Exploring the spatial planning dimensions of urban informal food systems in Nanjing, China

Abstract

Modern food systems have achieved great success in efficiency and productivity. Long food chains with many food miles and nodes emphasize food processing, packaging, and marketing. These activities have threatened the sustainability of food systems. Many countries have carried out various urban agriculture activities to respond to challenges such as food security issues and climate change. However, small-scale farming and local food vending that support the lower socioeconomic population groups in China are ignored by legislation and urban planning. This study aims to improve informal food systems by involving informal food production and marketing in spatial planning. In this paper, informal food systems, which refer to the combination of food chains that contain informal activities, are identified based on the Chinese social background. The spatial typologies of production, marketing, and consumption in informal food systems are summarized. Typomorphology is applied to analyze the typology evolution of spaces for informal food systems in the Qinhuai District in Nanjing. The results show that the morphological regions for food production changed more than construction land in 58 superblocks from 2005 to 2019. Agricultural land decreased, and the most common types of change were from fragmented agricultural land (Type P2) to fragmented and temporary arable land (Type P3) to construction land with isolated vegetable plots (Type P4). In this evolution process, the informal food system reflects the deviation between diversified needs in cities and urban planning. A bottom-up structure is necessary to protect vulnerable groups, especially those involved in small-scale urban food production.