Synopses & Reviews
Cities are now home to over fifty per cent of the world's population, but the contribution of food to shaping cities is often overlooked. Food matters in designing and planning cities because how it is grown, transported, bought, cooked, eaten, cleaned up and disposed of has significant effects on creating a sustainable, resilient and convivial urban future.
The book explores methods for extending the gastronomic possibilities of urban space - from the scale of the table to the metropolis. Using a wealth of examples from cities worldwide, the book explores how physical design and socio-spatial arrangements focused on food can help maintain socially rich, productive and sustainable urban space. Underpinning the book's analysis of food and cities is the view that decisions about a hyper-urban future should recognise the fundamental role of food.
Food and Urbanism provides an original and new contribution to food scholarship; exploring some intriguing research questions about the ways that food, urbanism and sustainable conviviality interconnect.
Synopsis
Cities are home to over fifty percent of the world's population, a figure which is expected to increase enormously by 2050. Despite the growing demand on urban resources and infrastructure, food is still often overlooked as a key factor in planning and designing cities. Without incorporating food into the design process how it is grown, transported, and bought, cooked, eaten and disposed of it is impossible to create truly resilient and convivial urbanism.
Moving from the table and home garden to the town, city, and suburbs, Food and Urbanism explores the connections between food and place in past and present design practices. The book also looks to future methods for extending the 'gastronomic' possibilities of urban space. Supported by examples from places across the world, including the UK, Norway, Germany, France, Spain, Portugal, Greece, Romania, Australia and the USA, the book offers insights into how the interplay of physical design and socio-spatial practices centred around food can help to maintain socially rich, productive and sustainable urban space. Susan Parham brings together the latest research from a number of disciplines urban planning, food studies, sociology, geography, and design with her own fieldwork on a range of foodscapes to highlight the fundamental role food has to play in shaping the urban future.
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About the Author
Susan Parham is Head of Urbanism in the Centre for Sustainable Communities at the University of Hertfordshire, UK.
Table of Contents
Dedication
Preface
Acknowledgements
List of Illustrations
Introduction: Food and Urbanism: the Convivial City and Sustainable Future
Part One: Food, Domesticity and DesignThe Paradoxical Kitchen and the Death of Dining
The Garden and Gastronomy
Part Two: Gastronomy and Public SpaceFood's Outdoor Room
The Gastronomic Townscape
Ambivalent Suburbia
Convivial Green Space
Part Three: Food Space on the EdgeThe Productive Periphery
The Megalopolitan Food Realm
Designing the Critical Food Region
Food and Urbanism in a Global Context
Conclusion: Food and Urbanism - Making a Resilient City
Bibliography
Index