urban planning only recently, thanks to measures adopted at various government levels, locally and internationally. Rethinking the processes of food production, distribution, sale, consumption and recycling in a sustainable and socially equitable way can contribute to making cities fairer, healthier and more resilient to climate change. Starting from these premises, our contribution explores, in particular, the hypothesis that rethinking the relationship between food and urban space can provide an opportunity to promote socio-spatial regeneration processes of public housing neighbourhoods, through projects and actions that involve their inhabitants. This hypothesis is argued starting from a project experience developed in Borgo San Sergio, a district of Trieste, Italy, which aims to consolidate and enhance practices of cultivation and distribution of food, but also of environmental education. The aim of the project is to create a short supply chain in which social agricultural enterprises are involved. The critical reflection stemming from the case study outlines some possible fields of intervention for an urban planning practice aimed at bringing the food system back to an urban and local scale—downscaling—with social and environmental justice goals consistent with the European Green Deal.

Highlights

The relationship between food and the city began to develop as an urban issue in the 1970s; it is only in recent decades that the urgency to consider food as a topic of urban planning [1,2] or urban design has emerged [3–6]
Starting from the new millennium, surveys and investigations have helped to outline this relationship in terms of a ‘new food equation’ that brings into play issues relevant to urban design such as the ones about the environment, social justice and public health [7–10]
In 2015, the adoption of the 2030 Agenda by the United Nations gave a further boost to crediting cities with a fundamental role in the sustainable transformation of food systems: administrative bodies were urged to adopt food policies and multi-layered action plans to respond to the Global Goals

Summary

Introduction

The relationship between food and the city began to develop as an urban issue in the 1970s; it is only in recent decades that the urgency to consider food as a topic of urban planning [1,2] or urban design has emerged [3–6]. Starting from the new millennium, surveys and investigations have helped to outline this relationship in terms of a ‘new food equation’ that brings into play issues relevant to urban design such as the ones about the environment, social justice and public health [7–10]. In 2015, the adoption of the 2030 Agenda by the United Nations gave a further boost to crediting cities with a fundamental role in the sustainable transformation of food systems: administrative bodies were urged to adopt food policies and multi-layered action plans to respond to the Global Goals. At the international and European level, these initiatives are acknowledged as good practices to be shared and disseminated to help cities adopt integrated food policies, in order to reduce climate-changing emissions, promote public health, and reduce social inequalities [18]. The 2020 pandemic, highlighting the close correlation between health crisis and environmental crisis, has further

Objectives

Discussion

Conclusion