The contemporary interest in urban cultivation in the global North as a component of sustainable food production warrants assessment of both its quantitative and qualitative roles. This exploratory study weighs the nutritional, ecological, and social sustainability contributions of urban agriculture by examining three cases—a community garden in the core of New York, a community farm on the edge of London, and an agricultural park on the periphery of San Francisco. Our field analysis of these sites, confirmed by generic estimates, shows very low food outputs relative to the populations of their catchment areas; the great share of urban food will continue to come from multiple foodsheds beyond urban peripheries, often far beyond. Cultivation is a more appropriate designation than agriculture for urban food growing because its sustainability benefits are more social than agronomic or ecological. A major potential benefit lies in enhancing the ecological knowledge of urbanites, including an appreciation of the role that organic food may play in promoting both sustainability and health. This study illustrates how benefits differ according to local conditions, including population density and demographics, operational scale, soil quality, and access to labor and consumers. Recognizing the real benefits, including the promotion of sustainable diets, could enable urban food growing to be developed as a component of regional foodsheds to improve the sustainability and resilience of food supply, and to further the process of public co-production of new forms of urban conviviality and wellbeing.

The development of hyperautomobility in the US is having considerable impact on the social organization of space, on social life, and on public health. The geographic sprawl of urban areas, combined with the dominance of auto connectivity, promote a more privatized and individualized community life, as well as poorer environmental conditions. Public health is effected in a variety of ways, such as through the discouragement of routine walking. In addition to exacerbating the problems of traffic congestion, hyperautomobility is a basis of social exclusion for the many people who do not drive. The full range of its social and public health consequences merit more notice in the growing discourse of sustainable transport. The current intensification and globalization of auto‐centered transport systems make this attention timely.

This essay applies the approach of the relational model to the quotidian modes of contemporary movement, walking and motoring, in order to analyse fitness. The social model of disability provides a tool for de-individualising fitness discourse, as well as for embedding fitness within sociomaterial and cultural contexts. Fitness, or ‘being able to’, is seen as an outcome of the interpenetrations and interactions of mind-bodies moving within their environments. The analysis indicates that the social model has general relevance for the sociology of health and illness. Here, it is extended beyond the study of disability to encompass fitness. In future, the social model may prove fruitful in the analysis of other socially situated conditions as well.

The mounting loss of the traditional knowledge of indigenous peoples presents environmental as well as ethical issues. Fundamental among these is the sustainability of indigenous societies and their ecosystems. Although the commercial expropriation of traditional knowledge grows, rooted in a global, corporate application of intellectual property rights (IPRs), the survival of indigenous societies becomes more problematic. One reason for this is an unresolved conflict between two perspectives. In the modernist view, traditional knowledge is a tool to use (or discard) for the development of indigenous society, and therefore it must be subordinated to Western science. Alternatively, in the postmodernist view, it is harmonious with nature, providing a new paradigm for human ecology, and must be preserved intact. We argue that this encumbering polarization can be allayed by shifting from a dualism of traditional and scientific knowledge to an assemblage of local knowledge, which is constituted by the interaction of both in a third space. We argue that IPR can be reconfigured to become the framework for creating such a third space.

This paper analyses ecosocial parameters for the coming of autonomous vehicles—a subject obscured by their technological and business prospects. The world’s largest multinational digital and automotive corporations are making massive investments in the autonomous vehicle roll-out. As is usually the case with a new technological consumer product, discourse centers on its promises, not its perils. Largely ignored are potential impacts on social justice and environmental sustainability. This critical framing can be a basis for developing an ecosocial presence in the expanding autonomous vehicle discourse, as well as in the emergent politics of its deployment.