Furniture Design Ideas

James Petts INTRODUCTION Urban agriculture is as old as towns and cities themselves, although it has only relatively recently been recognised by national and international bodies for its importance for the sustainability of cities and urban societies. It is an economic activity, engaged in for commercial reasons by an esti­mated 200 million people, and informally […]

In virtually all European cities, urban food production faces stiff competition from other land-uses such as housing, commerce and industry, which often have a far higher profile and financial return. Overcoming this particular hurdle will significantly influence the development of urban food growing. There is no point in wishing economic obstacles away, but there is […]

Having set out its many virtues, what are some of the barriers to urban food production? These fall into three broad categories: regulatory, economic and technical. Local obstacles include vandalism and theft and a lack of resources, often money and information (see Chapter 9). Urban agriculture and land-use policy Urban agriculture is central to the […]

Nutritionists and other health professionals have long recognised deficiencies in diet, particularly amongst the poor. The issue of obesity has risen up the ladder of concern in many developed coun­tries. One in four people in the USA are now classi­fied as obese. In these developed countries diets generally contain excessive amounts of fat and sugar […]

The rise of the food retailing giants and the recent trend towards out-of-town supermarkets in Britain in the last few decades has been spectacular. The decline of the small-scale, local food shop has been equally dramatic. Garnett (1996a) notes that between 1976 and 1987, over 44 000 food retailers closed (31.2 per cent of the […]

The economic value of urban agriculture cannot be simply compared to the type of finance flow caused by the exchange of money for radishes or apples in supermarkets. Being of small or medium produc­tion, preferably organic and of seasonal assort­ment and aimed at a local market, urban agriculture is a different approach to life and […]

Joe Howe, Andre Viljoen and Katrin Bohn SOCIO-CULTURAL BENEFITS The literature on urban food growing emphasises its importance in terms of community development and as an agent for urban regeneration, reducing discrimination, tackling crime and generating eco­nomic benefit. The brief overview to follow can be supplemented by making reference to the seminal text by Jac […]

Dr Susannah Hagan Increasingly, the environmental case for urban compaction is taken as given. It is even rolled out to defend the perfectly straightforward commercial exploitation of valuable inner city sites, for example, at London Bridge. Suddenly this intensification is beneficial, not only financially, but environmentally, and the injection of thousands more people through a […]

Andre Viljoen Architects and urbanists are used to viewing the city through plans. Periodically, new means of view­ing the city become available which help us to understand the spatial consequences of social phenomena. In the early part of the twentieth cen­tury aerial photography became available and made clear the effects of rapid industrialisation on the […]

Food corporations argue that consumers drive the food industry. Indeed, consumers have become used to being able to buy all foods at all times of the year, regardless of seasonality, and at cheap prices. Consumers are buying food produced by people who they do not know, and probably will never meet, making them less concerned […]