Healthy Works. Food and Land Use Planning in San Diego Region

Across the US, where ‘food deserts’ heavily shape access to fresh, local and healthy food, institutions, NGOs and private citizens are committed to designing and implementing measures aimed at getting a greater control over the food daily supplied to million people. This paper highlights the case study of the San Diego Region (CA), where the goals of a ‘sustainable, secure and resilient food system’ addressed by an array of instruments ranging from food policies to land use tools and municipal zoning codes are mobilizing from the very beginning community at large: producers, brokers, consumers. The account is twofold. On the one hand, it aims to highlight a sort of ‘value chain’ within the approach in linking traditionally separate issues, on the other hand, it prompts for new meanings and uses for vacant land, that can result in a strategically planned and delivered green infrastructure comprising the broadest range of open spaces and other environmental features.