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IntroductionFor many promoters of alternative food systems, scaling up local food provisioning holds the promise of mitigating the negative environmental impacts of the corporate food sector by stimulating regional agricultural diversification. Although these initiatives challenge the dominant model, the question remains of their transformative power and their place in the dynamics of change, at the meso and macro levels. Scholars as well as social and political movements often identify school catering as a sector where such doubts can be overcome. In this paper, we seek to explore the role of public policies encouraging sustainable school food procurement in framing the possibilities for scaling up alternatives' impacts on agricultural landscapes and possible diversification dynamics.MethodsOur work is based on the analysis of the day-to-day governance of school food procurement in 21 case studies located in large cities, Greater Paris (France) and São Paulo (Brazil). In total, 33 semi-structured interviews were conducted with different types of actors (managers of school catering services, representatives of agricultural cooperatives and advisory organizations). The interviews transcriptions were processed using thematic analysis. The purpose was to examine whether these 21 cases shared common logics, regardless of their technical facilities, management methods and national contexts, in order to assess which of these commonalities could be interpreted as specific to metropolitan territories.ResultsIn highly urbanized countries, larger cities' urban food strategies are expected to contribute significantly to bending the curve of landscape simplification. Such hope is mitigated by our findings: we show that most cases relate to the trend of a dominant alternative pattern that relies on a renewed agro-industrial system which does not challenge the regional specialization dynamics.DiscussionNevertheless, most of the cases that deviate significantly from this model are found in the São Paulo metropolitan area; this suggests–as Brazil is a pioneer in strong public policy promoting direct procurement of school meals from sustainable family farming–that national framework can still set the conditions for local innovations.

Cet article fait le récit de la vente informelle d’épis de maïs franciliens dans les rues de l’agglomération parisienne en montrant qu’une partie de cette activité contribue à la relocalisation silencieuse du système alimentaire urbain dans les quartiers populaires de la métropole. En l’abordant à travers les témoignages des travailleurs et non uniquement par la géographie des flux de marchandises, il a été possible de montrer le rôle moteur des efforts quotidiens de subsistance dans le renouvellement de la ville par ses marges. La vente de maïs dans la rue doit cependant faire face aux contradictions internes du modèle de la ville durable : alors qu’il n’a jamais été autant question de réduire l’empreinte écologique de l’alimentation des villes par la relocalisation des approvisionnements, la requalification urbaine des quartiers populaires réduit les possibilités de déploiement de systèmes intermédiaires frugaux qui renouvellent les liens avec la campagne voisine.

The aim of this special issue is to shed light on the nature and role of stakeholders linked to open space, instead of focusing only on its topographical dimensions to map the place of empty spaces in the city. Doing so, we propose to overstep the negative vision that private stakeholders and public interests are irreconcilable. Private initiatives taken on and for open spaces generate indeed relationships networks that can become resources for (environmental, social or landscape planning) public action. Thus, the private dimension of city’s open space constitutes a social capital which is yet unknown and unused by and for the collectivities. This statement leads us to question how public stakeholders will be able to activate these new local resources.

This article aims to present the research conducted in recent years by a multidisciplinary team on the questions of land-use conflict, and to reveal the methodology of survey and data collection, as well as the structure of the resulting database. We first define the scope of our study by providing a definition of these conflicts, of their characteristics and motives, of the ways they manifest themselves and of the actors involved. We then present the methodology we have used to identify conflicts ; a methodology based on a spatial analysis and the combined use of different data collection methods including surveys conducted by experts, analyses of the regional daily press and of data from the administrative litigation courts. Finally we present the Conflicts data base©, with its tables and nomenclatures, in which the data collected in different fields is reconciled and analysed (III), before providing a few examples of how this method can be used to analyse the case of the Greater Paris Region.