Article in Press: Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions

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EIST-153; No. of Pages 19 ARTICLE IN PRESS

Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions xxx (2015) xxx–xxx
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
Environmental Innovation and

Societal Transitions
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/eist
Transitioning the food system: A strategic

practice management approach for cities
Nevin Cohen a,∗, Rositsa T. Ilieva b
a
City University of New York School of Public Health, United States
b
The New School, Tishman Environment and Design Center, New York, United States
a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t
Available online xxx Socio-technical systems are composed of everyday practices that
are forged as they are performed in specific places. Transitioning
Keywords: these systems toward sustainability involves changing the practices
Food systems that constitute and reproduce them. This is true of the food system,
New York City which is enacted by the performance of activities, from food pro-
Social practice theory duction to disposal, in specific communities. Cities shape, support
Transitions and normalize food practices, and in the process play an important
Urban policy role in transitioning the wider food system. The practice of shopping
at farmers markets in NYC by recipients of federal food benefits
illustrates how this and related practices are initiated, encour-
aged, coordinated, and enacted, and how corresponding shifts in
the meanings, competences and material elements comprising a
practice influence the food system. Based on this case, the paper
suggests opportunities for cities to engage in what we call strategic
practice management to support shifts toward sustainable prac-
tices, and thus sustainable socio-technical systems.
© 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction
Advancing ecological and social equity goals requires a global scale societal transition, and cities1
are key to this transition. Cities are responsible for ecological decline and yet are sources of envi-
ronmental innovation, from climate change mitigation to ecological landscape designs (Rees and
∗ Corresponding author. Tel.: +1 646 664 8340.

E-mail address: nevin.cohen@sph.cuny.edu (N. Cohen).
1
In this paper “cities” refers both to specific municipal jurisdictions as well as to larger urbanized areas.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.eist.2015.01.003
2210-4224/© 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Please cite this article in press as: Cohen, N., Ilieva, R.T., Transitioning the food system: A
strategic practice management approach for cities. Environ. Innovation Soc. Transitions (2015),
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2 N. Cohen, R.T. Ilieva / Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions xxx (2015) xxx–xxx
Wackernagel, 1996). National policy gridlock and the devolution of policy to localities have made
cities increasingly proactive about environmental and social justice issues (Katz and Bradley, 2013).
Key questions are what roles they can play – particularly which levers they can use to stimulate change
and how they can steer change over time.
The emerging field of sustainability transitions offers pathways to solve this theoretical puzzle,
each pointing to different tools at the city scale. Of particular interest are two competing yet overlap-
ping frameworks, the multi-level perspective (MLP) on transitions (Geels, 2002) and social practice
theory2 (SPT) (Schatzki, 1996; Reckwitz, 2002; Shove et al., 2012). While the first targets inefficient
socio-technical systems organized around the production of a specific artifact or service (e.g., energy,
food, water, transportation), the second targets systems of practices fulfilling everyday needs, such
as showering, shopping, or commuting (Guy and Shove, 2000; Shove, 2004; Shove and Walker, 2010;
Watson, 2012). Cities are where both physical infrastructure and everyday practices coexist, along with
multiple levers for change, from research, financing, media coverage, and cultural innovation to policy
development and planning. Therefore, advancing sustainability transitions at the urban scale requires
cities to develop management competences with respect to socio-technical systems and everyday
practices.
While some research has examined the relationship between socio-technical systems and practice
(Shove, 2004; McMeekin and Southerton, 2012; Spaargaren et al., 2012; Watson, 2012; Cohen et al.,
2013; Hargreaves et al., 2013) and between cities and socio-technical transitions (Hodson and Marvin,
2010; Bulkeley et al., 2011a,b; Hodson et al., 2012; Dodson, 2013; Geels, 2011), scholars have insuffi-
ciently explored the role of cities in driving transitions through changes in everyday practices (Shove
and Walker, 2010; Shove et al., 2013). This is a critical gap in transitions research because everyday
practices contribute to the environmental impacts of cities (Guy and Shove, 2000; Shove, 2003) and
socio-technical systems change through changes in practices (Shove et al., 2012; Watson, 2012). Estab-
lishing the link between cities and practices, the aim of this paper, illustrates how cities can change
systems like food through changes to food practices.
To use practice theory in the context of cities, and address criticisms of its focus on the micro-scale
and insufficient attention to broader phenomena such as inequalities and resource disparities, we
build on insights from research on the geography of sustainability transitions (Lawhon and Murphy,
2011; Coenen et al., 2012; Truffer and Coenen, 2012), and draw from the work of scholars who have
emphasized the importance of taking power and space into account when considering practices (Jones
and Murphy, 2010). We also clarify that everyday practices and socio-technical systems are connected
through systems of practice that have geographical dimensions (Watson, 2012). Doing so allows us to
show how changes in everyday practices and in socio-technical systems co-determine one another,
and enables us to identify the role of cities in the process.
We focus on food system transitions because major challenges to the food system seen in the
Global South, such as food insecurity and malnutrition, are now faced by cities of the Global North
(Morgan and Sonnino, 2010). Local efforts to achieve food system change offer fertile ground for inves-
tigating the relationship among cities, social practice, and socio-technical transitions. We present a
case from New York City, a leader in urban food policy, to illustrate how the city has influenced the
reestablishment and expansion of the practice of shopping for food at farmers markets by low-income
residents, who depend on federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits to pur-
chase food. The seemingly mundane practice of food shopping actually has significant and diverse
social, environmental, and economic impacts. Buying food at a farmers market is a particularly interest-
ing shopping practice because it is a bundle of integrated routines (shopping, socializing, exchanging
information, engaging in community activities) that occur at specific sites and involve embedded
exchanges between buyers and sellers that differ from those occurring in large food retailer establish-
ments (Hinrichs, 2000). The case shows that in New York City, changes to the practice were not merely
the result of new technology or a happenstance evolution of behaviors, but were in fact managed, with
2
Even though “there is no unified practice approach” (Schatzki, 2001, p. 11) but only a set of basic precepts that practice
theorists tend to agree upon, in this paper we refer to “practice theory” rather than “theories of practice” as we draw mostly on
the perspective developed by Shove (2004) and Shove et al. (2012).
