Reimagining local food access: Spatial opportunities of community gardens in Christchurch, New Zealand

Abstract

The study explores strategic opportunities for improving access to and distribution of locally produced food. Food consumption in urban areas often depends on long and distant supply chains and corporate distribution points such as supermarkets. Poor integration of local urban food production is a source of food insecurity as much as an ecological, social, and infrastructural problem. It creates pressures on the supply and logistics of food distribution, challenging the resilience of the entire system, particularly in the context of sudden (e.g. earthquakes, floods, bushfires) and slow-onset disasters, such as climate change. This paper explores how strategic spatial opportunities for community-oriented, urban food production sites could make cities more resilient from a food security and social accessibility perspective. With the help of a case study—Urban Community Gardens in Christchurch (New Zealand)—and Geographic Information Systems (GIS) analysis, the paper proposes a method to examine spatial accessibility to urban community gardens and examines associated socio-demographic factors in comparison to commercial food outlets (supermarkets). The results suggest that the applied method is useful in examining the spatial accessibility of gardens within their specific demographic context. They reveal that urban community gardens in Christchurch are mainly located in more deprived areas and that walkable access to gardens is provided to about one-fifth of the city’s total population. The paper discusses the results within the context of specific spatial and demographic urban characteristics, including low density, car dependency and disaster susceptibility, and provides suggestions for further research and urban planning policy