Nkwooten Thesis Abstract Submittal 2

8/8/2019 Nkwooten Thesis Abstract Submittal 2

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Nathaniel WootenARC 505 Thesis Preparation

Crisis City:

Logistical Urbanism: The Space o Food

Primary Advisor:Brendan Moran

Secondary Advisor:Julia Czerniak

Crisis City Primary Faculty:Julia Czerniak

Anda FrenchBrian LonswayBrendan Moran

Francisco Sanin


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Thesis Abstract:

It is my contention that ood has and must continue to play an integral role in the shaping ourban landscapes and civic lie in order to create a more sustainable urban society. Intensifed by the

linked orces o industrialization, modernization, and globalization, our rapidly expanding urban worldis becoming increasingly distanced rom the realities o its sustenance. Forecasting potential oodcrises, cities have slowly begun to invest in inormal urban agriculture, regional produce markets, andhigher ood standards. But despite these recent initiatives, cities are still reliant on their global ood

inrastructures to manage the logistics o ood trade. Our prior investment and current reliance onthese existing inrastructures combined with the current uneven distribution o ood world-wide createeconomic and psychological barriers that prevent new sustainable urban ood systems rom developingHow can these two competing and currently necessary orces be mediated in order to ensure theirultimate purpose, the sustaining o human populations?

Throughout architectural and urban history the market has served as the urban space o oodCarolyn Steel author o Hungry City: How Food Shapes Our Lives writes:

For all their mess, noise and nuisance, markets bring something vital to a city: an awareness o what it takes to sustainlie... Markets are contradictory spaces, but that is the point. They are spaces made by ood.

While there has been a rise in armers markets (retail markets) in urban centers and suburbs,

wholesale markets are still the dominant space o ood. Inhuman in scale, oten privatized, and removedto a citys hinterlands, wholesale ood distribution markets are part o a global system o ood tradethat no longer bring awareness to urban lie; rather they are oten the epitome o an unsustainableood system. As our cities transition towards local ood sourcing and other sustainable models, howwill wholesale mega-markets global economy transition to accommodate local community agriculturaleconomies without neglecting the immediate demands o the worlds greater urban population?Additionally the recent resurgance o ood interest places the industrial landscape o distribution: truckstrains, warehouses, and rerigorators, in sharp contrast to idealized spaces o ood production and ood

consumption.

Feeding 20 million people a day New York Citys Hunts Point Food Distribution Center is one o the mostextreme examples o a mega-market serving a citys entire urban population. Expanding since its 1967genesis Hunts Point now acts as a ood campus comprising three unique markets and over 800 oodrelated businesses. Given the markets disconnect rom the population it eeds and the neighborhoodit inhabits, how can this market transorm to become a productive public space or the Hunts Pointcommunity and/or greater New York City? How can this space o economic value gain a new culturaimportance?

As a member o the Crisis City Coalition, I will conduct research and share critiques amongst myclassmates in hopes o producing a unique and comprehensive outlook on this urban crisis. Collaboratingwith other students, and with other felds, this thesis will seek to engage the economic, social, andpolitical realities and potentials o transitioning urban ood systems through a particular site. My topic-driven research will begin by examining the global ood network and comparing it with the emergentsustainable local models. Additionally I intend to examine the various scales o architectural oodtypologies, ocusing on the history o the market as the space o ood.


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Alambria Spring FramsEarlville, NY, USAA small local organic csa that

delivers vegtables weekly to my

house in Syracuse.

Newmans Own INCWestport, CT, USA

A largely organic food companyfounded by the late Paul Newman.

The source of the ingredients of the

tomatoe sauce is unknown.

Cabot Creamery Coop.Cabot, VT, USA

A 1,200 farm family dairycooperative with members in New

England and upstate New York.

Products of ItalyModena, Lucca, and Puglia, Italy

Purchased through Wegmans

Food Markets Inc these products

were processed in Italy andshipped through Port of Authority

of New York and New Jersey.

Interestingly, the olive oil actually

originates in Spain. Italy importsmany of its food resources only

to process them and export them

out as Italian Products.

Wegmans of DewittDewitt, NY, USA

Syracuse Real Food Co-opSyracuse, NY, USA

Wegmans Food MarketsInc.Rochester, NY, USA

Though processed and packegedat Wegmans plant in Rochester,

the source of the cannellini beans

and the ingredients of the sausage

are unknown.

Simply OrganicNorway, IA, USA

Primarily sells organicly sourcedseasonings and spicies. Although

processed and packed in Norway,

Iowa the actual source of theingredients is unknown.

Spice Islands: ACHFood Companies IncSan Francisco, CA, USAProcessed and Packed in

San Francisco the actual

source of the fennel seeds

are unknown.

Greenwood Pl HouseSyracuse, NY, USA

Port Authority of New York

and New JerseyNewark, NJ, USA

50 mi

Local

500 mi

Regional

Map by: Nathaniel Wooten on Sept. 15, 2010 for

Syracuse University class: GEO 400: Food a Critical Geography

The World IsMy Dinner Plate

Food System Analysis:


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Hunts Point Distribution Center Base Material


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Annotated Bibliography:

Food Production:Viljoen, Andrew. CPULs: Continuous Productive Urban Landscapes. Burlington, MA: Architectural

Press, 2005. Print.

This pioneering text sees urban agriculture as an essential element o sustainable urban inrastructure. It exhibits one o the mostwidely successul and critically praised visions o a more sustainable city (which happens to revolve around ood). Continuousproductive urban landscapes are seen as the best alternative to the current global ood system.

Food Consumption:Grimes, William. Appetite city : a culinary history o New York. 1st ed. New York: North Point Press,2009. Print.Hauck-Lawson, Annie, and Jonathan Deutsch. Gastropolis : Food and New York City. New York:

Columbia University Press, 2009. Print.

