Urban Agriculture, Policy Making, and Sustainability

Portland State University, Portland OR

Investigators

Abstract

This research project will examine the complex and sometimes contradictory contributions of examines urban agriculture to urban sustainability efforts as well as the role of policy and regulation in these processes. Widely celebrated as a key component of the "sustainable city," urban agriculture has enjoyed growing popularity in recent years, with new municipal policies following suit. Debates among different groups have called into question issues related to the equity of access, social justice, and possible developmental by-products of gardening activity. This project will provide new information and insights regarding the immediate concerns of food systems planners, policymakers, and practitioners concerned with urban food access and food system resilience. The project will expand knowledge about the multiple motivations and forms of urban agriculture as well as how these differ across race, class, and gender lines. More broadly, project findings will enhance understanding in urban geography by emphasizing the complex relational processes that interact to shape cities. By examining how urban agriculture differs within and among cities and among diverse cultural or socioeconomic groups, this project will facilitate the development of more inclusive food policies that are better tailored to the needs of low-income, underrepresented populations. The investigators will use geospatial analysis, a mail survey, focus groups, in-depth interviews, participant observation, and document analysis to answer sets of research questions: (1) How do various forms of urban agriculture, the motivations of urban agriculturalists, and engagement with urban agriculture advocacy and food policy making differ within and among cities? (2) How have the institutionalization and implementation of municipal food policies contributed to and/or perpetuated the uneven social and spatial distribution of urban agriculture? (3) How have cities learned and borrowed food policy models from each other, and how have these policies opened and/or closed spaces for political engagement? The investigators will examine urban agriculture as a social and spatial phenomenon that both fosters and contests processes of urbanization. They will conduct a comparative study of urban agriculture and related processes in Portland, Oregon, and Vancouver, British Columbia, but project findings will have implications for many other cities in North America and elsewhere.