Food Cells and Food Nodes. Two New Concepts for Rethinking Traditional Urban and Food Planning Practices. The Case of Barcelona’s Metropolitan Region

Abstract

The intersection between urban planning and food has aroused a growing interest in the past few years in the areas of research and policy. Extensive literature is devoted to food systems, alternative food networks and food planning. Much of this literature emphasises consideration of food on a local scale and the importance of using food to reconnect the city with its agricultural periphery. The main arguments in favour of this new paradigm are food security and food self-sufficiency and sustainable and resilient development of cities. However, food production in the rural-urban fringe is still threatened, and calls into question the sustainability per se of local systems. A rapidly emerging vision with significant support amongst professional planners and local communities is the integration of food issues in urban planning. This paper proposes a new methodology for urban planning in relation to cities’ nearest agricultural area (food cells) and agro-urban planning systems based on calculating food provision and optimization of the flow of food between the two systems. The theoretical model is tested in the city of Barcelona. The conclusion is drawn that sustainable food systems are only possible if urban planning incorporates the food vector and only if done so from a systemic interpretation of the rural-urban relationship.