Both o these books look at the history o ood in New York City. This is critical in understanding the historical context behindthe creation and sustaining o the Hunts Point Market, while also projecting on the citys current and past ood environment andculture.

Kleiman, Jordan. Local Food and Problem o Public Authority. Technology and Culture 50.2(2009): 399-417. Web. 7 Oct 2010. .

Parham, Susan. Designing the Gastronomic Quarter. Architectural Design 2005: 86-95. Web. 1 Oct2010.

Food Distribution:Cohen, Marc J., and James L. Garret. The ood price crisis and urban ood (in)security. HumanSettlements Working Paper Series: Urbanization and emerging population 2 (2009): 1-36. Web. 1 Oct2010.

Donorio, Gregory. Feeding the City. Gastronomica Fall 2007: 30-41. Web. 1 Oct 2010.

This text looks at the history o ood distribution in the city, primarily examining the cities complex relationship to distributionmarkets rom the ancient city to the City Beautiul Movement, to the rise o the supermarket, to the recent produce marketresurgance.

Franck, Karen A. Food or the City, Food in the City. Architectural Design May/June 2005: 35-42. Web1 Oct 2010.

Francis, Charles; Lieblein, Geir; Steinsholt, Havard; Breland, Tor Arvid; Helenius, Juha;Sriskandarajah, Nadarajah; Salomonsson, Lennart .Food Systems and Environment: BuildingPositive Rural-Urban Linkages. Human Ecology Review 12.1 (2005): 60-71. Web. 1 Oct 2010. .

Goldman, Richard H. Food and Food Poverty: Perspectives on Distribution. Social Reserach 66.1(1999): 283-304. Web. 1 Oct 2010.

Hamilton, Lisa M. The American Farmers Market. Gastronomica. Summer. (2002): 73-77.

Focusing on the inormal armers market Hamilton question the resurgence o armers market as an un-authentic bastardizationo the traditional market it trying to emulate. Her text seeks to transorm the armers market rom a nostalgic puppet, a shadow o


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the past, to a meaningul and inuential institution.

Jacobs, Karrie. Back to the Land: The hottest 21st-century urban amenity might be a arm. MetropolisOct 15, 2008: n. pag. Web. 2 Oct 2010. .

Fields o corn and soya stretching as ar as the eye can see, plastic polytunnels so vast they can be seen rom space, industrialsheds and eed lots ull o actory-armed animals--these are the rural hinterlands o modernity.

Koc, Mustaa, Rod MacRae, Jennier Welsh, and Luc J. A. Mougeot. For Hunger-Proo Cities:Sustainable Urban Food Systems. Ottawa : IDRC Books, 1999. Print.

Knechtel, John. Food. Alphabet City #12. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2008. Print.

An anthology o projects and issues that collaboratively deal with the topic o ood. Like Ecological Urbanism a variety o viewpoints and potentials are explored on the relationship o ood and urbanism.

Miller, Sally. Edible Action: Food Activism and Alternative Economics . Haliax, NS: Fernwood, 2008.

Change and transition rely on action. This book holistically examines the actions that are currently underway to change theglobal ood system.

Shigley, Paul. When Acces is the Issue. Planning (2009): 26-31. Web. 1 Oct 2010.

Steel, Carolyn. Hungry City: How Food Shapes Out Lives. London: Random House, 2008. Print.

This book is in many ways the inspiration o this thesis. Chronologically this book looks at urban history through the lens oood, ultimately seeing the way ood as shaped our civilizations (or better or worse) and how it might do so in a sustainableuture. This book suggests that ood and urbanism are unseperable.

Urban Society:Doherty, Gareth, and Mohsen Mostaavi. Ecological Urbanism. 1st ed. Lars Muller Publishers, 2010.Print.

Including specifc texts and projects on ood urbanism, this 600 page bible examines an emergent mode o urbanism, in whichthe city is thought o as an interrelated set o processes. With an aim o a more sustainable city through architecture (built orm)and its relationship to politics, economics, and social issues, this sets out a trajectory by which this thesis can navigate.

Leebvre, Henri. The Urban Revolution. Minneapolis: University o Minnesota Press, translated 2003(originally published in French in 1970).

Following the attempts at urban revolution in the late 1960s, Leebvres early writings trace the history o city towards a globalurban society, which he declares has surpassed industrialization as the primary mode o societal control and development.

Capitalism/Globalization:Bauman, Zygmunt. Globalization: The Human Consequences. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press, 1998.Print.

For Bauman globalization involves the compression o time and territory through the value o mobility. This value, harnessedthrough global trade as capital, is most evident (in built orm) at locations o trade distribution.

Harvey, David. The Enigma o Capital: and the Crises o Capitalism. New York: Oxord UniversityPress, 2010. Print.

McKibben, Bill. Eaarth: Making A Lie on a Tough New Planet. New York: Times Books, 2010. Print.

As the most recent comprehensive text on global climate change and ways to mitigate it, this book lays out the possibility that weare already living on a severely altered earth. The since o urgency that this book demands brings about the examination in my


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project between what exists and what we know to be right, and how they might be mediated.

Smith, Neil. Uneven Development: Nature, Capital, and the Production o Space. 3rd. Athens, GA: University o Georgia Press,2008. Print.

Modernity:Berman, Marshall. All That is Solid Melts Into Air : The experience o modernity. New York: Simon andSchuster, 1982. Print.

Latent in the global ood system is the experience o modernity, by which we all participate. In examining possible transitionso the modern ood system into some other, it will be helpul to look at the initial transition rom which it was born. How donotions o sustainability,community , and stability take into account the modern maelstorm.

Latour, Bruno. We Have Never Been Moder. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1993. Print.

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Nkwooten Thesis Abstract Submittal 2