Challenging Inclusivity Urban Agriculture and Community Involvement in San Diego

Abstract

Abstract. In recent years, destiny of cities has proven to be connected to efficiency and resilience of their 'Green Infrastructures', related agri-forestry strategies and health and food security policies. Policy-makers are increasingly dealing with such issues by means of specific sectorial measures including food system arrangements for health and sustainability, even in order to preserve fringe areas threatened by urban growth. Across the US, where 'food deserts' heavily shape access to fresh, local and healthy food, the growing consumers' demand is being addressed by Urban Agriculture practices giving new perspectives to blighted zones of the post-crisis cities and tackling social malaise related to the massive migration. The 'New Roots Community Farm' in City Heights neighbourhood, San Diego, California, shows an intriguing potential, matching social inclusion and physical-economic redevelopment. The 'Healthy Food' issue in the United StatesThere is no doubt that since the very beginning of the Structural fund season, the European Union has been increasingly pursuing principles of community cohesion and social inclusion and an important role for reaching the expected outputs was reserved to territorial and urban redevelopment. Europe 2020 strategy has been conceived in order to re-boost the integration of 'civitas' and 'urbs' dimensions providing a new impulse to the centrality of urban and metropolitan areas. As part of this issue, the 'Healthy food system' and the 'Urban Agriculture' (UA) phenomenon -the culture of which has its roots in the history of European settlements -can represent an intriguing vector for integrating economic, environmental and space issues with social inclusion imperatives in contemporary urban policy. There is no doubt that this is a complex, relevant challenge, nevertheless it may be argued that it is possible to explore new fruitful paths, highlighted by intriguing, successful practices belonging to other cultural contexts.Urban redevelopment within cities affected by economic crises currently presents a major challenge for public administrations, private investors, and an increasingly kaleidoscopic group of socially-driven stakeholders. However, the imperative of pursuing inclusive urban strategies which are faced with the exponential rise in migration has rarely been connected to the issues of limiting land consumption and boosting economic, physical and social regeneration in most developed countries. Only fairly recently within the general framework of urban/rural relationships has UA begun to emerge as a practice that could prove successful both for giving new perspectives to blighted zones of crisis-ridden and post-crisis cities, and for tackling the kind of social malaise related to the phenomenon of mass migration in western metropolitan areas.This work focuses on reflecting on and assessing how -and to what extent -the so called Healthy food policy and the related UA practices in United States (and particularly in San Diego, California) can drive innovation in urban r...