From “Rust Belt” to “Fresh Coast”: Remaking the City through Food Justice and Urban Agriculture

Rising levels of urban food insecurity and diet-related disease have led to many inquiries into the urban food environment and its relation to health. Community-based food activism and urban agriculture (UA) provide alternatives to conventional food systems and promote food justice. Forms of food activism include community gardens, farmers' markets, antihunger initiatives, legislative advocacy, food literacy campaigns, and organic food consumption. Although many benefits are noted, scholars also contend that food activism often serves to bolster neoliberal structures by encouraging neoliberal citizen subjectivities or engaging in localized activities that do not directly challenge broader structural injustices. To the extent that neoliberalization is a racist (and racialized) process, the reproduction of neoliberal structures contributes to reproducing racial difference. This article examines the complexities of food activism within the context of neoliberal governance, with particular attention to the role of the local entrepreneurial state and its interactions with nonstate actors. City government and private development agencies promote UA as a means of neoliberal economic development that operates via public–private partnership to revitalize and generate value from central city neighborhoods. In so doing, these actors appropriate discourses from community-based UA organizations to legitimize their political–economic interests. Community-based organizations in turn recognize these interests and engage strategically with the city and private agencies to survive in the context of heightened resource competition and performance pressures within the nonprofit sector. Our research is based on seven years of fieldwork in Milwaukee, collecting data through intensive semistructured interviews, participant observations, and documents analysis.