As it is the Christmas break from teaching,I decided to take some time to read the Smartcities book that I bought at the end of CJ Lim's lecture a few weeks ago. I felt this would be a good time, as I could set aside time to read it properly and take extensive notes, rather than just skimming it, and then it would hopefully influence my DS3 draft submission and the nature of my project over the months beyond that.
Smartcities, Resilient Landscapes + Eco-Warriors front cover
I found the book to be really insightful, and was glad that I had got to hear CJ Lim talk about some of the projects in person, as that added another layer of understanding to it. The book opens with a series of manifestos for smartcities, and concludes with three essays as 'divergent positions', which show different perspectives of what resilient landscapes can be. The main body of the book are a series of case studies, some of which formed the main part of CJ Lim's presentation as well. Another useful section near the start is the 'lexicon for the smartcity'; a good reference point for key terms that relate to smartcities.
Many of the case studies provided me with useful information and ideas which will influence how I work on my project from this point on, but the section which most resonated with me was the 'divergent position' essay by Carolyn Steel: Sitopia – The urban future.
Carolyn Steel: Sitopia - The Urban Future
In this, Steel firstly compares the key differences between the pre-industrial and post-industrial world with regard to food supply. In pre-industrial times, food miles were kept to a minimum, with crops and animals kept just outside the city walls, and no 'waste product truly wasted. This contrasts with the post-industrial set-up, where consumers are very disconnected from where the food comes from. Some of the main shocking facts about this are:
Food and agriculture account for 1/3 of global greenhouse gases emissions.
19 million hectares of rainforest are lost every year due to agriculture.
On average, in the west, it takes 10 calories to produce every 1 calorie of food eaten.
Half the food in the USA is thrown away
There are 1 billion overweight people and 1 billion starving people in the world today.
Having clearly demonstrated to the reader the severity of the current situation, Steel then goes on to propose her ideas to remedy this. This is where the term sitopia is introduced, derived from the Greek sitos meaning food and topos meaning place. It is explained that this is a deliberate alternative to utopia, which isn't focused on attaining perfection, but is focused on achieving a more direct relationship between people and food, even if imperfectly.
Steel states that food shapes everything that we do, and therefore it is of vital importance to learn exactly how it shapes our lives, so that we can then understand how to use it to shape our lives for the better. Expanding on what this might mean, Steel says:
"At the macro scale, that will involve finding ways to reconnect ourselves to nature, and city to country. At the micro sale, it might mean anything from changing the way we design and build houses to the sorts of foods we eat for breakfast.”
Next, the current industrial food systems are critiqued. Steel analogises the set-up as trees, where many roots (producers} are funnelled through a single trunk (supermarket) to feed many branches (customers), meaning that the supermarkets have a stranglehold over the whole process, keeping consumers and producers apart. Then, Steel speculates on what an alternative could be and how it would change things:
“…imagine [a] system, in which city-dwellers forge direct relationships with those who grow their food. In such a scenario, customers would quickly become knowledgeable enough to influence the food network through their choices… Such a food network would produce a very different society: one far more likely to foster the sorts of personal connections necessary for a successful community, and one far more resilient in the face of external shocks. A society, in fact, much more like those of cities in the past.” ––– Carolyn Steel
This last quotation particularly resonates with me and is of great relevance to my project, as it talks about the effect of local food provision on the community, which are key elements to my proposal. The resilience to external shocks is another interesting angle which I should explore further, the idea that my project would be strengthening the food security of the local communities.
I am certain that I will keep referring to this book over the coming months and see it as a key reference to the core essence fo my project.
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