REDEFINING URBAN FOOD SYSTEMS TO IDENTIFY OPTIMAL ROOFTOP COMMUNITY GARDEN LOCATIONS: A SITE SUITABILITY ANALYSIS IN SEATTLE, WASHINGTON by Ana E. Stoudt A Thesis Presented to the FACULTY OF THE USC GRADUATE SCHOOL UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree MASTER OF SCIENCE (GEOGRAPHIC INFORMATION SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY) May 2015 Copyright 2015 Ana E. Stoudt i DEDICATION I dedicate this paper to my parents, friends, and coworkers for their constant support throughout this entire process. Without them, I would not have made it here today. ii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I am forever grateful to my advisor, Professor Warshawsky, for his encouragement and guidance throughout this experience. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS DEDICATION ................................................................................................................................ ii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ............................................................................................................. iii LIST OF TABLES ........................................................................................................................ vii LIST OF FIGURES ..................................................................................................................... viii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS ......................................................................................................... x ABSTRACT ................................................................................................................................... xi CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................... 1 1.1 Urban Agriculture and Food Systems ................................................................................... 1 1.2 Existing Research Gaps ......................................................................................................... 2 1.3 Using GIS to Rank a Building’s Rooftop Community Garden Potential ............................. 5 CHAPTER 2: RELATED WORK .................................................................................................. 7 2.1 Urban Food Systems ............................................................................................................. 7 2.1.1 Food Utilization .............................................................................................................. 8 2.1.2 Food Availability ............................................................................................................ 8 2.1.3 Food Access .................................................................................................................... 9 2.2 Food Deserts ........................................................................................................................ 10 2.3 Urban Agriculture ............................................................................................................... 12 2.3.1 Intra- and Peri- Urban Agriculture ............................................................................... 12 2.3.2 Seattle’s Urban Agriculture .......................................................................................... 13 iv 2.3.3 Defining Urban Agriculture in GIS .............................................................................. 13 2.4 Rooftop Gardens and GIS ................................................................................................... 16 CHAPTER 3: METHODS ............................................................................................................ 19 3.1 Variables.............................................................................................................................. 25 3.1.1 Roof Size ...................................................................................................................... 25 3.1.2 Water Access ................................................................................................................ 26 3.1.3 USDA Food Deserts ..................................................................................................... 26 3.1.4 Food Banks ................................................................................................................... 27 3.1.5 Community Gardens (P-Patches) ................................................................................. 28 3.1.6 Bus Stops ...................................................................................................................... 28 3.1.7 Schools and Education Centers (SEC) ......................................................................... 29 3.2 On-Site Assessments ........................................................................................................... 30 3.3 Limitations .......................................................................................................................... 31 CHAPTER 4: RESULTS .............................................................................................................. 32 4.1 Overall Ranking Results...................................................................................................... 32 4.2 Variable Ranking Results .................................................................................................... 35 4.2.1 Roof Size ...................................................................................................................... 35 4.2.2 Water Access ................................................................................................................ 37 4.2.3 Proximity to USDA Food Desert.................................................................................. 39 4.2.4 Proximity to Food Banks .............................................................................................. 41 v 4.2.5 Proximity to Community Gardens ................................................................................ 43 4.2.6 Proximity to Bus Stop................................................................................................... 45 4.2.7 Proximity to Schools and Education Centers ............................................................... 47 4.3 Seattle’s “Landscape of Opportunity”................................................................................. 49 4.4 Ground-truthing/On-site Analysis ....................................................................................... 51 4.4.1 305 Harrison Street ....................................................................................................... 51 4.4.2 300 Mercer Street ......................................................................................................... 53 4.4.3 301 Mercer Street ......................................................................................................... 56 4.4.4 801 South Dearborn Street ........................................................................................... 58 4.4.5 2203 Airport Way South ............................................................................................... 61 4.4.6 4201 West Marginal Way Southwest ........................................................................... 63 4.4.7 1250 Denny Way .......................................................................................................... 65 CHAPTER 5: DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION ................................................................... 69 5.1 Key Observations ................................................................................................................ 69 5.2 Contrasts with Prior Studies ................................................................................................ 70 5.3 Recommendation for Future Research ................................................................................ 72 REFERENCES ............................................................................................................................. 75 APPENDIX A ............................................................................................................................... 81 APPENDIX B ............................................................................................................................... 82 vi LIST OF TABLES Table 1 Building characteristic ranking system ............................................................................ 26 Table 2 Food availability and food accessibility characteristic ranking system ........................... 29 Table 3 Food utilization characteristic ranking system ................................................................ 30 Table 4 Final food system variable ranking .................................................................................. 33 vii LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1 Elements associated with the three components of food systems (Source: Ingram et al. 2005) ............................................................................................................................................... 9 Figure 2 USDA food deserts, in red, which are located in south Seattle (Source: USDA Food Access Research Atlas, 2014) ....................................................................................................... 11 Figure 3 High-level methodology framework .............................................................................. 20 Figure 4 Data acquisition, preparation, and integration workflow ............................................... 24