Hungry Cities: How Food Shapes our Lives

Acclaimed author, Carolyn Steel joins ON CITIES for a thought-provoking conversation on the relationship between food and cities. The feeding of cities has greater social and physical impact on us and our planet than anything else we do. Yet few of us living in modern cities are conscious of the process. In her books, Hungry City and Sitopia, Steel discusses the history of food production and distribution, the challenges of feeding our growing cities sustainably, and her vision of Sitopia, a new way of thinking about food and its role in creating more resilient, equitable and joyful urban futures. With practical ideas and fascinating insights, this episode is a must-listen for anyone concerned with health, the future of food and its impact on cities and society. Tune in Friday, May 12th at 11:00 AM EST, 8:00 AM PST at https://www.voiceamerica.com/show/4119/on-cities; and find all previous episodes on Spotify, Apple iTunes or your favorite podcast platform.

Carolyn Steel is an architect and leading thinker on food and cities. She has worked with the practice of Kilburn Nightingale Architects since 1989; and is the author of the award-winning Hungry City: How Food Shapes Our Lives and Sitopia: How Food Can Save the World. Her concept of sitopia, or food-place (from the Greek sitos, food + topos, place) has gained broad recognition across a wide range of fields in design, ecology, academia and the arts. Carolyn studied at Cambridge University and has taught at Cambridge, London Metropolitan, Wageningen and Slow Food Universities and at the London School of Economics, where she was inaugural director of the Cities programme. She is currently a Research Fellow at Aeres University in the Netherlands. Carolyn is in worldwide demand as a public speaker and her 2009 TED talk has received more than one million views. In addition to numerous public appearances, she has collaborated with several cities and institutions including Stroom den Haag in The Hague, The City of Groningen and the MAS Museum in Antwerp, where her work inspired the new permanent exhibition, Antwerp à la Carte. She is a trustee of the Oxford Food Symposium. A Rome Scholar in 1995-6, Carolyn won the Royal Society of Literature Jerwood Award for Non-Fiction for Hungry City and Sitopia was shortlisted for the Wainwright Prize. Both books were chosen as a BBC Food Programme book of the year; and the Ecologist magazine has called Carolyn a "21st Century Visionary."