Planning for Equitable Urban Agriculture: Opportunities and Quandaries

Urban agriculture initiatives have rekindled the imagination of city residents and advocates across the United States for various reasons. Enthusiasts use UA as a source of material benefits – such as food and green infrastructure – while others use UA as a lever for social transformation in cities. UA is not without complications: Information asymmetry and elite capture within US cities limit its potential. Given these contradictions, how does one plan for equitable urban agriculture in US cities? This chapter, which introduces a collection of writings in honor of Jerome L. Kaufman, the father of food systems planning, attempts to answer this question. The overall volume explores the opportunities and quandaries in addressing questions of equity in the research, pedagogy, and practice of planning for urban agriculture.