From Industrial Garden to Food Desert: Unearthing the Root Structure of Urban Agriculture in Oakland, California

摘要: In this paper, I use a framework of urban political ecology to explore the rise agriculture (UA) in Oakland, California. As part growing effort reduce its “ecological footprint” and guarantee access nutritious food for poor, City Oakland has recently embraced goal sourcing 30 percent locally, modest amount which should come from UA. Many these small gardens farms are be located so-called “food deserts,” low-income areas far supermarkets, flatlands order provide fresh as well ecological culinary knowledge participants customers. Recent critiques some justice initiatives, including garden programs, have argued that such projects neoliberal nature, emphasizing entrepreneurialism self-betterment while filling gaps left by rolling back state. argue macro-level structural analysis Oakland’s history reveals emancipatory role demonstrate how flows industrial capital racialized planning throughout 20th century concentrated devaluation flatlands, ultimately giving deserts. Following logic what Karl Polanyi referred capitalism’s “double movement,” activists mobilizing through UA counter capital’s uneven transformation flatlands.