Food sustainability of gigantic cities

Author: Luca Lezzerini
Affiliation: POLIS University

Abstract
Due to strong urbanism flow, many cities are continuously growing trending to become gigantic cities. Gigantic means that either the city has a huge number of inhabitants and commuters, or it contains a large part of the whole population of the country and the rest of the territory is moving towards a low-density population. In both cases, food sustainability is one of the most concerning challenges that must be addressed. After a deep literature review, the paper analyzes the main elements in food supply to gigantic cities. Then, possible risks are identified and quantified in a general case, ranking them according to a priority metric (also defined in the research). Risks are approached with solutions based on urban and territorial planning, including the selection of a socio-economical model to be used as a reference and tools to ensure food supply. In the paper, different possible planning strategies derived from African case studies are proposed and evaluated in their application to Tiranë (a city containing a large portion of the whole population) and to other gigantic (in the sense of a very large number of inhabitants and commuters) cities in the world. Results demonstrate that specific planning strategies should be activated at both urban and regional levels to provide local food autonomy, including production, processing, storage and transportation. The research is a portion of wider research about smart cities’ urban planning strategies and although it is limited to regions with good climate and fertile neighbouring, its principles can be also extended to more challenging cases from both climate and land quality. The research is also a starting point to define a resilient planning strategy to support, in the long period, the management of the impact of climate change on the food provisioning for very big cities.
The paper also proposes a form of cooperative bond (the rural socio-economic model) in the countryside to increase productivity and avoid excessive urbanism, easing the presence of workers in the farms that are supposed to supply the city. The paper considers only normal operational conditions and does not keep into account special conditions like famine, flooding, war and similar. Although these conditions are not considered, the proposed methodology is still applicable to these cases and will be developed in further research.

Keywords: Circular economy, concrete facades, life cycle assessment