Barcelona Metropolis

Our modern way of life is based on the premise of cheap food; yet, when you stop to think about it, no such thing could exist. The beans, carrots, chicken and cheese that we eat consist of living things that we kill in order to live. Food, in other words, is life; to cheapen it is to cheapen life itself. Yet, for the past two centuries, that is precisely what we’ve been doing. If we were to include the numerous externalities of industrially produced food in its price – climate change, deforestation, mass extinction, pollution, water depletion, soil degradation, declining fish stocks, obesity, diet-related disease and zoonotic pandemics – such food would become instantly unaffordable; which, in a very real sense, it already is.

The coronavirus pandemic has shown the truth of this, revealing just how out of kilter our relationship with nature has become. Industrial farming has critically weakened biodiversity, while our encroachment on wilderness exposes us to new disease. Experts have long warned of such dangers, yet it was only when supermarket shelves were stripped bare at the start of last year’s lockdown that the threat became real for many. In that moment, the illusion of easy plenty was shattered. The shelves soon filled up again, yet the underlying issues haven’t gone away. All of which raises the question: what would happen if we were to revalue food? The answer is that there would be a revolution, not just in the way we eat, but in how we live. Indeed, such a move is arguably the single most powerful thing we can do in order to make our lives more healthy, equitable and resilient.

Today, it’s easy to see parallels between Rome’s food culture and our own. The first city to fully outgrow its local hinterland, Rome demonstrated what I call the ‘urban paradox’: although we who live in cities think of ourselves as urban, the fact that our food comes from elsewhere means that, in a deeper sense, we really dwell on the land. Wherever we live, however, we humans clearly need both society and nature in order to thrive. This duality lies at the heart of our dilemma: the more we gather together in cities, the further we get, both physically and mentally, from our sources of sustenance.

Lessons from Letchworth

The Greek ideal of the city-state – effectively a direct response to the urban paradox – has remained dominant in utopian thought ever since. Indeed, two of the most influential utopian tracts ever written – Thomas More’s 1516 Utopia and Ebenezer Howard’s 1902 Garden Cities of To-Morrow – are clear descendants, arguing, as they do, for a return to the city-state model.

More’s Utopia is an imaginary kingdom of independent city-states, arranged one day’s walk from one another. Utopians live in large urban blocks with generous back gardens, in which they grow beautiful fruit and vegetables, and children are taught to grow food from a young age.^[1] All citizens take turns in the fields, spending a mandatory two years there, and those who enjoy farming (which everyone does) can farm permanently if they choose. All land and property in Utopia are held in common, and families and neighbourhoods share regular communal meals, which adults and children cook and eat together.

Utopia is notable for its obsession with food, as is Howard’s garden city, which is essentially More’s Utopia with railways. Recognising our human need for both society and nature, Howard dubbed his garden city a ‘Town-Country Magnet’, arguing that a network of cities of limited size (with a maximum of 32,000 residents) surrounded by countryside could provide the benefits of urban and rural living, while negating the downsides of each.^[1] Crucially, all the land occupied by the garden city was to be collectively owned by its residents in the form of a public trust, so that when land values rose as a result of the city’s presence, it would be the citizens, not private landowners, who would benefit.

In 1903, Howard got the chance to realise his dream, when a group of leading industrialists backed him to build a prototype garden city in the village of Letchworth, Hertfordshire, 39 miles north of London. At first all went well, but the project struggled to attract investors prepared to accept the low rates of return on offer, leading Howard’s backers to renege on their promise to hand over part of their rent to the city, prompting Howard to resign from the board.

Although Letchworth failed to fulfil Howard’s vision, it still represents a significant milestone in urban planning, boasting a lively community trust as well as the world’s first protected ‘green belt’. Yet the garden city dream ultimately failed because it didn’t score high enough on the bottom line: oikonomia was trumped by capitalism. One lesson from Letchworth is therefore this: sustainability is often at odds with capitalist logic. If we want to build much more resilient communities and food systems, therefore, it follows that we’re going to need a new sort of economy.

How might the world change if we were to attempt such a transformation? By valuing food and giving communities control over their land, we could see a totally new pattern of development. Instead of megacities endlessly expanding, new rural communities would develop (as lockdown has demonstrated, we no longer have to be in cities in order to be connected). We could surround existing cities with regenerative farms and orchards, convert rooftops, car parks and verges into allotments and orchards, and design adaptable homes and workplaces with large kitchens, shared gardens and balconies. Rural areas, meanwhile, would be provided with essential services such as broadband, public transport, hospitals and schools. Life in both city and country would become far richer, as people spend more time growing, cooking and sharing food with their friends and family, rather than rushing around trying to make enough money to live. New food hubs could rejuvenate city centres, while networks of small producers and suppliers would thrive, reconnecting cities with their hinterlands. Industrial feedlots and ‘Big Ag’ would be replaced by smaller, mixed organic farms prioritising soil health, biodiversity and carbon and water capture, with cattle raised only on natural grassland or as part of regenerative farming systems.

If this all sounds a tad utopian, it is because, whenever food is valued, sitopia tends towards utopia. Yet all over the world, such transformations are already happening. Farmers, producers, chefs and citizens’ groups the world over are recognising the transformative power of food that is, in the words of Slow Food founder Carlo Petrini, ‘good, clean and fair’.^[1] From community gardens, box schemes, farmers’ markets and CSAs (Community-Supported Agriculture farms), to international networks such as Slow Food, Transition Towns, the Milan Food Pact and Via Campesina, people are using food to build a better, greener future, while architects and planners seek to reconnect city and country with projects such as MVRDV’s food-based masterplan for Almere Oosterwold in the Netherlands, or British-based architects Viljoen and Bohn’s CPULs (Continuous Productive Urban Landscapes), which create fertile corridors through cities and out to the countryside.^[2] Meanwhile, regenerative farming projects such as Knepp Castle Estate in the UK, where longhorn cattle and Tamworth pigs roam in a rich habitat thronging with wildlife, are showing that productivity and biodiversity can and do coexist.^[3]

We have all the knowledge we need to a build a good sitopia; all we need now is the political vision. COVID-19’s most positive legacy could yet be that it reminds us what really matters to us: a decent job, a nice home, spending time with family and friends, a supportive social network, closeness to nature. Simple things, in other words, that by readjusting our values, we can provide for everyone. Sitopia will never be utopia, yet by learning to harness food’s power to shape our lives, we can come close to the utopian dream.