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N. Cohen, R.T. Ilieva / Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions xxx (2015) xxx–xxx 3
significant intervention at the municipal level by both governmental and non-governmental actors. It
also illustrates why uneven geographies of power, reflected in disparities in wealth and the irregular
spatial distribution of the elements of practices, namely the dearth of conventional retailers of healthy,
fresh food in low-income neighborhoods, and the diversity of the practitioners themselves matter in
transitioning practices to improve environmental and social equity outcomes.
In the next section we introduce socio-technical transitions, everyday practices and systems of
practice. Section 3 briefly summarizes our research methods. Section 4 presents the case, illustrat-
ing how reassembling the elements of the practice led to its reestablishment and growth. Section 5
combines our findings with insights from practice theory and the field of sustainability transitions
and suggests directions for strategic practice management at the urban scale. Section 6 discusses the
implications for future research.
2. The role of cities in transitions: a practice-based perspective
Research to connect cities to transitions has focused on the roles of cities in supporting radical
technological innovations, yet has tended to neglect their potential for remaking everyday practices
that, despite their ordinary nature, create significant environmental and social impacts. Understand-
ing the role of cities in transitions through the lens of social practice is essential not only because
such practices have large consequences, but also because cities influence practices and their spatial
distribution, and thus the distribution of their impacts. In the following paragraphs we introduce the
components of a practice-based perspective for the study of urban transitions, drawing on theories of
social practice and their intersection with geography.
2.1. Socio-technical transitions to sustainability
A socio-technical transition is a non-linear process that leads to radical transformation of soci-

ety by altering its material and nonmaterial components (Martens and Rotmans, 2005; Geels and
Schot, 2010). Transitions unfold through the coevolution of technologies, user practices, regulations,
governance networks, belief systems, and research agendas (Geels, 2006a,b), which can replace or
reconfigure socio-technical systems. The complexity and uncertainty of a transition makes it diffi-
cult, if not impossible, to deliberately engineer. Yet, solving global environmental crises requires the
design and management of socio-technical transitions, making it important to understand why and
how transitions occur.
Theoretical frameworks rooted in science and technology studies and system innovation, such as
the multi-level perspective (MLP) on transitions (Geels, 2002), help interpret the dynamics of transi-
tion through the interplay among distinct levels of socio-technical systems with different degrees of
stability (innovative niches, dominant regimes, and macro-level landscape pressures). Alternatively,
frameworks from sociology and social practice theory (SPT) (Shove, 2004; Shove et al., 2012) focus
our attention on the interplay among social practices, and their constitutive elements, which nor-
malize or reshape systems in everyday life. The focus on different sources of system innovation (e.g.,
semi-protected niches from the MLP perspective versus ordinary practices from the SPT perspective),
has resulted in different tactics for transitioning socio-technical systems to sustainability. Among the
approaches based on the MLP are strategic niche management (Kemp et al., 1998, 2001; Schot and
Geels, 2008), transition management (Loorbach and Rotmans, 2006; Loorbach, 2010), and conceptual
niche management (Hegger et al., 2007), all designed to generate, support, and scale innovations. SPT,
in contrast, suggests that an emphasis on practices rather individual behaviors or technologies, can
lead to more effective sustainability policies (Shove et al., 2012). However, techniques for steering
transitions through practice have yet to be developed.
Furthermore, the literature on both the MLP (Markard et al., 2012; Raven et al., 2012) and SPT has
paid insufficient attention to the urban scale, and thus has offered limited insight into how cities have
influenced socio-technical transition processes. While some scholars have made connections between
the MLP framework and cities (Hodson and Marvin, 2010, 2011; Bulkeley et al., 2011b; Geels, 2011;
Carvalho et al., 2012; Næss and Vogel, 2012), the links between cities and SPT have remained mostly
implicit. Given that cities concentrate patterns of unsustainable consumption practices, and social
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practice-based perspectives are better at accounting for the dynamics of consumption in transitions
than the MLP (McMeekin and Southerton, 2012), this is a significant research gap. Addressing the gap
is not straightforward, however. A limited sensitivity to dimensions of power, institutions, and space
(Peck, 2005; Sunley, 2008) and difficulty in relating to higher-order phenomena such as race, class,
and culture (Sunley, 2008) suggest that SPT might be irrelevant to studying socio-technical systems at
the urban scale. Nevertheless, we agree with Jones and Murphy (2010) and Watson (2012) that these
limitations are not insurmountable, and that focusing on practices can help scholars analyze the role
of cities in socio-technical transitions and enable policymakers and activists to steer socio-technical
change.
2.2. Defining practices
Practices are simply the things people do to achieve various goals in life. They consist of three
practice elements: meanings (e.g., cultural understandings, ideologies, goals); material items (e.g.,
technologies, infrastructure); and competences (i.e., knowledge of how to do things) (Reckwitz, 2002;
Shove, 2003). Practices may exist as discrete actions, but typically are part of interconnected bundles
of practices (Schatzki, 2002, 2011). Society determines and reinforces the selection and integration
of the elements that comprise practices through shared understandings of “normality,” or what is
considered the ordinary and appropriate way of doing things (Shove, 2004).
Besides meanings, materials, and competences, practices are also shaped by the dimensions of
place, power and time (Jones and Murphy, 2010; Birtchnell, 2012). As Barnes (2001, p. 28) explains, to
“talk of practices is to talk of powers” and “to engage in a practice is to exercise a power.” This is true
of even the most mundane practices: driving instead of using public transportation, doing laundry at
home rather than in laundromats, or buying specialty foods rather than fast-food are examples of how
power and privilege, place and time all influence practices. Even the most widespread practices are
geographically distinct, as those who perform them carry meanings and knowledge based on where
they are performed, which usually are outcomes of local habits, culture, and the dominant values and
aspirations of particular places. Time matters too, because practices themselves have a time dimension
(e.g., cooking vs. heating up frozen meals) and are performed at specific moments when their elements
coexist, and also depend on the timing of the bundled practices to which they are connected.
