From Rural Ground to Rural Grocery: Designing a local food value chain
Name
lee-leeah-mcp-dusp-2022-thesis.pdf
Description
Thesis PDF
Size
71.04 MB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
73d88e5f9a4baa590d0b5952cf8aefb1
Author(s)
Lee, Allison H.
Advisor(s)
Adams, Marie Law
Date Issued
February 2022
Publisher
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Abstract
Present-day food systems in the U.S. are fraught with challenges that have spillover effects ranging from economic hardship of agricultural communities, inequitable access to nutritional foods, asymmetrical distribution of subsidies, and harsh environmental strains. Further contributing to a problematic system is the growing division between urban and rural settings, with the former receiving the majority of attention, planning, resources, and capital investment.
This thesis highlights the need to rethink the relationship between food and spatial planning. In response to more prevalent urban-focused queries that ask, “can food be produced where it is consumed,” the author of this work asks, “can food be consumed where it is produced?” to acknowledge issues around food access, nutritional health, and living wages of farmers and food producers.
Through a proposed design-planning approach that integrates lived experience and data analysis, the author offers methodological strategies for food system planning in a rural context. She discusses the role of design at multiple scales, and its importance in participatory food system planning. Lastly, a case study of a Food Hub project in North Central Massachusetts is used to enact the design-planning approach and propose schematic designs.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Urban Studies and Planning
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