Alessia Toldo

Urban food planning in Italian cities: a comparative analysis of the cases of Milan and Turin

ABSTRACT This contribution explores the issue of urban food planning in the Italian context in a comparative perspective, basing on the case studies of Turin and Milan, the two main cities of Northern Italy, currently engaged in processes of urban food policies development. The first part of the article outlines the general structure of these tools and describes their role of new political spaces for a public debate about food policies. The second section comparatively analyses the two case studies stressing their differences and similarities. Finally, the conclusion of the article focuses on the importance of identifying the right scales for analyzing and planning food systems.

Introduction to special book review issue: giving food its space. Reflections about food planning and urban food systems

Talking about food systems, mostly means talking about cities. The industrial and postindustrial city became the place of consumption, where the other stages of the food chain almost disappeared. Most urban dwellers ignore where their food comes from, how it is produced and where their food waste will go and will be processed. Until about 20 years ago, the food system had a very low visibility among urban policy makers and residents (Pothukuchi and Kaufman 2000); however, it has always been a key factor in the city metabolic flows. Correspondingly, food for a long time almost disappeared from the debate and research over urban planning, relegated to rural studies and regional planning. Today, though, food is again a key element of the material and symbolic urban landscape of the contemporary city. The new role of food in the postmodern city can be read starting from three dimensions, strictly intertwined: (1) practices, (2) policies, and (3) representations. Food became again the object of several practices (e.g. urban gardening, farmers’ markets, community based initiatives, etc.) partly as explicit reaction to the negative externalities of the conventional dominant food system (e.g. health diseases, distrust of food, spatial and social injustice, etc.) (Holt-Gimenez and Shattuck 2011) partly as new trend of the metropolitan creative class. Moving from the grassroots practices, several cities in the Global North elaborated urban food strategies, aiming to address the urban food system toward more sustainability, justice, and resilience (Morgan 2013). Both practices and policies emerge in a context where food is a crucial part of urban representations. Cities use food as a tool for positioning in the international urban competition, attracting tourists and investments and building new images and identities. Similarly, food plays a key role in defining individual identities, working as an indicator of social and cultural status and of political engagement. Moving from this context-setting framework, we chose for this reviews collection five recent books focusing on theories, practices, and policies aiming at new food geography, based on the reterritorialization of the food system. The first two offer an overview on this complex issue, collecting contributions from scholars, policymakers, and practitioners, while the following three investigate more deeply specific topics, such as food governance, food democracy, and urban agriculture.