Spatial planning and design for food security; Building Positive Rural-urban Linkages
Author(s): Aishwarya Talluri
Abstract / Introduction (download full article at the bottom)
Food is vital for human survival. Food has had a significant impact on our built environment since the beginning of human life. The process of feeding oneself was most people’s primary job for the greater part of human history. Urban Migration moved people away from rural and natural landscapes on which they had been dependent for food and other amenities for centuries.1Emergence of the cities leads to a new paradigm where the consumers get their food from rural hinterland where the main production of food products happens2.In a globalized world with an unprecedented on-going process of urbanization,
There is an ever-reducing clarity between urban and rural, the paper argues that the category of the urban & rural as a spatial and morphological descriptor has to be reformulated, calling for a refreshing, innovating and formulating the way in which urban and rural resource flows happen. India is projected to be more than 50% urban by 2050 (currently 29%). The next phase of economic and social development will be focused on urbanization of its rural areas. This 50 %, which will impact millions of people, will not come from cities, but from the growth of rural towns and small cities. Urbanization is accelerated through Government schemes such as JNNURM (Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission), PMAY (Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana), 100 smart cities challenge, Rurban Mission are formulated with developmental mindset.
The current notions of ‘development’ are increasing travel distances, fuels consumption, food imports, deterioration of biodiversity, pollution, temperatures, cost of living. The enormity of the issue is realized when the cumulative effect of all cities is addressed. Urban biased development becomes an ignorant choice, causing the death of rural and deterioration of ecological assets. Most people live in places that are distant from production fields have been observed as an increasing trend. Physical separation of people from food production has resulted in a degree of indifference about where and how food is produced, making food a de-contextualized market product as said by Halweil, 2002.
The resulting Psychological separation of people from the food supply and the impacts this may have on long term sustainability of food systems. Methodology: Sharingthelearningabout planning for food security through Field surveys, secondary and tertiary sources. Based on the study following parameters: 1. The regional system of water 2. Landforms 3. Soil type 4. Transportation networks 5. Historical evolution 6. Urban influences A case study of Delhi, India, as a site to study a scenario that can be an alternative development model for the peri-urban regions of the city. To use the understanding of spatial development and planning to formulate guidelines for sustainable development of a region that would foster food security.
Publication: ISOCARP Congress Proceedings, pp.1884-1892
Year: 2019
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