The book presents an in-depth and theoretically-grounded analysis of urban gardening practices (re)emerging worldwide as new forms of bottom-up socio-political participation. By complementing the scholarly perspectives through posing real cases, it focuses on how these practices are able to address – together with environmental and planning questions – the most fundamental issues of spatial justice, social cohesion, inclusiveness, social innovations and equity in cities. Through a critical exploration of international case studies, this collection investigates whether, and how, gardeners are willing and able to contrast urban spatial arrangements that produce peculiar forms of social organisation and structures for inclusion and exclusion, by considering pervasive inequalities in the access to space, natural resources and services, as well as considerable disparities in living conditions.

In 1996, the Los Angeles Bus Riders Union, a grassroots advocacy organization, won a historic legal victory against the city’s Metropolitan Transit Authority. The resulting consent decree forced the MTA for a period of ten years to essentially reorient the mass transit system to better serve the city’s poorest residents. A stunning reversal of conventional governance and planning in urban America, which almost always favors wealthier residents, this decision is also, for renowned urban theorist Edward W. Soja, a concrete example of spatial justice in action. In Seeking Spatial Justice, Soja argues that justice has a geography and that the equitable distribution of resources, services, and access is a basic human right. Building on current concerns in critical geography and the new spatial consciousness, Soja interweaves theory and practice, offering new ways of understanding and changing the unjust geographies in which we live. After tracing the evolution of spatial justice and the closely related notion of the right to the city in the influential work of Henri Lefebvre, David Harvey, and others, he demonstrates how these ideas are now being applied through a series of case studies in Los Angeles, the city at the forefront of this movement. Soja focuses on such innovative labor–community coalitions as Justice for Janitors, the Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy, and the Right to the City Alliance; on struggles for rent control and environmental justice; and on the role that faculty and students in the UCLA Department of Urban Planning have played in both developing the theory of spatial justice and putting it into practice. Effectively locating spatial justice as a theoretical concept, a mode of empirical analysis, and a strategy for social and political action, this book makes a significant contribution to the contemporary debates about justice, space, and the city.

This book analyses the interplay of urban agriculture and food sovereignty through the innovative lens of the "critical urban food perspective". It focuses on the mobilisation of urban food producers as a powerful response to highly exclusionary dynamics in the agri-food system including insufficient food access and disastrous land dispossessions. This volume particularly aims to fill the gap in the current literature by engaging with food sovereignty discourses and movements in urban areas. Related activism of urban food producers in the Global South remains underrepresented in practice and in literature. Therefore, this book engages with the lived realities of an urban agriculture initiative in George, South Africa. Building on theoretical notions of the "right to the city" and "everyday forms of resistance", the book illuminates how deprived food producers expose inequalities and propose alternatives. The findings of in-depth empirical research reveal that dwellers perceive farming as a mean to overcome historical segregation, high food prices, and unhealthy nutrition. Hence, they breathe life into food sovereignty in practice and suggest further alliances beyond the city. The book will be of interest to scholars and students of alternative food politics, agrarian transformation, and food movements as well as rural-urban intersections.

Escape is an enticing idea in contemporary cities across the world. Austerity, climate breakdown and spatial stigma have led to retreatist behaviours such as gated communities, enclave urbanism and white flight. By contrast, urban community growing projects are often considered by practitioners and commentators as communal havens in a stressful cityscape. Drawing on ethnographic research in urban growing projects in Glasgow, this book explores the spatial politics and dynamics of community, asking who benefits from such projects and how they relate to the wider city. A timely consideration of localism and community empowerment, the book sheds light on key issues of urban land use, the right to the city and the value of social connection.

Housing and neighbourhoods have an important contribution to make to our wellbeing and our sense of our place in the world. This book, written for a lay audience (with policy makers firmly in mind) offers a useful and intelligible overview of our housing system and why it is in ‘crisis’ while acting as an important reminder of how housing contributes to social value, defined as community, health, self development and identity. It argues for a holistic digital map-based planning system that allows for the sensitive balancing of the triple bottom line of sustainability: social, environmental and economic value. It sets out a vision of what our housing system could look like if we really put the wellbeing of people and planet first, as well as a route map on how to get there. Written primarily from the point of view of an architect, the account weaves across industry, practice and academia cross cutting disciplines to provide an integrated view of the field. The book focusses on the UK housing scene but draws on and provides lessons for housing cultures across the globe. Illustrated throughout with case studies, this is the go-to book for anyone who wants to look at housing in a holistic way.

Urban agriculture is increasingly considered an important part of creating just and sustainable cities. Yet the benefits that many people attribute to urban agriculture-fresh food, green space, educational opportunities-can mask structural inequities, thereby making political transformation harder to achieve. Beyond the Kale argues that urban agricultural projects focused explicitly on dismantling oppressive systems have the greatest potential to achieve substantive social change. Through in-depth interviews and public forums with prominent urban agriculture activists and supporters-primarily people of color and women, whose strategies have often been underrespresented in the literature Kristin Reynolds and Nevin Cohen illustrate how urban farmers and gardeners not only grow food for their communities but also use their activities and spaces to disrupt the dynamics of power and privilege that perpetuate inequity. Beyond the Kale provides recommendations for these in philanthropy, government, nonprofit organizations, and academia to support such initiatives. Book jacket.

Urban social movements are influential agents in shaping cityscapes to reflect values and needs of communities. Alongside urban population growth, various forms of urban agriculture activity, such as community and market gardens, are expanding, globally. This book explores citizens’ ‘rights to city’ and alternative views on urban space and the growing importance of urban food systems.