Everyday practices, which are ordinary, ubiquitous, and largely habitual, like commuting, show-
ering, shopping, eating, and other routines, are a subset of social practices. Though often taken for
granted because of their ordinariness, such practices are integral to sustainability transitions, both
for their aggregate impact and their connection to many other practices that also affect sustainability.
Alternative everyday practices (e.g., drinking tap instead of bottled water) have very different environ-
mental and social consequences and when normalized have large-scale aggregate effects. Moreover,
unlike practices that depend on expertise or privilege (e.g., a CEO negotiating a merger), everyday
practices span social strata, suggesting broader agency to initiate transitions (with the caveat that
the meanings, knowledge and material elements of practices are determined by disparate expertise,
economic or political power, and material conditions).
This paper focuses on the everyday practice of shopping for food. Though a common and regular
practice, food shopping is composed of a complex bundle of practices: identifying food needs; deciding
how to acquire food; traveling to markets; selecting food; completing transactions; and transporting
food to a final destination. The material elements involved, beyond the food itself, range from financial
resources to transportation, food distribution facilities, the technologies to make purchases, and the
equipment to keep food fresh and safe along the supply chain. The performance of food shopping
is also determined by multiple meanings and competences, such as the knowledge of availability
and pricing at retailers, food preparation skills, cultural beliefs and aspirations, physical (bodily) sen-
sations like hunger and taste, travel patterns (Kerr et al., 2012) and perceptions of distance (Caspi
et al., 2012). Shopping performances in turn shape the spaces in which the practice of shopping takes
place, distinguishing big box retailers, corner stores, and farmers markets. Higher-order variables such
as socioeconomic status and the geography of the food environment (Blitstein et al., 2012) are also
important.
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Because of differences in meanings, materials, and competences, and disparate socioeconomic sta-
tus, food shopping practices are unevenly distributed. The literature on so-called food deserts (e.g.,
Wrigley et al., 2003; Short et al., 2007; Raja et al., 2008; Treuhaft and Karpyn, 2010) focuses attention
on the dearth of fresh food retailers in low income communities in the U.K. and North America, though
the variables leading to disparate food access and food insecurity are more complex than the physical
location of supermarkets. Thus, while urban dwellers of all income levels practice food shopping, those
of limited financial means must engage in different types of practices than those of higher income con-
sumers to purchase food of any kind, let alone healthy, fresh, affordable food. Because of structural
injustices, many low income consumers must shop at small corner stores selling mostly processed
foods at high prices, travel long distances to shop at supermarkets, grow their own food, and rely on
food pantries.
2.3. Changing practices
Efforts by policymakers to encourage beneficial behaviors are largely aimed at altering individual
actions based on theories that attitudes (e.g., price elasticity, risk perception, status) drive behaviors
that are choices of individuals (Shove, 2012, p. 2). This individualistic approach focuses on methods
such as education, social marketing, market-shifting policies, or regulation. In contrast, a practice
approach encouraging beneficial behaviors places the performance of practices themselves, rather
than individual behaviors (or technologies or discourses), at the center of analysis. It does not ignore
the effects of policies like efficiency standards, warning labels, marketing campaigns, or taxes to influ-
ence individual behaviors, but rather analyzes the performance of the underlying practices that these
interventions intend to change. For example, while increasing the price of water decreases house-
hold water consumption, a practice approach would also consider the influences of material elements
(home design, homeowner association and zoning rules, plumbing systems and building codes), mean-
ings (standards of cleanliness, and various cultural practices that shape water use), and competences
(information on water consumption and methods to reduce water use). A practice approach also
focuses on how bundles of related practices (e.g., the relationship between the practice of bicycle
commuting and the practice of showering more than once daily) organize the mix of practices that
constitute everyday life.
Changes in practice occur due to changes in practice elements (meanings, competences and mate-
rials) (Shove et al., 2012). The human and nonhuman actants, or “carriers” to use Shove’s term, that
perform a practice also determine how practices evolve and become established in specific socio-
spatial settings, as carriers are recruited to engage in new practices or defect from existing ones. In
addition, because practices are bundled, they change as related practices change. Changes in food
shopping, for example, are interconnected with practices such as mobility and food preparation, and
are shaped by how practice performances follow one another in established “circuits of reproduction”
(Shove et al., 2012).3
The accumulation of new practices, if normalized and thus stabilized, can also shift practices,
although their durability depends on the degree to which constituent elements are in place (Watson,
2012, p. 490; Jones and Murphy, 2010). Some places are more resistant or conducive to changes in
practice because of underlying social, economic, and political structures (Martin, 2001, p. 79). In fact,
while practices may diffuse widely, they do not diffuse equally, but rather happen in particular places
and at particular moments because the elements that constitute practices vary by place and time, based
on different degrees of power and resources. As social practices vary spatially, so do socio-technical
transitions.
Cities are the spaces in which large bundles of practices are carried out and are the jurisdictions
which constrain, enable, and normalize practices. Local policies and programs can affect the diffusion
and adoption of material elements, provide economic cues to practitioners, and shape our cultural
understanding and knowledge of practices. The scale, nature, rate, and stability of changes in practice
3
The concept builds on and extends the notion of “reproduction circuit” (Giddens, 1984) emphasizing feedback loops that
shape practices.
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are also determined by the performances of practitioners themselves, who interact with each other
in particular streets, neighborhoods, the city as a whole, and virtual spaces and in the context of
rules, conventions, and related practices that are unique to place. The performances of these changed
practices in urban places in turn reshape the socio-technical systems of which they are a part.
