GROWING IDEOLOGY: URBAN AGRICULTURE IN VANCOUVER AND DETROIT by Samuel Walker B.A., Colgate University, 2011 A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS in THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE AND POSTDOCTORAL STUDIES (Geography) THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA (Vancouver) August 2013 © Samuel Walker, 2013 Abstract This thesis is an investigation of the urban agriculture movements in Vancouver, British Columbia, and Detroit, Michigan. I use both quantitative and qualitative methods and an urban political ecology theoretical framework to unpack how urban agriculture fits within the foodscapes of these two cities. My quantitative method draws on recent critique of food desert studies, avoiding an epidemiological method that seeks to statistically measure health outcomes in favor of an ecological approach with social inequalities as the primary focus of inquiry. Through the use of cluster analysis, multidimensional scaling, and local indicators of spatial association, I conclude that foodscape composition and the location of urban agriculture is influenced by the housing and land markets, income inequality, and racial segregation. Drawing on interviews conducted in both cities, in my qualitative section I seek to understand how urban agriculture is seen as a sustainable solution to the very different problems faced by these two cities. I argue that urban agriculture has an ambivalent relationship to neoliberalism: it emerged largely as a Polanyian counter-movement to urbanized inequalities, but has more recently been enrolled as a device by the local state through which sustainability planning is seen to enhance economic competitiveness. Finally, I present vignettes of individual farms and gardens that show the political potential of urban agriculture to be closely linked to theories of political change and socionatural metabolic rifts. ii Preface This thesis is an original, unpublished, independent work by the author, Samuel Walker. The fieldwork and interviews for this thesis took place in Detroit, Michigan from July 3 to July 14, 2012, and in Vancouver, British Columbia from January 9 to February 21, 2013. Approval for the interviews was granted through the University of British Columbia Behavioral Research Ethics Board, Ethics Certificate Number H12-01096, titled “Detroit and Vancouver Urban Agriculture.” The research was funded by the University of British Columbia through the Graduate Support Initiative Award and the Department of Geography. Figure 18 in this thesis is reprinted with written permission from the City of Vancouver. iii Table of Contents Abstract............................................................................................................................................ii Preface ............................................................................................................................................ iii Table of Contents ........................................................................................................................... iv List of Tables ................................................................................................................................. viii List of Figures .................................................................................................................................. ix List of Abbreviations ...................................................................................................................... xi Acknowledgements ...................................................................................................................... xiv Introduction .................................................................................................................................... 1 Vancouver and Detroit ................................................................................................................ 1 Research goals ............................................................................................................................ 5 Chapter summaries ..................................................................................................................... 8 Chapter 1: Quantifying the Urban Foodscape ............................................................................. 11 Proximity = access: the food desert approach ......................................................................... 12 My method ................................................................................................................................ 17 Data sources .......................................................................................................................... 19 Building the food source dataset .......................................................................................... 24 The final food source dataset ............................................................................................... 35 Conclusion ................................................................................................................................. 35 Chapter 2: The Urban Foodscapes of Vancouver and Detroit .................................................... 38 Cluster analysis ......................................................................................................................... 38 Vancouver ............................................................................................................................. 40 iv Detroit ................................................................................................................................... 50 Both cities ............................................................................................................................. 58 Multidimensional scaling .......................................................................................................... 62 Local indicators of spatial association using foodscape data ................................................... 69 Vancouver ............................................................................................................................. 71 Detroit ................................................................................................................................... 74 Discussion and conclusion ........................................................................................................ 76 Chapter 3: Interlude ..................................................................................................................... 80 Chapter 4: Urban Agriculture and the Local Sustainability Fix ................................................... 85 Theorizing urban agriculture..................................................................................................... 87 (Urban, critical) political ecology .......................................................................................... 87 Circulation and metabolism .................................................................................................. 89 The urban sustainability fix ................................................................................................... 92 The radical/neoliberal Janus face ......................................................................................... 95 Vancouver: harvesting ecotopia ............................................................................................... 96 A brief history of agriculture in the Lower Mainland ........................................................... 97 Growing food in the City of Glass ....................................................................................... 101 The Vancouver City government and urban agriculture .................................................... 107 The Greenest City? Vancouverism’s sustainability fix ........................................................ 111 Detroit: from (urban) prairie to ‘Innovation Productive’ ....................................................... 117 A brief history of agriculture in southeast Michigan .......................................................... 117 The Motor City’s agricultural production line .................................................................... 121 v The Detroit City government and urban agriculture .......................................................... 128 Detroit Green City: austerity’s sustainability fix ................................................................. 139 Discussion and conclusion ...................................................................................................... 148 Chapter 5: Metabolic Rifts, Theories of Change, and Urban Agriculture ................................. 151 Vancouver vignettes ............................................................................................................... 154 Sole Food Street Farms ....................................................................................................... 154 Shifting Growth ................................................................................................................... 160 Alterrus Systems Inc.’s My Local Garden ............................................................................ 164 The Purple Thistle Centre youth urban agriculture ............................................................ 167 Detroit vignettes ....................................................................................................................