Edible Cities as an indicator

What if the edibility of a city was an indicator of how sustainable it is?

A city where you could find healthy food at every corner would be an inclusive city, a city that’s highly livable, a city that could approach self-sustenance for its food. A city that is sustainable for all.

To assess the edibility of a city we defined a set of criteria:

  • Availability. How much and when is food accessible? City concentrate people, quantity in the city does matter. Seasonality of food may be compensated by diverse plants that extends the harvesting season.
  • Accessibility. How accessible are natural and growing sources of food to people of all ages and condition?
  • Diversity. How diverse are sources of growing food? The more diversity, the more diverse is the diet, the more bio-diversity is sustained, the more resilient nature is, the more seasons provide food.
  • Quality. How contaminated are the sources of growing food? Are soils healthy? Are pesticides allowed in the city? Are sources of food away from small particles coming from busy roads?
  • Self-governance. How involved are citizens in the governance and maintenance of sources of growing food? Making a city edible is a commoning process where all stakeholders need to be involved. Rules and good practices need to be developed and enforced: only citizens can bring that at scale in an efficient and equitable manner.