ABSTRACT
Food is a politically and economically complex and contentious topic. In the US, city planners have recognized this since at least the late 1990s (Pothukuchi and Kaufman 1999), though more recently they have begun to understand better how the dominant industrial food system permeates human use of the built environment and directly influences variations in community health and well-being (American Planning Association (APA) 2007). Food is a public policy issue to the degree that it affects public health and the general well-being of the community. These, in turn, impact how residents and visitors perceive, interact with, and feel about a local community. Like poverty and illness, food-related problems in one part of a community can degrade the broader population through added costs for social and medical services, reduced efficiency in the local labor force, difficulties for educators in affected schools, and a variety of other social and economic challenges. If the goal of local government is to address the common and shared welfare and safety needs of a community, then food policies and planning should play an important part in that.
