Food Production and Consumption: City Regions between Localism, Agricultural Land Displacement, and Economic Competitiveness

Circular Urban Metabolism Framework

Transnational city-cooperation is pursued as a means of strengthening a city region’s position in the face of global pressures, where the capacity to ‘jump scales’ is believed to widen the room for manoeuvre. According to the rescaling literature, international activities of city regions, which are currently mushrooming at a global and especially European scale, can be seen as a major vector for city region’s strategies to strengthen their bargaining position in the international marketplace. We therefore analyzed the international activities of five Swiss agglomerations (Zurich, Lucerne, Berne, Lausanne, Geneva), as well as of two European city regions (Stuttgart and Lyon). We show that both the intensity and the content of the international activities are dependent of the economic vulnerability of a city region. Additionally, the EU plays a major role in promoting these networks. The combination of these two factors explains the relative reluctance of the Swiss city regions in this area, whereas the two European cases are clear examples for the increasingly perceived necessity to become engaged in transnational city cooperation in order to stay competitive in the international marketplace.

Food security is the foundation of sustainable human development, and the balance between food supply and demand in urban areas is highly important for promoting residents' health and the sustainable development of cities. This paper takes the Urumqi Metropolitan Area (UMA), a typical oasis urban area, as the study area and uses the food production-demand gap indicator to assess the balance of food production and consumption in the region from 2000 to 2020 and projects food demand in 2030-2060. The results show, first, that residents' food consumption is characterized by high carbohydrate, protein, and fat consumption, and that this put more pressure on food production. Second, different food consumption structures will have different impacts on food production, and the local food production capacity in UMA falls short of ensuring a balanced nutritional structure for residents. Third, food demand increases significantly in 2030-2060, and the pressure of population consumption structure on food production is much greater than that of population growth. Considering the environmental effects of food transportation and the loss of food nutrients, on the production side, the construction of the UMA should be accelerated by including Qitai County and Jimsar County in the UMA's planning scope, strengthening city-regional connections, and improving the local food production and supply capacity of surrounding areas. On the consumption side, regional dietary guidelines should be developed based on local dietary culture and agricultural production conditions to help guide residents to adjust their dietary structures, thereby alleviating pressure on local food demand. Such measures are crucial for ensuring sufficient food supply and promoting balanced nutrition among the population.

Cutting edge technologies to end food waste

Urbanization is a major factor across Asia and the Pacific, and so the scope of this chapter is somewhat restricted. There is a focus on larger urban areas, as the small communities of rural areas are discussed in other chapters. The breadth of the topic of urbanization also means that reports by government agencies and NGOs (grey literature) are cited, as well as the formal academic literature. The six sections of the present Chapter systematically review literature in the field. In the first section we overview urbanization trends in the region. In the second section we review the history of urbanization in the region. The third section examines urbanization and climate in Asia and the Pacific. The fourth section describes the risks in urban areas due to climate change-related hazards. The fifth section overviews mitigation and adaptation measures in the region. The final section concludes with the needs for resilient cities and addresses uncertainties, research gaps and policy measures.Future predictions suggest that large cities will not hold most of the region’s total urban population. In 1990, cities of larger than one million held almost 35.1 % of the total urban population and by 2025 the UN predicts that cities of one million or more will hold 41.2 % of the total urban population. The share of those living in mega-cities is expected to increase from 8.9 % of the total urban population to 12.8 % during the same period. While expectations are for an increase in share, there still remains 58.2 % of the urban population living in settlements smaller than one million. This fact is all the more impressive given the large population that is expected to move into cities in the region between 2010 and 2025 (over 549 million in 15 years, or over 36 million people a year).Climate resilient cities are those that can withstand climate effects and not change dramatically. They include biophysical and socio-economic sub-systems that can withstand various climate impacts and continue to develop in a fairly predictable manner. Cities that are not resilient change dramatically to new states with new relationships emerging both within the socio-economic sub-system and between the socio-economic and biophysical sub-systems. Resilient cities are sustainable cities. Resilience can be achieved when urban areas move along a more sustainable pathway. The goal of policy makers and stakeholders for their individual urban centres, urban regions as well as nations in the face of climate change is to enhance resilience. In the present review of cities in the Asia-Pacific region, we identify some important aspects that impinge on this goal. Addressing uncertainties, research gaps and policy needs related to climate change and urbanization will help make cities in the region more resilient.KeywordsGHG emissionsClimate hazardsMega-citiesUrbanizationClimate vulnerabilities