2.4. Socio-technical systems as systems of practice
Taking social practices, rather than the broader sectoral components of a system, as the unit of
transition leads to the proposition that it is possible to change socio-technical systems if the practices
that comprise those systems change and become part of “the routines and rhythms of life” (Watson,
2012, p. 489). Small changes to practice may not be significant enough to lead to a transition in larger
socio-technical systems. Over time, however, a deviation in practice (Pascale et al., 2010) can become
more prevalent and transform bundled practices, stabilizing and becoming the new normal. Analyz-
ing socio-technical systems as complexes of practice thus allows scholars and policymakers to more
systematically trace the pathways through which micro-decisions bring about macro-outcomes, and
vice versa.
Even though cities are embedded in a globalized food system, a practice-based perspective sheds
light on a distinct bundle of urban food practices: urban farming and manufacturing; food services,
from retail sales to institutional catering to composting; food purchasing, preparation, and consump-
tion by individuals, businesses, and government; regulation and administration of food distribution
and sales by city agencies; and policymaking and advocacy by government, NGOs, activists and busi-
nesses. In addition, these food practices are interconnected with other municipal and individual
practices, spanning multiple socio-technical systems, from housing and community development to
transportation, health, waste management and environmental protection.
3. Methods
The next section presents an explanatory case of the interventions that have changed an important
food practice in New York City: shopping for food at farmers markets using federal food subsidies. A
single case study provides information about the complex causal links associated with this practice,
illustrates the context of interventions in the practice, and demonstrates the consistency between
practice theory and the details of the case (Yin, 1994). It moreover helps approach the challenging task
of explaining how a complex social phenomenon such as a transition in social practices works. The
case was based on secondary data, including government documents and published reports that have
extensively tracked and evaluated this practice over time. In addition, the lead author has participated
in food policy and planning processes in New York City that have examined and proposed interventions
in the use of federal benefits at farmers markets.
To investigate the roles cities play in transitions, we advanced the proposition that cities shape,
support and normalize social practices, and in the process play an important role in transitioning wider
socio-technical systems. To empirically investigate this proposition we selected a case of an urban food
practice in transition, shopping with federal benefits at farmers markets, and gathered data about how
the practice transitioned from one state to another, why it transitioned this way, and what role the City
of New York played in the process. To construct our explanation we mapped the data about the causes
of the transition of the practice, and changes in meanings, materials, and competences, to understand
and explain how the practice evolved. To explain the role of the city in the evolution of the practice,
based on the data collected, we considered tentative explanations and validated them against plausible
rivals. We used the insights gained from the analysis to formulate preliminary generalizations, which
led to what we termed a “strategic practice management” approach (see Section 5).
4. The practice of using SNAP benefits at farmers markets
Acquiring food is one of the most fundamental practices for humans (and all other species). In the
U.S., lower income consumers have more difficulty and complexity shopping for food than people
with higher incomes because, among many factors, incomes may be inadequate to purchase enough
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or sufficiently nutritious food, low-income communities lack large grocers, which limits the availabil-
ity of affordable, healthy food, the quality of food sold in low-income communities may be poor, and
limited transportation and time may restrict consumers. Individuals of very limited means use various
strategies to acquire adequate and sufficient food, including applying for, receiving, and spending gov-
ernment benefits such as those provided by the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP).4
The practice of using SNAP benefits is particularly important for cities like New York, where approx-
imately 1.8 million of its 8.3 million residents depend on more than USD 3 billion in SNAP benefits
annually.
This case illustrates the role of municipal government and NGOs in re-assembling and normalizing
the practice of using SNAP benefits at farmers markets after the practice was disrupted by a policy
change that switched the program from paper coupons to an electronic benefits transfer (EBT) system.
Because farmers markets lacked the EBT technology, the change in policy effectively inhibited low-
income shoppers from frequenting farmers markets because they were not able to use their federal
benefits. By 2001, however, three farmers markets in New York City acquired the needed equipment
to process EBT transactions, and by 2014, 132 of the city’s 141 farmers markets (94%) offered the EBT
service (NYC DOHMH, 2014) and SNAP annual sales grew from about USD 26,000 in 2006 to USD
1,113,893 in 2013 (NYC Food Policy Center, 2013). Moreover, the spatial distribution of the practice of
shopping with SNAP and other federal food benefits also underwent a significant transition. While in
2005 only one third of New York City’s farmers markets were located in low-income neighborhoods,
today more than half are in low-income neighborhoods, 91% of which accept SNAP benefits (Baronberg
and Aycock, 2013). The following section outlines how changes in the practice’s meanings, materials,
and competences have set the practice of shopping at farmers markets with SNAP subsidies on the
path to becoming a normal activity in New York City.
4.1. Shopping at farmers markets
Although direct sales from food producers to consumers is a traditional form of food distribution
practiced worldwide, since the 1950s direct sales have diminished significantly in the Global North,
particularly in the U.S., as supply chains have lengthened and globalized, and food retailers have con-
solidated. In the U.S., for example, direct-to-consumer sales of food account for only about 0.3 percent
of total farm sales (Low and Vogel, 2011). In recent years, however, there has been rapid growth in
direct sales (albeit from a small base) as agricultural agencies, state and city officials, and advocates
of alternative food supply chains have supported farmers markets and other direct channels. To poli-
cymakers and advocates, farmers markets produce multifunctional benefits: improving regional farm
profits; increasing access to fresh food; supporting job training and community development; ener-
gizing urban streets; and fostering social learning (Hinrichs et al., 2004; Gillespie et al., 2007; Francis
and Griffith, 2011; Young et al., 2011; Oberholtzer et al., 2012). Although as distribution channels they
can be more carbon intensive than conventional supply chains (Coley et al., 2009) and there is nothing
inherently sustainable about local food (Born and Purcell, 2006), the benefits of farmers markets are
often considered to outweigh their inefficiencies.
Over the past several decades, farmers markets in the U.S. have largely been the domain of white
upper middle class shoppers (Guthman, 2008). In recent times, however, their meaning has begun to
change. In New York City, for example, this new perspective is reflected in the quantity and variety of
Greenmarkets,5 Youth Markets and other types of farmers markets that have opened in urban areas
lacking adequate fresh food retailers. The meaning, physical presence of the markets, and knowledge
of their value have changed, as has the diversity of people shopping in them. Nevertheless, though
more than half of all farmers markets are located in high or very high poverty neighborhoods (City of
New York, 2013, p. 14), market operators, farmers, activists and government officials still struggle to
4
SNAP is one of several government programs to help low-income people buy food. Others include Fruit and Vegetable
Checks (FVC) from the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC); Senior Farmers’ Market
Nutrition Program (FMNP) coupons; and WIC FMNP coupons.
