Towards Good Food Landscapes: The Intrinsic Links between Continuous Productive Urban Landscapes and Food Governance

Supportive urban food governance plays an important role in securing and implementing food-friendly spaces, infrastructure and activities. Yet, despite environmental urgency and more than 40 years of public recognition of the importance of sustainable food provision, urban food and its complex, systemic aspects are still underrepresented and just emerging in practice, planning, policy and research. Very little work explicitly evaluates governance against spatial design considerations when planning for food. Therefore, the cooperation needed between food governance and urban design to support localised productive urban landscapes currently remains under-developed and under-researched. This chapter explores how (continuous) productive urban landscapes could shape urban food and its management in the future. Three strands of exploration will concentrate on the role of urban food governance to: (1) Negotiate urban space as territories for food; (2) Manage productive urban landscapes as infrastructure designed not only, but also, for food system activities; and (3) Develop planning policy for food-focused activities and spaces of exchange, encounter and experience. Aiming to support decision makers and interested citizens with new insights into sustainable urban food planning, we will question the role of spatial design and planning and the challenges for designers engaging in urban food governance futures.