Resilient cities provide a new operating mechanism for sustainable urban development and can effectively reduce urban disaster losses. Urban resilience has become an important research topic, but few scholars focus on the urban resilience of urban agglomerations in western China. Therefore, this paper takes the Chengdu–Chongqing urban agglomeration of China as the study area and aims to evaluate the resilience level of cities in typical regions of western China. This study uses multiple interdisciplinary methods, such as the entropy weight method, Theil index, and geographically and temporally weighted regression, to evaluate the resilience levels of 16 cities in the region and discuss the influencing factors of regional urban resilience. The results show that the urban resilience of cities in the Chengdu–Chongqing urban agglomeration has evolved from a low to high level. Additionally, there are significant spatial differences in urban resilience in the Chengdu–Chongqing urban agglomeration, and the resilience levels of cities in the east and west of the region are relatively high, while the resilience levels of cities in the south and north are relatively low. Further research found that factors such as administrative level, marketization level, industrial structure, population density, urbanization level, and emergency facility level all have a significant positive impact on the improvement of urban resilience, but this impact has spatial and temporal heterogeneity. Based on the above research results, the strategies have been proposed from the perspective of sustainable urban development to provide a new theoretical support and decision-making reference for improving the resilience level of urban agglomerations in western China.

Recent literature demonstrates the contribution of short food supply chains (SFSC) to regional economies and sustainable food systems, and acknowledges their role as drivers for sustainable development. Moreover, different types of SFSC have been supported by urban food policies (UFP) over the few last years and actors from the food chain became part of new institutional settings for urban food policies. However, evidence from the sustainability impact assessment (SIA) of these SFSC in urban contexts is limited. Our paper presents an approach for the development of an SIA framework for different SFSC types. In addition, a practical application of the tool in four metropolitan regions (Berlin, London, Ljubljana and Nairobi) is tested. The conceptual development of the SIA framework is based on an in-depth analysis of existing SIA frameworks and methods for assessing the sustainability of agriculture, food chains and food systems and adapted to the specific needs of analysing SFSC in metropolitan regions. The operational value and utility of the framework and the tool were tested with social and natural scientists and local stakeholders. The assessment results demonstrate that SFSC seems to be more sustainable than the baseline (long global food chains) in the social dimension, but also feature specific strengths and weaknesses concerning their economic and environmental sustainability. This might give an indication for regional adjusted strategies and food chain innovations that improve the sustainability performance may be required. We found the tool useful for framing the dialogue between food chain actors, consumers and policy, because it makes benefits and trade-offs of the chain types operating in an urban–rural context more visible and communicable.

This literature review explores the role of urban metabolism (UM) assessments in addressing food security through urban agriculture in informal settlements, particularly in lower-income countries. It addresses the challenges of food security in urban areas and aims to unravel existing urban dynamics and networks to generate agro-food resources in these settings. The review included a comprehensive search using the Scopus and Web of Science (WOS) databases to identify relevant studies. A total of 381 articles published between 2000 and 2023 were retrieved. Additionally, a systematic review of grey literature was performed using Google Scholar, focusing on publications in the Spanish language from the years 2000 to 2023 to address food security dynamics in Latin America as a key case study area. After screening titles, keywords, and abstracts, 127 journal articles from the Scopus and WOS databases and 51 results from the grey literature were considered for further analysis. Bibliometric coupling techniques, including co-citation analysis, co-occurrence analysis, and keyword analysis, were employed using VOSviewer software to visualize the scholarly landscape and identify major themes. The analysis of white literature facilitated the identification of six major themes: (1) UM and Sustainability; (2) Phosphorus Management and Recycling; (3) Food Security and Waste Management; (4) Material Flow Analysis and Environmental Impact; (5) Human Impacts on the Environment; and (6) Food Systems and Sustainability. The main findings pointed to the environmental and social sustainability impacts of food flows in UM studies, emphasizing the pertinence of UM as a conceptual framework to address urban sustainability and justice challenges, particularly in informal settlements. Additionally, the grey literature provided insights into community strategies, urban resilience, and social inequality, enriching the understanding of local realities and socio-economic dimensions related to UM and food security in informal settlements. The review showed that by incorporating UM approaches and circular economy strategies, it is possible to optimize flows and stocks within the agro-food systems, leading to improved food security, sustainable development, and enhanced resilience in urban environments.

Greenbelt and Green Heart: separating and integrating landscapes in European city regions

Food wedges: Framing the global food demand and supply challenge towards 2050

Policy-making bodies such as the UNISDR have frequently emphasized the role of community resilience in disaster risk management. However, this community-centered approach to enhancing a city's resilience may overlook other critical variables. Few studies have been conducted on the city's process of building urban resilience, as well as the factors that impede or accelerate the resilience process. This article aims to add to the body of literature on urban resilience processes by analyzing the disaster experience and urban resilience of Malabon City, a flood-prone city in Metro Manila's northwestern region. The purpose of this article is to answer the questions, “How does the process of urban resilience occur?”, “What factors impede or accelerate the process of urban resilience?” and “Why such factors impede or accelerate the process of urban resilience?” Furthermore, the article adds to the debate about how shifting the responsibility for resilience building to society and the community reduces government and political accountability to the people it is supposed to serve. The article will critically assess the policy environment surrounding the flood infrastructure development in Metro Manila and how it gravely affected Malabon City. The case analysis demonstrates that urban resilience does not follow a linear pattern or a single equilibrium, but rather multiple equilibria of resilience building. It highlights that urban resilience is complex and considers the connections between and among sectors and dimensions within the city. The article indicates resilience as a value-laden and politically charged concept.