5
Greenmarkets are the name of farmers markets run by the NGO GrowNYC and are part of the largest network of farmers
markets in New York City. However, other NGOs and individual farms run markets outside the Greenmarket system.
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ensure that people of limited financial means, who depend on SNAP and other federal food subsidies,
can shop at these markets. This challenge is common to cities nationwide.
The rapid growth of farmers markets in North America over the past two decades illustrates the
opportunities and challenges of shifting food buying practices back from retailers to direct marketing
or similar shortened food supply chains.6 In New York City this re-emergence has been particularly
pronounced, with the number of farmers markets growing from 80 in 2006 (New York State, 2012)
to 141 in 2014 (NYC DOHMH, 2014). In addition, the practice of shopping at farmers markets itself
has evolved from a novelty (the first Greenmarket was established in the late 1970s) to the kind of
alternative everyday activity that New Yorkers now take for granted.
4.2. Disruption of the use of SNAP benefits at farmers markets
The U.S. government began providing paper coupons, known as “food stamps,” in 1939 to subsidize
the food purchases of low-income Americans. Since then, the food stamp program has been renamed
the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) to reflect a shift from paper to electronic
scrip and to emphasize the program’s role in promoting healthy nutrition (Dean and Rosenbaum,
2013). SNAP has become one of the nation’s most significant entitlement programs, accounting for
more than one-tenth of all spending for food eaten at home (Wilde, 2012), and along with other
nutrition programs, amounting to nearly 80% of the USD 75 billion 2011 federal agricultural budget
(Long et al., 2014). Even in comparatively wealthy cities like New York, SNAP is an essential benefit
for approximately 20% of the population.
The switch from paper coupons to electronic benefits transfer (EBT) cards in the 1980s (Humphrey,
1996; Wilks, 2014) abruptly disrupted the practice of using the funds at farmers markets. Federal law
in 1990 required U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to transition the entire SNAP system to EBT,
and in 1996 mandated that states implement EBT technology. Since the EBT system uses proprietary,
dedicated card readers, by October 1, 2002, the practice of using SNAP was effectively halted at farmers
markets nationwide. Bricks and mortar grocers were able to install the required devices, and since
most SNAP beneficiaries shop at grocers, the technology shift did not prevent SNAP beneficiaries
from buying food, which was the primary concern of policymakers. Yet it had a dramatic effect on
farmers markets, and the SNAP beneficiaries who shopped at them, because the markets lacked the
necessary landline telephone connections and electricity to support the EBT equipment. As a result, for
consumers dependent on SNAP, the inability to use their benefits at farmers markets made shopping
at the markets financially impossible.
The spatially uneven disruption of the practice illustrates how place and power (Jones and Murphy,
2010; Coenen et al., 2012) critically mediate and shape transition processes. Farmers markets and gro-
cers (e.g., supermarkets, corner stores, bodegas) are profoundly different places not only because of
their physical layouts but also because they result from starkly different bundles of social practices,
performed by differently empowered practitioners. Farmers markets are less stable, highly flexi-
ble spaces linked to small-scale farming, short distribution chains, healthy eating and sustainable
post-consumption practices like composting. In some communities they also serve as political spaces
designed to raise awareness of social justice issues (Reynolds and Cohen, forthcoming; Alkon, 2008).
In temperate climates like New York they are constrained by seasonality, and their use of public land
limits the days and hours of operation, yet they offer urban consumers access to products with unique
characteristics and closer relationships to producers, qualities that bricks and mortar stores rarely
provide. Compared to big supermarket chains with stabilized practices, long value chains, and fixed
infrastructures, or even corner stores that offer convenience, if not quality food and low prices, farmers
markets were less able to adapt to new technology and the shifts in practice required for customers
to shop for food with federal benefits.
When New York State switched to EBT in 2000, the loss of affordable access to farmers markets and
lost SNAP revenue for farmers prompted two state agencies and an association of farmers markets to
work on reconstituting the program. From 2001 to 2004, they introduced wireless, battery-operated
6
In the period 1994–2013 the number of farmers markets in the U.S. grew from 1755 to 8144 (USDA, 2014, p. 4).
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EBT terminals at farmers markets across New York State, providing 24 machines to New York City’s
Greenmarkets. As the number of farmers markets was simultaneously expanding rapidly, the percent-
age of markets with the technology remained small, raising questions about the program’s scale and
equity. Furthermore, the wireless technology was slow, and given the bustle of the outdoor markets
the transaction process was cumbersome, hindering sales. Moreover, because the USDA required a
dedicated EBT terminal, not just any credit card reader, the equipment was excessively costly (about
USD 1400) for farmers and market operators. Adding to the cost and logistical obstacles was the lack
of familiarity with the terminals and fears of theft (Briggs et al., 2010, p. 30). Once SNAP customers
had “defected” from the practice when they could no longer use paper food stamps, it took substantial
effort to re-enlist them by communicating that at least some markets accepted their SNAP benefits
(ibid.), as marketing funds were limited (GrowNYC, 2011).
4.3. Re-establishing the practice
Re-establishing the practice of shopping with SNAP at farmers markets and re-enrolling practition-
ers required changes to its material dimensions, meanings and competences. The primary motivation
of government and NGOs was to address geographically disparate access to healthy food and result-
ing diet-related health problems, while also supporting regional agriculture. To consumers, demand
for fresh, healthy food combined with financial incentives led to increasing patronage of the mar-
kets. These changes were implemented by USDA, local government, and non-profit organizations, and
through the performances of the practice by individual shoppers.
