Making the city smart from the grassroots up: The sustainable food networks of Bristol. (March 2019)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Reed, Matthew; Keech, Daniel
• Is Part Of: City, culture and society. Number 16(2019)
• Page Start: 45
• Page End: 51
• Publication Date: 2019-03
• Subjects: Cities and towns -- Periodicals; Urban anthropology -- Periodicals; Sociology, Urban -- Periodicals; Cities and towns; Sociology, Urban; Urban anthropology; Periodicals; 307.76
• DOI: 10.1016/j.ccs.2017.07.001
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1877-9166

Abstract

Abstract: Smart cities are known for their top-down focus on technology. This paper argues that emergent aspects of food policy in the UK can be understood as a social movement, which sustains development by way of bottom-up, horizontal networks of urban groups, and business associations. It suggests that as platforms of food provision, such on-line food networks offer a counter-point to top-down smart city development predicated on high-tech infrastructure. Such complex arrangements demonstrate how the city needs to be understood as a networked field of action, not simply an administratively bounded construction. Within the field of action movements emerge, whose activism is successful in influencing policymaking, and in shaping the municipal strategies assembled to build the regional structure of food provision. The caveat this paper highlights is that, although successful in influencing policy and municipal strategies, the activism of these movements has not been as effective as might have been anticipated from such a democratic impulse. This lack reflects the limited power of cities in the UK over the structure of food provision, but also the troubled extension of public participation into a territory marked by corporate and agricultural policy. The paper bases its claims about the nature of urban food policies in cities on a case study of networks in Bristol, including interviews with key activists, analysis social media networks and documents. The evidence supports claims that urban food developments represent a form of social movement, whose activism is democratic in its attempts to be both sustainable and inclusive. Highlights: Food activism as a civic social movement. Limitations of activism outside formal political system. Horizontal networking to create alternate food infrastructures. Limitations of urban planning in regard to urban food.