SummaryAgglomeration-based arguments citing Dutch and German city regions have been a primary driver in advocating intercity transport strategies in the north of England. We adopt an allometric urban model investigating the applicability and transferability of these transport-led agglomerative strategies promoted to address England’s regional economic underperformance. This is undertaken through a comparative study of the size–cost performance balance of three city regions and the overall urban networks in the Netherlands and Germany, and England and Wales by using city units defined at different spatial scales. Although our results support a case for better mobility and transport comparing the three urban networks regardless of the spatial scales, comparisons of specific city regions indicate a more nuanced interplay of productivity, mobility infrastructure and urban density.

This chapter provides an overview of the conclusions of the research project on “Smart Transformations in City-Regional Law and Governance”. This study analysed the drivers, manifestations, and implications of hybrid city-regional governance. Hybrid city-regional governance is the kind of governance in which both public and private actors as well as public and private instruments go into the governance of a metropolitan area. The focus of the project was on “governance learning”, that is, the cognitive process in which individuals, in interaction, intentionally reflect on the process and procedures of multi-stakeholder decision-making. The data collection for the study included extensive document analyses, fifty-two in-depth interviews and five two-day workshops, called city-region labs, which involved representatives from four European city regions as well as local stakeholders. In these labs, participants from each of the four city regions collectively reflected on their experiences in dealing with the governance challenges that are particular to hybrid governance and, as a group, identified opportunities for improvement. The project succeeded in stimulating a collective learning process that drew on the participants’ experiences and research findings but cannot guarantee long-term effects.

The paper discusses the relevance of “relational goods” in studying the economics of agriculture and food supply chain.\nThe quality of interpersonal relations and the dynamic of relational assets have been proposed as relevant concepts in the interpretation of the happiness paradox in developed economies. After a short overview of the literature, the concept of “relational goods” is used to discuss three specific topics: the role of personal relations in overcoming the information asymmetries in the agro-food system, the organisation of labour in agriculture and the emerging sector of social farming.\nQuality differentiation increases the importance of credence characteristics in marketing agricultural and food products. The creation of relational assets may ease the solution of this information problem. Moreover, emerging forms in the marketing of agricultural and food products, such as alternative food supply chains, community supported agriculture and farmers’ markets, can be better understood when the production of relational good is taken into account. The dynamic of personal relations is also relevant in explaining the variety of tenancy forms and models of labour organisation in agriculture. A historical example relative to share tenancy in Italy is used as an example to discuss this theme. Finally, the growing sector of social farming (where farming activities are the basis of personal care of individuals with disabilities or social discomfort) clearly shows the economic and social relevance of relational goods. In social farming production activities become the opportunity for a personal “encounter” between the carer and the beneficiary. The nature agricultural production process seems peculiarly suitable to support these forms of personal care.\nThe paper is closed by a discussion on policies to incentive the creation of relational assets in the agro-food system. The possible trade-off between economic incentives and gratuitousness of motivations in producing genuine human relations suggests an indirect approach. The institutional context and the specific regulations should widen the spectrum of modalities available to actors in arranging economic and market relations.

Although the literature indicates that auditing a city's metabolic flows is critical to enhancing the resilience of urban systems, the current knowledge is still unclear about how urban metabolism (UM) research could contribute to urban resilience (UR). Meanwhile, because cities compete for survival, sustainable resource management is already a common challenge. Given this background, this study asks whether UM research has contributed to UR by developing a conceptual review of UR in practice through an industrial ecology perspective. This study selectively reviews 35 urban resilience strategies (URSs) from the 100 Resilient Cities (100RC), with dimensions of (1) UM terms, (2) UM framework, and (3) UM tools, used to reveal the contribution of UM research to UR, as well as their engagement with (4) socioeconomic factors. It demonstrates UM research's contribution in different patterns, finding that UM research has not been fully applied in contemporary UR practices; only 23% of URSs show a significant contribution, while 17% demonstrate no integration of UM research. Further investigation recognizes features of UM research's contribution: (1) adopting evidence‐based analysis to enhance the analytical coherence and evidence‐based structure of URSs, (2) providing precise benchmarks to urge cities to improve, (3) recognizing precise places to intervene, and (4) initiating possible cooperation among stakeholders. “Taking UM research seriously” is suggested as a relevant aspect of evaluating UR practices; yet, more work is needed to ensure that UM research will benefit UR. Policymakers and decision‐makers should remain open‐minded about adopting an UM lens to evaluate their practices and decisions consistently.