Urban Expansion and Food Security in New Zealand (Routledge Studies in Food, Society and the Environment)

by: Benjamin Felix Richardson (Author)

Publisher:

Edition: 1st

Publication Date: 2023/8/21

Language: English

Print Length: 236 pages

ISBN-10: 1032504226

ISBN-13: 9781032504223

Book Description

This book examines suburban development in New Zealand and its conflict with and impact on local horticulture and food security. Drawing on an ethnographic study of Auckland’s rapidly expanding urban periphery, combined with comparative case studies from Califoia in the USA and Victoria in Australia, the book examines how the profit-making strategies of property developers and landowners drastically reshapes work and life at the edge of cities. With a significant portion of the world’s croplands lying adjacent to cities, the accelerating pace of urban sprawl across the planet places unprecedented pressure on the productivity and even existence of these vital food bowl regions. The book examines how the demand for more land for development at the urban periphery collides with conces over local food security and the protection of ecosystem services. It analyses land use policy, historical records, and physical pattes of development, alongside participant observation of local events. It combines this with interviews with govement officials, property developers, landowners, local residents and horticulturists. By combining these narratives of the hectic and lucrative business of suburban property development with the collapse of local horticulture, this book shows how the realignment of the New Zealand’s interests of financial profitability over other conces led to the transformation of urban peripheries from a productive food bowl to an investment vehicle. This book will be of great interest to students and scholars of urban food and agriculture, urban planning and development and rural-urban studies.

About the Author

This book examines suburban development in New Zealand and its conflict with and impact on local horticulture and food security. Drawing on an ethnographic study of Auckland’s rapidly expanding urban periphery, combined with comparative case studies from Califoia in the USA and Victoria in Australia, the book examines how the profit-making strategies of property developers and landowners drastically reshapes work and life at the edge of cities. With a significant portion of the world’s croplands lying adjacent to cities, the accelerating pace of urban sprawl across the planet places unprecedented pressure on the productivity and even existence of these vital food bowl regions. The book examines how the demand for more land for development at the urban periphery collides with conces over local food security and the protection of ecosystem services. It analyses land use policy, historical records, and physical pattes of development, alongside participant observation of local events. It combines this with interviews with govement officials, property developers, landowners, local residents and horticulturists. By combining these narratives of the hectic and lucrative business of suburban property development with the collapse of local horticulture, this book shows how the realignment of the New Zealand’s interests of financial profitability over other conces led to the transformation of urban peripheries from a productive food bowl to an investment vehicle. This book will be of great interest to students and scholars of urban food and agriculture, urban planning and development and rural-urban studies.