Reimagining the food system, the economy, and urban life: new urban chicken-keepers in US cities

Abstract

Since the mid-nineteenth century, poultry and livestock animals have increasingly been seen as out of place in, and excluded from, modern United States cities. Yet, since 2000, increasing numbers of urban residents have begun keeping chickens and other small livestock in backyards. Through an analysis of the re-emergence of this practice in Portland, Oregon, and Seattle, Washington, we show that chicken-keepers are not raising chickens simply to save money or to pursue an eccentric hobby, but rather as an explicit effort to promote and enact alternative urban imaginaries. Such imaginaries make possible alternative practices, and in turn, the performance of everyday practices reshapes urban imaginaries. In interviews, participants critique the industrial food system, urban economies and social life, and “think differently” about human-animal relations and productive animals in cities. Through chicken-keeping practices, they establish sustainable backyard agro-ecosystems, build sociability, resist consumerism, and work simultaneously to improve the life and health of animals, humans, and the urban environment.

Keywords:

• urban agriculture
• urban livestock
• animal geographies
• food systems
• urban imaginaries

Acknowledgements

Thanks to Elvin Wyly, Eric Sheppard, and three anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments on an earlier draft of this paper. Thanks as well to colleagues who read drafts of this manuscript and offered critical insights: Nancy Wilkinson, Kerri Meyer, Karen Dias, and graduate students in the Cultural Animal Geographies seminar at San Francisco State University (SFSU). Jennifer Blecha is grateful to the College of Science and Engineering at SFSU for a course release while finishing this manuscript. This article is dedicated to the late Dr Robert K. Anderson, founder of CENSHARE.

Funding

This research was supported by the Graduate Research Partnership Program (GRPP) of the College of Liberal Arts and the Center to Study Human Animal Relationships and Environments (CENSHARE) at the University of Minnesota.

Notes

^1. We use the term “productive animals”, commonly seen in the urban agriculture literature, interchangeably with “livestock” and “farm animals”. Each term constructs certain animal species in particular ways. “Productive” has the anthropocentric meaning of serving human utility, including food products and labor. No animals necessarily seek to be “productive” in this sense, even as they act productively for their own lives and purposes—building nests, bearing young, foraging, communicating, and so on. Notwithstanding its anthropocentrism, we find the term useful for differentiating these animals from pets, who in recent decades, have largely been constructed as “consumers” (of food, toys, beds, leashes, and so on) rather than “producers.”

^2. We define New Urban Chicken Keepers (NUCKs) as households who keep a dozen or fewer chickens within an incorporated city within a zoned residential area.

^3. USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, and dozens of smaller print media outlets.

^4. Heating a coop is arguably a necessity in regions with severe winters. In Minneapolis and Saint Paul, Minnesota, provision of heat keeps drinking water thawed and prevents frostbite when the temperatures sink below 0°F for days or weeks at a time.

^5. Four of the eight households had incomes below the medians of Seattle and Portland, and four near or above. The 2003 median family income in Seattle was $71,900 and Portland was $65,800, while the national median was $56,500 (United States Department of Housing and Urban Development, 2013) The eight participants self-identified in the following income categories: $20–30,000 (1), $30–40,000 (1), $40–60,000 (2), $60–80,000 (1), $80–120,000 (2), >$120,000 (1).