4.3.1. Re-establishing material elements

The EBT card reader was an essential material element for SNAP customers to shop at farmers
markets. By 2005, GrowNYC, a quasi-governmental organization in charge of New York City’s Green-
markets, partnered with New York State Department of Agriculture and Markets, an agency charged
with supporting New York agriculture, to pilot an innovative EBT practice at three markets to over-
come the cost and logistics of making individual farmers responsible for owning their own wireless
terminals. GrowNYC installed a central EBT terminal operated by market staff so that SNAP benefi-
ciaries could deduct funds from their SNAP accounts at one location, and receive credit (in the form
of tokens) to spend at individual vendors throughout the market. At the end of the day, the farmers
would redeem the tokens for cash from GrowNYC, which then submitted the day’s transactions to the
USDA for reimbursement. Despite being cumbersome, the practice minimized equipment needs and
reduced burdens on the farmers, while enabling SNAP recipients to redeem their federal benefits for
fresh food.
By 2006, New York City government became more involved in supporting the practice by adopt-
ing policies that involved NGOs, customers, farmers, market operators, EBT technology, and the
administrative practices underlying the reimbursement process. One of these policies was financing
centralized EBT terminals at six additional Greenmarkets, and another was the expansion and mar-
keting of a pilot program (launched in 2005) called Health Bucks, which provides a 2 dollar coupon for
each 5 dollars spent with SNAP funds at farmers markets. The addition of more EBT terminals expanded
the practice, while Health Bucks enrolled more practitioners and increased spending by increasing the
SNAP beneficiaries’ buying power (see Fig. 1). Since 2007, the city has funded additional initiatives to
support the use of federal food subsidies at farmers markets: advertising campaigns; funds for an EBT
project manager for GrowNYC; spending USD 1.69 million to purchase card readers for Greenmarkets
(The New York City Council, 2013a); buying EBT equipment for GrowNYC’s 15 Youthmarkets, which
train young people to run farmers markets; funding EBT technology in the city’s Green Cart program,
a network of more than 500 mobile produce carts in communities lacking adequate food retail; and
physically expanding farmers markets in low-income communities by providing land, eliminating
permitting fees, and funding the NGO Just Food to open farmers markets at community gardens (City
of New York, 2013).
As a result of these initiatives, the number of markets that accept EBT rose from 15 (20% of the
total markets) in 2006 to 121 (88% of total) in 2012 (City of New York, 2013). These combined policies
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Fig. 1. Increase in SNAP sales at New York City’s farmers markets for the period 2006–2012.
Source: The New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, Farmers Markets Report (2012).
caused the annual SNAP sales at farmers markets to grow from USD 26,000 in 2006 to USD 974,000 in
2012 (ibid.).
4.3.2. Evolving meanings about food access

In the early 2000s, the meanings associated with using federal benefits to shop at farmers markets
were quite different than today. The geography of urban food as expressed through community food
security, food access, and food justice frameworks were just beginning to become salient as researchers
began mapping the availability and quality of food in cities. The food system was still a “stranger” to
urban planning (Pothukuchi and Kaufman, 2000) with few municipal governments prioritizing policies
to support healthier food environments. Although farmers markets were considered valuable urban
amenities, and food activists touted their value, they were not part of dominant narratives about health,
sustainable foodsheds, or social justice, and they were not considered important supply channels for
fresh produce. The markets were not entirely invisible, but they were not central to city officials, as
illustrated by the fact that 2006 was the first year that New York City even inventoried its farmers
markets (City of New York, 2013).
Over the past decade, however, meanings about access to healthy food, food justice, and the value of
direct marketing of regionally produced food changed as a result of national and local efforts to address
diet-related health problems. The changed meanings have increased the visibility of and support for
programs to improve access to healthy food as well as support for direct marketing programs like
farmers markets. This shift has been the result of diverse factors: the Obama administration’s attention
to high national rates of overweight and obesity and its focus on reining in health care costs; First Lady
Michelle Obama’s emphasis on healthy food access, nutrition and exercise; the 2008 U.S. Farm Bill’s
funding of projects to encourage healthier eating; and the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of
2009’s USD 372 million in grants under its Communities Putting Prevention to Work (CPPW) program
for municipal initiatives to reduce obesity and diet related health problems. CPPW funding in particular
enabled cities like New York to engage in food systems planning, which led to an anti-obesity plan
(The NYC Obesity Task Force, 2012) that included policies to improve food access, including support
for farmers markets.
During this period, spatial analysis of food retail establishments and so-called food deserts also
focused policymakers’ attention on the impacts of disparate access to healthy food. SNAP partici-
pants live in communities that tend to have inadequate fresh food markets and thus low rates of fruit
and vegetable consumption, high rates of overweight and obesity, and diet-related health problems
(Kaushal, 2007; Zagorsky and Smith, 2009; DeBono et al., 2012). Levels of excessive weight and obe-
sity in New York City, where approximately 58% of adults and 40% of elementary school students are
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Fig. 2. Growth of farmers markets in high poverty zip codes in New York City for the period 2006–2012.
Source: The New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, Farmers Markets Report (2012).
overweight or obese, are significantly higher in African-American and Latino communities (City of
New York, 2012). The public costs are also significant: the city’s Medicaid program, which insures
low-income New Yorkers, spends USD 2.7 billion per year in diet-related health care costs that do not
include the economic costs of productivity losses due to morbidity (ibid). One strategy to address these
disparities has been the expansion of farmers markets and related nutrition education programming
at markets.
In New York City, cultural and political shifts have coincided with political support for reduc-
ing socioeconomic disparities, represented by Mayor de Blasio’s 2013 election platform of reducing
economic inequality. Grassroots organizations have been working to promote food justice and food
sovereignty, focusing on shortened supply chains. NGOs opened new farmers markets in low-income
communities (see Fig. 2), while urban farms and gardens have developed programs to teach about and
overcome social injustice (Cohen and Reynolds, 2014). These efforts have kept equal access to fresh
food high on the public policy agenda.
Municipal procurement practices have also been changed to encourage regional food purchases.
