Food security and sustainable urban planning for resilient and healthy cities: a multiple case study

Abstract

Food security strategies are essential for cities to respond to stresses and shocks while promoting urban health and quality of life. In Brazil, twenty-seven million city dwellers face severe food insecurity. Urban planning, local climate action and food security promotion are within Brazilian cities’ legal scope of action, providing opportunities to strengthen urban resilience. In this context, the proposed investigation aimed to verify if and how Brazilian cities coordinate these public policies to promote urban resilience and what accomplishments stem from this coordination. The investigation developed as a multiple case study covering ten Brazilian cities. It comprised the qualitative analysis of public policy documents using NVivo for data treatment, quantification, and categorisation. The results showed a wide variety in the breadth and depth of policy measures, indicating diverse maturity levels and implementation and pointing out opportunities for future investigation and policy improvements.