Abstract

First paragraph:In the second half of the 19th century and early 20th century, a number of reformers responded to the horrific conditions of life in the expanding industrial cities of Europe and North America by calling for the transformation of modern cities through a rationalized system for producing built environments that can accommodate growing populations while improving living conditions. As Carolyn Steel has rightly pointed out, food has long shaped our cities (Steel, 2008), and food did hold a central place in the theories of many of the key early thinkers about cities and land.[1] These theories were intimately connected to urban reforms through a range of progressive but paternalistic urban design interventions that consciously sought to weave the green shade and restfulness of the countryside into city parks, street tree plantings, urban allotment gardens, and green river and canal banks. On a darker note, the healthy relaxation touted by garden enthusiasts also served to shift the burden of sustenance away from industrialists and fair-wage policies and onto the shoulders of urbanizing families, especially the women in them (cf. Bellows, 2004). But on balance, garden spaces in densely populated cities and factory settlements offered valuable nourishment and quiet retreats from the chaos of work and cycles of economic instability and war.[1] Just to cite some key theorists who gave a central place to the food system in their thinking about urban settlements: Henry George, von Thünen, Ebenezer Howard, Patrick Geddes, Frank Lloyd Wright.

Highlights

  • JS In the second half of the 19th century and early 20th century, a number of reformers responded to the horrific conditions of life in the expanding industrial cities of Europe and North America by calling for the transformation of modern cities through a rationalized system for producing built environments that can accommodate growing populations while improving living conditions

  • As Carolyn Steel has rightly pointed out, food has long shaped our cities (Steel, 2008), and food did hold a central place in the theories of many of the key early thinkers about cities and land.1. These theories were intimately connected to a Anni and Joe benefited from the excellent technical and organizational support proffered by Gabriela Alcaraz V., ABD, Agricultural Economics, University of Hohenheim

  • Katherine Brown, who has led the Southside Community Land Trust in Providence, Rhode Island,14 to become one of the premier organizations focusing on urban food production in the U.S, shares her perspective on why “urban agriculture” is “oxymoron no more.”

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Summary

Tribute to Jac Smit

On the past and the future of the urban agriculture movement: Reflections in tribute to Jac Smit. Katherine Brown, who has led the Southside Community Land Trust in Providence, Rhode Island, to become one of the premier organizations focusing on urban food production in the U.S, shares her perspective on why “urban agriculture” is “oxymoron no more.” Based on her local experience working in the trenches, Katherine (who collaborated with Jac on the Urban Agriculture Primer and with Anni and Jac on the Health Benefits of Urban Agriculture) comes to the conclusion that the success of urban agriculture projects will remain limited as long as “their integration into the city’s fabric and power base” has not been ensured. Together with the Urban Vegetable Promotion Project under the Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives, which included research initiatives, these measures led to an abundance of food produced in the city and improvement in urban farmers’ incomes The adoption of both national and local government policy measures on urban agriculture occurred two decades after Jac had worked in Tanzania and advocated for such measures. The book African Urban Harvest (Prain et al, 2010) that documents them is dedicated to him

Thoughts on the emergence of urban agriculture as a global movement
Jac and UNDP officials to
The Internet and urban agriculture
Findings
We have prospered immeasurably
Full Text
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