A landscape of opportunity? Vacant land, community gardens, and neoliberal green fixes in San Diego

Urban Farm DB summary

Drawing on city planning documents, spatial data, and original fieldwork (site audits, surveys, interviews), this paper critically examines the political ecology of land access for urban agriculture in San Diego. It argues the city's "opportunity narrative" around vacant land obscures structural inequities, functioning as a neoliberal "green fix" that shifts responsibility for food access onto marginalized communities while treating land as a speculative commodity, and calls for a land justice framework centered on equity, secure tenure, and community self-determination.