FOODSCAPES, URBAN LIFESTYLES AND TRANSITION

This course offers an introduction to foodscapes: spaces where food is produced, processed, acquired, distributed, and consumed, and the waste is processed. The notion of foodscape is increasingly being used within landscape design, spatial planning, health promotion, and food studies as a tool to describe our food environments and to assess the potential impact on food choice and food behavior. Students learn about how cities can strategically influence food practices to potentially advance public health, improve the environment and economy, and ultimately transform the food system. This course focuses on advanced theories and concepts in the domain of sustainable food planning, planning for healthier lifestyles, and management of healthier and more sustainable social practices. Theories and concepts are presented through a reading list and in lectures, and are elaborated on and applied in practical assignments. After successful completion of this course, students are able to identify various foodscapes and the physical and social characteristics attached to them; explain the rationales of competing foodscapes and the underlying lifestyles; understand the linkages between public health, lifestyles, and foodscapes; distinguish dominant discourses in the domain of health and food and their relevance for landscape design and planning; apply current approaches to landscape design and planning to the domain of health and food; and show a critical reflexive understanding of advanced theories and design concepts pertaining to health lifestyles and food in landscape design and planning.