The changing role of urban agriculture in municipal planning: from planning for urban agriculture to urban agriculture for planning

Publication date: 17/02/2020
Extent: 14 pages

Contributions by: Nevin Cohen, City University of New York, USA

Chapter synopsis: Urban agriculture’s popularity over the past few decades has required cities to address whether, to what extent, and how food production fits into the cityscape. Planners have used various policy levers, from revised zoning codes to tax incentives, to protect existing farms and gardens and expand urban food production. This chapter reviews these strategies of planning for urban agriculture, but argues that an emerging role of planners is to shape urban agriculture so that it helps solve seemingly intractable urban challenges. It offers examples of how planners can use urban agriculture to address two of these challenges: social justice and climate change.

DOI: 10.19103/AS.2019.0063.03