City profile: A history of changing urban powers to feed the city of Barcelona

Abstract

Cities are pivotal to addressing planetary sustainability and equity challenges, including transforming food systems. The urgent need for transformation calls for a deeper engagement with urban food literature, situating intervention assessments in their historical and socio-ecological contexts. This city profile analyses 800 years of urban food governance in Barcelona to progress our understanding of the city governments' different powers and capacities to shape food systems. Drawing on documentary analysis, participant observation, and interviews, we first identify five distinct historical periods and describe how local powers have shaped Barcelona’s food system through famines, wars, riots, dictatorships, and democratic periods. Then, we present the current state of urban food governance, highlighting critical challenges, key urban food policies, and their impacts. Our findings reveal how a variety of policy instruments and institutions have addressed the multifaceted urban food challenges throughout history. Policy instruments have evolved from regulatory and coercive approaches to a focus on behavior change and softer tools, accompanied by lower levels of citizen mobilization. Thus engaging with the past of uban food governance might contribute to a much needed expansion of urban food policy imaginaries and practices to address planetary emergencies