Planning [for Urban Agriculture] as Public Nurturance

This concluding chapter of a book honoring the late Jerome Kaufman, an urban planning scholar who drew attention to food systems, highlights the power of urban agriculture as a lever for promoting equity in cities. The authors argue for the idea of planning as public nurturance – an approach that can be illustrated through urban agriculture. Planning as public nurturance has several features. Planning as public nurturance is a value-explicit process that centers an ethic of care, especially protecting the interests of publics that are marginalized. It builds the capacity of marginalized groups to authentically co-design and participate in planning/policy processes. Such a planning approach requires that progress toward equitable outcomes is consistently evaluated through accountability measures. And, finally, such an approach requires attention to structural and institutional inequities. Addressing these four elements is more likely to create a condition under which urban agriculture may be used as a lever in the planning and development of more just and equitable cities.