These and other programs are part of broader government, business and NGO initiatives to improve
the sustainability of the city’s food system, which has become a niche for innovative food practices
(Cohen et al., 2012) ranging from its 900 food-producing gardens and farms (Altman et al., 2014) to
rooftop farms to waste cooking oil recycling (Cohen and Ilieva, 2014). Such activities have altered the
material conditions of the food system and in doing so have both responded to changed meanings
about food and food justice and have shifted the political narrative about food by raising the salience
of equal access to healthy food, including through access to farmers markets, and by highlighting the
importance of sustaining regional agriculture by facilitating direct marketing of farm products. These
local efforts have been consistent with federal efforts to promote connections between consumers
and producers through USDA’s “Know your Farmer, Know your Food” program.
4.3.3. Improving competences

Reviving the practice of using SNAP benefits at farmers markets required a number of new compe-
tences on the part of market staff, farmers, and SNAP recipients. Market managers and farmers needed
to understand how to design and operate a system of EBT reimbursements that enables a market to
have only one machine servicing many farmers. The program design, including accounting support
to ensure proper reimbursement by USDA, was facilitated by GrowNYC, and was based on similar
programs in other cities. And because many SNAP recipients stopped shopping at farmers markets
after the switch from paper to EBT, a public information campaign was needed to alert recipients that
they were again able to use SNAP benefits at the markets. Encouraging recipients of SNAP benefits to
shop at farmers markets required support for related competences, including cooking skills, especially
knowledge about the preparation of food from fresh vegetables and fruits, some varieties of which
were not common in neighborhood grocery stores.
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4.4. Impacts of practice change
The city has played an important role in challenging the asymmetrical geography of the practice
of shopping with SNAP benefits, which shifted from the domain of supermarkets and corner stores to
various fresh food outlets, including farmers markets, mobile food carts, and other shortened distri-
bution channels such as community supported agriculture projects. Given that most SNAP recipients
live in neighborhoods lacking adequate access to fresh fruits and vegetables, this change represents a
step toward a just and healthier food system. SNAP redemption at farmers markets remains a small
percentage of overall SNAP spending, yet in some farmers markets more than 65% of revenues come
from low-income shoppers using their EBT benefits (The NYC Council, 2013b, p. 4).
Although the numbers of shoppers at farmers markets remains small, increased SNAP and other
EBT sales at the markets have begun to improve the diets of those who do shop there. One survey of
EBT customers at eight farmers markets found that nearly 75% reported increasing their consumption
of fresh fruits and vegetables as a result of shopping at a market (GrowNYC, 2011). Rather than the
absolute quantity of fruits and vegetables purchased at the markets, the significance of this shift is
the potential for a change in shopping practices, bundled with changes in interdependent practices, to
lead to broader shifts to healthier food consumption. Nutrition will improve if low-income shoppers,
who are the New Yorkers most affected by diet-related diseases (Shigley, 2009), begin to use SNAP
benefits as a common means to purchase fresh produce within and beyond farmers markets. Perhaps
more significantly, this reestablished food shopping practice conveys new meanings about the value
of healthier eating and builds new knowledge and skills of cooking, thus helping to stabilize new
patterns of food consumption.
Additionally, the EBT program counters the inaccurate perception that there is insufficient demand
for regional produce in low-income communities to sustain farmers markets in those neighborhoods.
It raises expectations for food access, food justice, and food sovereignty in communities with many
low-income residents. As a result of these changed expectations, current policy and related work of
NGOs and farmers aims to ensure that peri-urban and regional farmers have access to consumers of
all incomes, and that the practice of direct food sales is supported and promoted in all neighborhoods
regardless of income levels.
The city policies have also brought about expansion of material support from national government.
In 2012 the USDA authorized USD 4 million to expand wireless technology in markets (The NYC Council,
2013b, p. 4), and, on September 29, 2014, USDA announced the availability of USD 31.5 million for
community based projects to increase the purchase of fruits and vegetables by SNAP recipients through
point of purchase incentives and more efficient EBT redemption technologies.7
At the systems level, New York City’s farmers market sales when recirculated in the economy have
yielded an estimated USD 4.25 million in regional economic activity, a small percentage of the food
economy yet a critical infusion of resources for local food producers and their communities. A potential
benefit of directing SNAP dollars to regional farmers is to increase their financial stability, enabling
the city to benefit from regional ecosystem services and vibrant peri-urban communities. Although
it is still unclear to what extent the increase in EBT sales is being driven by increased numbers of
SNAP participants shopping at Greenmarkets, or to an increased frequency or volume of shopping,
larger sales in under-served communities suggests that the practice has moved from being virtually
non-existent to being able to support robust farmers markets in low-income neighborhoods. On the
whole, the SNAP-EBT case illustrates how an everyday practice is driven by and can drive system-wide
change, with cities playing a key role.
5. A strategic practice management approach
The case shows that established norms and expectations shape policies and that new policies can
change or disrupt social practices. But the process is coevolutionary and, as changed practices diffuse,
7
National Institute of Food and Agriculture, http://www.nifa.usda.gov/newsroom/news/2014news/09291 FINI.html.
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recruit new practitioners, and become more stable and routinized, they in turn can foster or hin-
der new norms, practices and policies. In New York City, policies, changed meanings and materials,
and new competences increased the use of SNAP at farmers markets, which in turn supported addi-
tional practices (e.g., policy making, philanthropic grants, related activities like urban farming) that
facilitated the creation of additional markets in low-income communities and policies to supplement
SNAP benefits. The following sections discuss how cities can steer change in social practices more
systematically through a strategic practice management approach and therefore play a role in driving
socio-technical transitions.
5.1. Changing dominant understandings of normal practice
Using communication tools to change dominant understandings of practice is an important task of

strategic practice management. Cities and advocates can reshape our perceptions of normal practice
by illustrating uneven geographies of practice and the effects of unsustainable systems of practice (cf.
Jones and Murphy, 2010; Geels, 2006a,b).
