It's not just about food production! Two summer conferences on the relationship of food and cities suggest a growing intellectual interest in the field, but more progress must be made to acknowledge and provide for the complexities of food systems within city planning.
Green space throughout Kinshasa is being transformed into lucrative small urban farming enterprises.
Many governments are encouraging agriculture in urban areas--so long as it doesn't challenge the status quo. Cities must learn to embrace 'urban ag' movements to engage citizens, and the key challenge will be regulation that permits new land uses.
Recent research has demonstrated that official counts of poverty in Cairo are grossly underestimated.
While thousands struggle with HIV in Nairobi's slums, a growing national food crisis and the closure of food aid programmes due to lack of funding are a greater concern for afflicted residents.
Mike Duff (Twitter: @MrMikeDuff) is a consultant on strategy, planning and sustainability for cities at WSP, based in London.
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The Global Urbanist is an online magazine reviewing urban affairs and urban development issues in cities throughout the developed and developing world.
Its readers are drawn from the urban policy and international development sectors, and include urban planners, officers in local, national or international government agencies, civil society leaders, and researchers.
