When the cows come home : post post-industrial urban agriculture

Over the past few decades, the industrialization of food has become increasingly influenced by the consolidation of its controlling corporations. This consolidation has isolated meat processing facilities from small farmers, favoring corporations who have built enormous processing facilities to match their demand. Given that the consumption of beef has leveled out in the past few decades, the environmental costs of producing enough beef to meet demand continue to rise. Factory farming transforms huge tracts of land into wastelands of polluted land, and cultivates animals in unsanitary conditions. The centralization of major farming, packing, and processing facilities has left more distant, more environmentally conscious farmers to struggle with the economics of profit margins. This thesis proposes is a new model of industrial facility that can transition with changes in the industry as it moves towards a coop model from an industrial model. Its urban location pits private and public against each other in conditions that force them to negotiate a truce.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Architecture.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2010

Author dc:creator

• Cheng, Marissa A

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Alexander D'Hooghe.

• Architecture.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/58267

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/58267