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Full-Text Articles in Urban Studies and Planning
No. 05: Mapping The Informal Food Economy In Cape Town, South Africa, Jane Battersby, Maya Marshak, Ncedo Mngqibisa
No. 05: Mapping The Informal Food Economy In Cape Town, South Africa, Jane Battersby, Maya Marshak, Ncedo Mngqibisa
Hungry Cities Partnership
The informal food retail sector is an important component of urban food systems and plays a vital role in ensuring access to food by the urban poor. Yet, policy frameworks both to address food security and to govern the informal sector neglect informal retail in the food system and, as a result, the sector is poorly understood. This discussion paper argues that it is essential to understand the dynamics of the informal food retail sector, which is diverse in terms of products traded as well as the business models utilized. The paper attempts to identify the characteristics of the sector …
No. 04: Supermarkets, Wet Markets And Food Patronage In Nanjing, China, Zhenzhong Si, Steffanie Scott, Cameron Mccordic
No. 04: Supermarkets, Wet Markets And Food Patronage In Nanjing, China, Zhenzhong Si, Steffanie Scott, Cameron Mccordic
Hungry Cities Partnership
Although supermarkets have become a dominant food outlet for urban residents in developed countries, studies of food purchasing in developing countries such as China report a persistence of traditional food outlets, despite a proliferation of supermarkets over the past two decades. Yet, little is known about urban residents’ use of various food sources in the Chinese context. Building on the debate over the rise of supermarkets and the persistence of traditional food outlets, this paper analyzes the landscape of competing food sources including supermarkets, wet markets, restaurants, online food markets, urban agriculture and others. Based on the HCP citywide survey …
No. 03: Urban Food Deserts And Climate Change In African Cities, Mary Caesar, Jonathan Crush
No. 03: Urban Food Deserts And Climate Change In African Cities, Mary Caesar, Jonathan Crush
Hungry Cities Partnership
The underlying assumption in much of the Euro-American food deserts literature is that urban food deserts are dynamic spaces, expanding and contracting with the advent and withdrawal of supermarkets. This discussion paper argues that to tie such dynamism purely to the spatial behaviour of formal food retail outlets is both narrow and inappropriate in the African context, where the use of the food deserts concept requires a sophisticated understanding of the multiple market and non-market food sources, of the spatial mobility and dynamism of the informal food economy, of the changing drivers of household food insecurity and the local conditions …
No. 02: Approaching Sustainable Urban Development In China Through A Food System Planning Lens, Zhenzhong Si, Steffanie Scott
No. 02: Approaching Sustainable Urban Development In China Through A Food System Planning Lens, Zhenzhong Si, Steffanie Scott
Hungry Cities Partnership
After more than two decades of rapid urbanization, Chinese cities now face severe sustainability chal- lenges in terms of balancing economic viability, social justice, and environmental protection goals. While various types of planning have long been adopted to cope with these challenges, food as a centrepiece of daily life and of social and economic activity in cities has rarely been considered as a focus of urban planning in China, despite a lot of recent attention to food waste and food safety concerns. China’s food policy is largely fragmented in terms of its multiple regulatory agencies and diverse policy goals. Amid …
No. 01: Hungry Cities Of The Global South, Jonathan Crush
No. 01: Hungry Cities Of The Global South, Jonathan Crush
Hungry Cities Partnership
The recent inclusion of an urban Sustainable Development Goal in the Post-2015 UN Development Agenda represents an important acknowledgement of the reality of global urbanization and the many social, economic, infrastructural and political challenges posed by the human transition to a predominantly urban world. However, while the SDG provides goals for housing, transportation, land use, cultural heritage and disaster risk prevention, food is not mentioned at all. This discussion paper aims to correct this unfortunate omission by reviewing the current evidence on the challenges of feeding rapidly-growing cities in the Global South. The paper first documents the magnitude of the …
No. 02: The Urban Food System Of Maputo, Mozambique, Abel Chikanda, Inês Raimundo
No. 02: The Urban Food System Of Maputo, Mozambique, Abel Chikanda, Inês Raimundo
Hungry Cities Partnership
The city of Maputo, with a population of around 1.3 million, has been at the forefront of urbanization in Mozambique. While the Southern African country has posted impressive macro-economic growth rates in the last two decades, there has been only limited formal sector employment generation. Most of its working population is absorbed in informal employment and self-employment. The informal food economy is easily the most important source of food in Maputo. Almost all households regularly obtain food from informal sellers; over 90% at least once a week and many on a daily basis. For many households, daily purchasing is necessitated …
Food Remittances: Migration And Food Security In Africa, Jonathan Crush, Mary Caesar
Food Remittances: Migration And Food Security In Africa, Jonathan Crush, Mary Caesar
Hungry Cities Partnership
By drawing attention to the importance of food remittances for urban and rural food security and identifying the current knowledge gaps, this report contributes to the study of the relationship between migration and food security and creates a platform for the design of a new research agenda. Across Africa, there is considerable evidence of a massive informal trade in food, including staples, fresh and processed products. While most cross-border trade in foodstuffs is a result of commercial transactions by small-scale traders who buy in one country and sell in another, an unknown proportion is actually food remittances on their way …
Migration And Food Security: Zimbabwean Migrants In Urban South Africa, Godfrey Tawodzera, Jonathan Crush
Migration And Food Security: Zimbabwean Migrants In Urban South Africa, Godfrey Tawodzera, Jonathan Crush
Hungry Cities Partnership
This report examines the food security status of Zimbabwean migrant households in the poorer areas of two major South African cities, Johannesburg and Cape Town. The vast majority were food insecure in terms of the amount of food to which they had access and the quality and diversity of their diet. What seems clear is that Zimbabwean migrants are significantly more food insecure than other low-income households. The primary reason for this appears to lie in pressures that include remittances of cash and goods back to family in Zimbabwe. The small literature on the impact of migrant remittances on food …
The Return Of Food: Poverty And Urban Food Security In Zimbabwe After The Crisis, Godfrey Tawodzera, Liam Riley, Jonathan Crush
The Return Of Food: Poverty And Urban Food Security In Zimbabwe After The Crisis, Godfrey Tawodzera, Liam Riley, Jonathan Crush
Hungry Cities Partnership
The nadir of Zimbabwe’s political and economic crisis in 2008 coincided with the implementation of a baseline household food security survey in Harare by AFSUN. This survey found that households in lowincome urban areas in Zimbabwe’s capital were far worse off in terms of all the food insecurity and poverty indicators than households in the other 10 Southern African cities surveyed by AFSUN. The central question addressed in this report is whether food security in Zimbabwe’s urban centres has improved. AFSUN conducted a follow-up survey in 2012 that allows for direct longitudinal comparisons of continuity and change. The status of …
No. 01: The Urban Food System Of Nanjing, China, Zhenzhong Si, Jonathan Crush, Steffanie Scott, Taiyang Zhong
No. 01: The Urban Food System Of Nanjing, China, Zhenzhong Si, Jonathan Crush, Steffanie Scott, Taiyang Zhong
Hungry Cities Partnership
With a population of 8.2 million people, Nanjing is the 14th largest city in China. China became a predominantly urban nation in 2011, when its urban population surpassed its rural population for the first time. The declining farming population and area of farmland along with the increased food consumption of urban residents have had significant implications for China’s food security, including in cities such as Nanjing. As with many other Chinese cities, Nanjing’s informal economy has become an important source of income for the poor, including migrant workers. Since the beginning of economic reform in 1978, street vendors have become …