Designing for equity: how city-regions can advance food justice through urban planning

In today’s cities, what you eat is often determined by where you live. Proximity to markets and grocery stores, spaces for growing food, access to nutritious meals in schools and community centers. These are spatial questions that shape food environments and define who gets to eat well and who doesn’t. For city-regions aiming to make their food systems healthier and more just, tackling this spatial imbalance is essential.

Within the FoodCLIC project, the idea of spatial justice has emerged as a key driver of food system transformation. Across Europe, eight city-regions are testing ways to ensure that food access and opportunity are not just the privilege of a few neighborhoods, but a shared right for all residents. These local innovation hubs, known as ‘Living Labs’ within the FoodCLIC project, enable cities to co-design and test real-life interventions to create more just, healthy, and sustainable urban food environments. And our findings show that they work. They already demonstrated that thoughtful urban planning can unlock real change, and that centering food in spatial strategies is a powerful tool for inclusion.

Starting from the margins

The Living Labs in Barcelona (Spain), Berlin (Germany), and Lisbon (Portugal) illustrate the potential of rethinking urban design through a food justice lens. In all three city-regions, interventions are being piloted in neighborhoods with high social vulnerability; places with limited green areas, lower income levels, and greater exposure to health risks.

In Berlin, the district of Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg is upscaling a traditional public market - the Marheineke Markthalle - into a site of social innovation. With a focus on affordability and diversity, the district is testing new ideas to bring lower-income and migrant communities into the fold, both as customers and vendors. A key feature of the intervention is a participatory process that actively involves residents and market stakeholders in shaping the future of the space, as well as challenging the perception that traditional markets serve only wealthier or more homogeneous populations. 

Barcelona is known for its advanced food policy ecosystem, but spatial equity remains a pressing issue. Through its Living Lab, the city is developing new tools to map and understand geographic inequalities in access to healthy, sustainable food. By combining food environment data with socioeconomic indicators and public health metrics, city officials are identifying areas with limited access to fresh food. This data is then used to guide new urban planning interventions, such as locating community gardens, subsidized food markets, or school meal programs precisely where they are needed most. The vision: Ensuring that efforts to promote sustainable diets do not inadvertently deepen existing inequalities. 

In Lisbon, spatial justice is being redefined through the formal recognition of informal food vendors. The city’s Living Lab is supporting the regularization of vendors at Feira do Relógio, a long-standing market with deep community roots. Rather than treating informal vending as a problem to be solved, Lisbon is investing in infrastructure and services like sanitation, electricity, and waste management, which legitimize and stabilize the livelihoods of hundreds of low-income workers, many of whom are migrants. This intervention hence reflects a shift in thinking: Acknowledging that informal food systems often serve those who are most excluded from mainstream retail, and demonstrating that inclusion and regulation can go hand in hand.  What these examples show is that urban planning is - and can be - about access and dignity. When city-regions design interventions with and for the communities most impacted by food insecurity, they do more than improve diets; they build trust.

Three takeaways for local leaders

1. Start where the gaps are greatest: Targeting vulnerable neighborhoods supports those in greatest need and creates models that can be scaled city-wide.
2. Design with flexibility: City-regions like Lisbon have shown that co-design isn’t one-size-fits-all. Adapt methods to community rhythms and fatigue levels.
3. Invest in hybrid spaces: From schools and gardens to community kitchens, shared spaces can serve as bridges between food systems, education, and community care.

As cities work on their food systems, FoodCLIC’s Living Labs offer a clear lesson: Planning for food is planning for justice. By rethinking how space is used and who it’s used for, local leaders can ensure that their food systems nourish everyone, everywhere.

This blog was written by Matteo Bizzotto, Senior Officer of Global Communications at ICLEI World Secretariat, based on the FoodCLIC publication Synthesis of plans of the eight living labs with portfolios of real-life interventions

Publishing date: 30 October 2025