The Problem with Feeding Cities: The Social Transformation of Infrastructure, Abundance, and Inequality in America

by Andrew Deener

For most people, grocery shopping is a mundane activity. Few stop to think about the massive, global infrastructure that makes it possible to buy Chilean grapes in a Philadelphia supermarket in the middle of winter. Yet every piece of food represents an interlocking system of agriculture, manufacturing, shipping, logistics, retailing, and nonprofits that controls what we eat—or don’t.The Problem with Feeding Cities is a sociological and historical examination of how this remarkable network of abundance and convenience came into being over the last century. It looks at how the US food system transformed from feeding communities to feeding the entire nation, and it reveals how a process that was once about fulfilling basic needs became focused on satisfying profit margins. It is also a story of how this system fails to feed people, especially in the creation of food deserts. Andrew Deener shows that problems with food access are the result of infrastructural failings stemming from how markets and cities were developed, how distribution systems were built, and how organizations coordinate the quality and movement of food. He profiles hundreds of people connected through the food chain, from farmers, wholesalers, and supermarket executives, to global shippers, logistics experts, and cold-storage operators, to food bank employees and public health advocates. It is a book that will change the way we see our grocery store trips and will encourage us all to rethink the way we eat in this country.

Genres: Food

331 pages, Kindle Edition

Published October 10, 2020

Reviews

[Tiana · Rating 4 out of 5]

I should preface this by saying that I am a nerdy academic who does research on urban food systems, and so I'm particularly predisposed to find the subject matter interesting. This is, to be clear, an academic book. It is structured around a fairly complex theoretical argument (about the way infrastructures and created and transformed and how this intersects with spatial and social inequalities) and indulges in a fair amount of jargon from Science and Technology Studies literature. I want to say this right off the bat because I think many readers will find it off-putting (and they probably should--I`m guilty of the same kind of jargon-laden prose myself in academic writing and...ugh, it's the worst...). If you want a more accessible book about urban food systems, there are many. But if you're interested in reading a book that takes you to little-known corners and actors in the fresh food provisioning system (ie fruits and veg) and which takes a really expansive systemic/infrastructural approach, this book is great.

The book uses Philadelphia as a launching pad from which to look at how provisioning in the US has transformed in the last century. A series of very heterogeneous chapters take us from the rise and fall of the municipal wholesale market to the rise of suburban grocery stores, to a history of the barcode and its revolutionary effects on food logistics. We visit shipping yards and cooling warehouses, where tons of delicate perishable goods need to be timed and treated just so not to lose value. We meet many different types of intermediaries in the food system. Finally, we see how these actors and spaces have come together in different configurations to permit the contemporary food infrastructure of abundance and exclusion.

Highly recommended for those interested in urban food histories and understanding the lesser known spaces and actores of food systems.