Urban design and architecture have inadvertently contributed to the bifurcation of societies divided into haves and have-nots, thus undermining social equity, restricting opportunity, and resulting in poverty next to overabundance and waste. Global population growth and urban migration pressures compound the problem. The call for social equity and justice is, therefore, urgent from a social perspective and an environmental one. This study explores a concept we call ‘value-inclusive design’ and its potential for transformation toward ‘judicial equity’. Our value-inclusive design method proposes neighborhood interactions and co-design as a way to create welcoming spaces that preserve natural resources, support economic sustainability, and improve architectural design to foster health and wellbeing for people and the environment. This article discusses the potential of our value-inclusive design model in contributing to judicial equity by applying it to an international student competition called the ‘Global Greenhouse Challenge #3’, launched by Wageningen University and Research. By viewing the results of the Global Greenhouse challenge through the lens of value-inclusive design, we find that the model has merit and provides a useful theoretical framework for promoting social equity in urban planning and design. We conclude that by applying the model, its constructs can enhance design approaches that seek to improve the quality of life of residents while building resilience and shifting agency through co-design. The model can, thus, be a means for driving continuous improvement in architectural design and applying it in an educational setting such as the Global Greenhouse Challenge student competition.

Access to affordable fresh food is an ongoing challenge for underserved urban neighborhoods across the United States. Several are designated food deserts with no access to a full-service grocery store within a one-mile radius. The Urban Food Hubs of the College of Agriculture, Urban Sustainability, and Environmental Sciences (CAUSES) of the University of the District of Columbia (UDC) exemplify the University’s commitment to building capacity in the food desert neighborhoods of Washington D.C. The four components of the Urban Food Hubs are food production, food preparation, food distribution, and waste and water recovery (http://www.udc.edu/category/causes). They are designed to not only provide access to fresh food, but also to create jobs, improve public health, mitigate water management problems, and create urban resiliency. The contributions in economic, social/cultural, and physical/environmental impacts, and the five pillars of economic development that track the broader impacts of urban capacity building are described here. The Urban Food Hubs demonstrate the investment metropolitan universities could make to ensure the long-term economic, social, and environmental health of each community. The model is scalable and replicable in other metropolitan areas including those that experience high pressure on land-use and those experiencing decline.

This article presents a vision for an urban food system in Washington DC in 2050 that serves as the centerpiece of a circular economy for the capital region of the United States. Food serves as the connecting link for an inclusive, adaptive, and resilient urban economy embedded in the region. This food economy values natural resources, cultural diversity, and commitment to nature-based innovations. The vision is the result of a three-pronged methodology of: (1) community engagement; (2) a thoughtful, process-focused transformation; and (3) the scaling up of existing urban food initiatives. We argue that small, hyperlocal, neighborhood-based initiatives can become crucial game changers and catalysts of change for entire neighborhoods, cities, and regions. Therefore, we propose a design-based approach to advance our 2050 vision of a circular food system. Our design-based approach consists of three building blocks: (A) systems thinking; (B) the ability to manage wins and tradeoffs; and (C) transitional leadership and cooperation. We explain these building blocks and the way in which they are incorporated in the 2050 vision of Washington DC. We further argue that the food economy is an ideal sector to embark on such a design-based approach due to its systemic nature, its critical position as an indispensable economic sector, and the complex connections it brings to multiple other sectors of the economy. An urban food system can therefore offer the ideal starting point for a transition towards a circular economy.

The United States food system is highly centralized with only three of the fifty states producing more than 75 percent of U.S. fruits and vegetables. The high reliance on long-distance transportation and cold chains undermines the sustainability of the food system and adds to its vulnerability. This was most recently demonstrated during the COVID-19 pandemic which caused significant disruptions to food supply chains. A promising alternative is a more decentralized and localized food system which reduces the reliance on long-distance transportation and long supply chains. Since such a food system will likely consist of smaller producers, questions have been raised about its economic viability. This precipitated the idea of Food Hubs as market aggregators. The model was first introduced by the U.S. Department of Agriculture as a way to aggregate the agricultural product of small farms. It has since evolved to imply a more flexible food system that can complement various parts of the food supply chain. This study develops a framework to assess the social and environmental sustainability contributions of Food Hubs and especially of urban Food Hubs, since 80 percent of U.S. food consumers live in urban and metro areas. Using our framework, we conducted a content analysis of publicly available information for 50 Food Hubs in metropolitan areas across the United States. We find that Food Hubs contribute to environmental sustainability by reducing food transportation through sourcing from local farms. They also perform relatively well in contributing to lowering food waste and loss. Their contributions to improving water management and adopting more sustainable food production methods, however, appear to be less strong. Similarly, Food Hubs appear to enhance some of our selected aspects of social sustainability such as improving access to fresh and healthy food to local consumers, and organizations such as schools and hospitals. Only a few of the Food Hubs in our sample, however, address our other aspects of social sustainability such as improving food security. We conclude our study by offering an aggregate ranking of the sustainability contributions of our selected Food Hubs based on our assessment framework.

The United States food system is comprised of a diversity of stakeholders representing a range of sectors including agriculture, health, hospitality, and other sectors of the economy. Coordinating these wide-ranging aspects of the food system is a challenging responsibility of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) and its counterparts at the state and county level. While the USDA acknowledges the institutional importance of diversity, it has only recently begun to meaningfully consider the agricultural needs of urban environments, the unique experiences from communities of color, and opportunities for urban agriculture in its purview. This study provides a framework for food systems leaders, specifically in food policy councils (FPCs) in large urban communities, to assess the visibility and effectiveness of their diversity and inclusion initiatives represented across three key domains: (1) leadership and governance structures, (2) key stakeholder engagement strategies, and (3) advance food justice. A cluster analysis of the study results for FPCs in 19 U.S. cities and metropolitan areas across these three domains revealed four distinct groups of food policy councils. Results from the assessment of the urban FPCs reveal that they succeed in embedding diversity and inclusion in all three diversity measures, with key stakeholder engagement receiving the highest score at 73%. On average, FPCs received a score of 54% when assessing diversity and inclusion in their leadership and governance and a score of 49% in their activities to advance food justice. Results of the analysis also highlights opportunities to improve individual, thematic, and cumulative scores. Participation from food systems leadership groups such as food policy councils will be vital in advocating for equitable food systems through urban producer and consumer programs in the upcoming reauthorization of the U.S. farm bill in 2024.

Engaging diverse stakeholders in dialogue around sustainable development has proven to be a successful strategy to advance sustainable development goals. Without local engagement, sustainable development efforts can fail to accomplish their objectives. Yet, determining the best strategy for engaging diverse stakeholders can be challenging. Similarly challenging can be the transfer of information regarding successful development strategies from one community to another. Local specificity is key to finding sustainable development solutions. Yet, knowledge creation one-community-at-a-time is time consuming and limits the transferability of knowledge. Meso-level approaches are therefore essential to finding transferable solutions. The Five-Pillars approach to development is such a meso-level mixed methods approach. It identifies a manageable set of indicators in five common categories: education, health, environmental quality, social and cultural amenities, and information and transportation access. These indicator categories form the basis for selecting specific locations within a community where local stakeholders engage in writing a collective story about their sustainable development future. This article describes the implementation of the Five Pillars approach in two neighborhoods in Washington D.C. It concludes that the approach offers an effective engagement strategy that gives voice to the sustainable development vision of local stakeholders while providing a framework that can benefit diverse communities.