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The Southern (California) Question Have Your City and Eat It Too: Los Angeles and the Urban Food Renaissance By Alexander Robert Tarr A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Geography and the Designated Emphasis in Global Metropolitan Studies in the Graduate Division of the University of California, Berkeley Committee in charge: Professor Richard A Walker, Chair Professor Paul Duguid Professor Paul E Groth Professor Carolyn Finney Spring 2015 Abstract Have Your City and Eat It Too: Los Angeles and the Urban Food Renaissance By Alexander Robert Tarr Doctor of Philosophy in Geography Designated Emphasis in Global Metropolitan Studies University of California, Berkeley Professor Richard A Walker, Chair Time and time again, the residents of Los Angeles have used the promises of the “garden city” and urban agriculture to imagine a way out of the persistent problems of urban life. In the contemporary moment, alternative food system activists are again working to create a cultural movement committed to “slow,” local and small- scale community-based urban food systems – which, paradoxically, they are organizing through sophisticated digital tools and global social media. This study argues that, beyond debates over urban diets, food is a lens through which post- industrial imaginaries of an egalitarian digital society are fused with pre-industrial imaginaries of utopian, agrarian communities. The consequence of these entangled visions is a unique set of practices that attempt to inject a sense of radical possibility into an urban geography that is itself the result of decades of struggle over land use, livelihoods, and urban culture. Drawing on a combination of archival research, ethnography, interviews and a survey, this dissertation examines how planners, boosters, government officials, and ordinary citizens have sought to wield food and agriculture in the city as a force to ameliorate the economic, social and ecological alienation that can dominate urban life. This study shows that the political, class and racial underpinnings of urban food movements are far more complex and contingent than normally understood, and the case of Los Angeles reveals both deeply conservative, reactionary moments and unprecedented coalitions emerging to maKe claims on the right to self determination, health and progressive social change in the city. 1 For Beecher i Table of Contents List of Figures, Tables and Maps: .................................................................................................... iii Acknowledgements .............................................................................................................................. iv INTRODUCTION: IF I WAS IN LA… ..................................................................................................... 1 FROM STOMACH AND FROM FANCY ....................................................................................................................... 1 LINES IN THE DIRT: THE PRAXIS OF THE FOOD RENAISSANCE ........................................................................ 5 SITUATING LOS ANGELES ...................................................................................................................................... 11 THE KERNELS OF THE STUDY ............................................................................................................................... 14 CHAPTER 1: FROM HOG FARMS TO HOLLYWOOD ................................................................... 16 EDEN EVERYWHERE ............................................................................................................................................... 19 ORDINANCE 36487: THE HOME GARDEN COMMITTEE ................................................................................. 23 THE SMALL FARM HOME ...................................................................................................................................... 27 “WE ARE ONLY HERE FOR LOVE, PEACE, HAPPINESS, AND A LITTLE FOOD IN THESE DISTRESSIN' TIMES”: THE COOPERATIVE EXCHANGE MOVEMENT IN LOS ANGELES ....................................................................... 33 PARADISE LOST? ..................................................................................................................................................... 41 CHAPTER 2: WELCOME TO THE NEW GARDEN CITY ............................................................... 47 LOS ANGELES AS THE NEW GARDEN CITY ......................................................................................................... 50 PUTTING THE URBAN IN “URBAN FOOD” ........................................................................................................... 53 GARDEN, FARM AND FOOD PROJECTS FOR THE SAKE OF FUN AND “COMMUNITY”. ..................................... 56 Masters of the Garden ...................................................................................................................................... 57 Green Grounds ..................................................................................................................................................... 59 (Sub)urban Farming ......................................................................................................................................... 61 IT ALL GROWS TOGETHER IN L.A. ...................................................................................................................... 65 FROM PEASANT TO PROLETARIAT AND BACK AGAIN? ................................................................................... 67 CHAPTER 3: THE SOUTHERN (CALIFORNIA) QUESTION ........................................................ 71 AN INCITING INCIDENT: THE SOUTH CENTRAL FARM .................................................................................... 71 ACCIDENTAL ANARCHISM ..................................................................................................................................... 74 “NOTHING MAKES YOU A LIBERTARIAN FASTER THAN TRYING TO GROW FOOD IN LA.” ........................... 75 POLITICS AS UNUSUAL: THE LOS ANGELES FOOD POLICY COUNCIL ............................................................ 82 POLITICS AS USUAL: NO MORE FOOD FIGHTS? ................................................................................................. 92 CHAPTER 4: THE GARDEN IN THE MACHINE ............................................................................. 95 DOWN ON THE SERVER FARM: CONTRADICTIONS IN THE WEB AND FOOD MOVEMENTS ......................... 95 The Urban Food Digital Nexus ..................................................................................................................... 98 Cities in Networks and Networks in Cities ........................................................................................... 100 URBAN AGRICULTURE AND SOCIAL MEDIA AS SITUATED PRACTICE ........................................................ 104 Situated Communities of Practice ............................................................................................................ 104 An Urban Gardening Geography: ............................................................................................................. 106 FROM COUNTERCULTURE TO CYBERCULTURE – AND BACK AGAIN ............................................................ 110 Good Grief ........................................................................................................................................................... 113 Green Grounds Goes Global ......................................................................................................................... 115 IN CONCLUSION: GARDEN CITY 2.0? ............................................................................................................... 117 CONCLUSION: ...................................................................................................................................... 120 WORKS CITED ..................................................................................................................................... 123 ii List of Figures, Tables and Maps: FIGURE 1: LAND USE DISTRIBUTION CHART (1939) …………………………………………. ... 20 FIGURE 2: TOTAL FARMS IN LOS ANGELES COUNTY 1900-1950 …………….……….…… 22 FIGURE 3: ACRES OF VEGETABLES, LA COUNTY 1925-1950…………………………..…….. 22 FIGURE 4: SUGGESTED GENERAL LAYOUT OF A HALF ACRE SMALL FARM HOME …. 28 FIGURE 5: PREDICTED LAND USE TRENDS (1941)……………………………………………….. 43 FIGURE 6: GOOD FOOD POLICY COUNCIL GRAPHIC …………………………………………….. 84 TABLES TABLE 1: ACRES IN PRODUCTION BY CROP, 1915 ……………………………….……………….. 21 MAPS MAP 1: FOOD NETWORK SURVEY………………………………………………………………...……. 107 iii Acknowledgements I must of course begin with a deep and sincere thanK you to my dissertation chair Richard WalKer, who showed me how to love cities, be unapologetic about my politics, and how to maKe those commitments the same thing. Paul Groth, without whom I never could have navigated BerKeley, and who has forever changed the way I see the landscape around me; never has the world been more interesting. My outside committee members Carolyn Finney and Paul Duguid have been extraordinarily generous in taking on a lost geographer and helping me find paths through questions far afield from where I first started this project. I am deeply grateful to all of them for their support, Kindness and patience as I have pursued far too many passions, internal and external
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