THE URBAN-AGRICULTURAL CITY AS A HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY: A CASE STUDY OF PHILADELPHIA

Abstract

This study examines the historical-geographic development of agriculture in Philadelphia in order to better understand the city’s contemporary urban agriculture movement. More specifically, the study provides historical context to the contemporary application of racial justice practices within urban farming initiatives in Philadelphia by uncovering and critically analyzing key aspects of the city’s history that have created agriculture-related injustice. Three methodological tools were used in this study: archival historical analysis, secondary source historical analysis, and scholar-activist collaboration. The period of study centers around the settler-colonial period of the city’s history but spans from the era of Lenape territorial control to the consolidation of the modern city in 1854. Three historical-geographic antecedents to contemporary racial justice practices within urban agriculture were uncovered and examined through this research: the settler-colonial terra nullius myth, the patriarchalization of food and land systems, and the urban-rural plantation complex. The results of this study highlight the many layers of intersectional food and land injustice within which that today’s iteration of agriculture in Philadelphia is embedded.