In our case, the discontinuation of food stamps at farmers markets reflected the perception that
because SNAP dollars are normally spent at grocers, and farmers markets serve urban elites, the dis-
ruption of the practice would be minor compared to the efficiency, fraud, and other policy benefits
of EBT. The negative reactions to this interruption by practitioners and advocates increased aware-
ness of the significance of farmers markets and the importance of access to all regardless of income.
Aligning this shift with broader political and cultural changes, including the growing salience of food
justice, equitable food access, and the need to reduce income disparities, led to the understanding that
shopping with SNAP benefits at farmers markets should not only be possible, but must become the
norm. The desire to normalize farmers markets in low-income communities was reinforced by “food
deserts” maps and their juxtaposition with health data and SNAP eligibility. This in turn prompted
demands for new practice elements (wireless devices, new farmers markets, cooking lessons at mar-
kets, information campaigns, subsidies) to reintegrate and normalize the practice in the everyday lives
of people with limited incomes.
5.2. Choosing practices strategically
The understanding that everything is made of practices risks being unhelpful for the design of large-
scale change (cf. Jones and Murphy, 2010, p. 385). To be meaningful for researchers and policymakers,
a strategic practice management approach involves establishing criteria to identify practices that
have the greatest potential effects. Transitioning systems of practice strategically requires selecting
the practices that matter the most, the elements that can reshape practices most effectively, and
the related practices that can best support (or trigger) change. Moreover, it requires considering the
relations of power, and winners and losers in the process of changing practices. As geographies of
practice matter, altering practices strategically also means taking into account where new practice
elements are accessible and the people with whom the practices resonate. In addition, the elements
of more ecological and equitable practices must be in place and the alternatives must be preferable,
not merely possible. In our case, changes to the EBT system and market growth made shopping for
fresh, healthy food more feasible for low-income residents, while Health Bucks increased the value of
SNAP benefits when redeemed at farmers markets.
The case study suggests at least four criteria to prioritize practices. First, the practice should be
clearly related to broader socio-technical system impacts. In our case, shopping for food bridged two
“integrative practices” (Schatzki, 1996; Warde, 2005), cooking and farming, offering a strategic entry
point to influence public health and regional agriculture, two broad goals of food policy (Lang, 2009).
Second, practitioners have to perceive the alternative practices as beneficial to themselves as well
as society, which is illustrated by the growth in SNAP redemptions at NYC farmers markets. Third,
strategic practice management should focus on practices that are amenable to change (recognizing that
some easily changed practices may have limited impacts). Fourth, the case suggested that visions of
new normals that are aligned with political priorities may facilitate policymaking that affects practice
elements.
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5.3. Targeting elements of practice
Practices change when their elements change and prioritizing the elements to change is an impor-
tant strategic step toward dismantling unsustainable practices. Depending on the practice, some
elements may have a greater effect on changing the practice at stake than others, though all ele-
ments must be managed simultaneously. Moreover, different actors within cities can influence each
practice element but are better positioned to influence some more than others, so it is important to
identify the practice elements that governments, NGOs, community based organizations, businesses,
and other stakeholders are best able to change. In reconfiguring the practice of shopping for food with
SNAP benefits, for example, the change in the materials and meanings that constituted the practice
were essential.
5.4. Targeting asymmetries in geographies of practice
Strategic practice management also requires ensuring equitable availability and access to the ele-
ments of practice. Policymakers can measure the geographic distribution of practices through their
“carriers” and thus identify disparities. For example, the case study showed that the uneven distribu-
tion of basic components of shopping (e.g., farmers markets, EBT terminals, fresh vegetables, cooking
skills, purchasing power, ideas about healthy eating, etc.) determined where and when the practice
was performed and by whom. Furthermore, the case showed how these inequalities are likely to be
held in place by higher-order forms of structural oppression, and reinforced by institutions governing
sectoral socio-technical regimes, such the food production and distribution businesses and public
agencies that have led to the abundance of cheap but unhealthy food. Additionally, fresh food retailers
have generally located in middle-class neighborhoods, bypassing low-income communities and SNAP
beneficiaries.
The coevolution of these mutually reinforcing practice patterns has led to the persistence of certain
kinds of food selection, food shopping, food preparation and eating practices in lower wealth commu-
nities, reproduced over multiple generations, resulting in negative public health externalities. Thus,
a vicious (unsustainable) circuit of reproduction of food system practices has been normalized and
replicated throughout the socio-technical system. If new practice elements are introduced without
attention to multi-scalar geographies of power and spatial unevenness, the new practices may enroll
few new practitioners, causing the transition effort to fail, or enroll unintended practitioners of higher
socioeconomic status, leading to gentrification and displacement.
5.5. Targeting related practices
Because practices are part of larger bundles of routinized activities, integrated in circuits of repro-
duction, understanding their interdependencies is another task for strategic practice management. In
the context of food, a range of new policymaking possibilities appears. The carriers of the practice in
our case were likely to be enmeshed in other unconventional urban food system practices (e.g., urban
agriculture, nutrition workshops, composting). As these bundles of new urban food practices become
a common part of city life, new competences (e.g., distinguishing “real” from unhealthy food, cooking
from scratch, knowing sources of fresh food) and meanings (healthy, just, nutritious, self-cultivated,
delicious, ecological) around food and the city are introduced. The process of normalizing the practice
of shopping with SNAP benefits at farmers markets was integral to other pre-existing food practice
innovations, which, like practice elements, influenced other practices in the bundle. Sorting out the
strongest candidates for related practices is therefore critical.
Policymakers, however, need not be restricted to selecting and changing everyday practices alone.
Changes in related professional practices, like planning and policymaking, can likewise affect the
practice at stake. The introduction of mapping practices in the departments of city planning and public
health to uncover disparities in food access and diet-related diseases, for example, played an important
role in increasing the urgency to connect SNAP participants to farmers markets. The integration of
new monitoring practices in public health policymaking (e.g., assessment of EBT sales at farmers
markets; comparative studies of markets with centralized and wireless EBT terminals; annual farmers
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market maps identifying EBT availability) to track how new policies (e.g., the Health Bucks program;
investment in centralized EBT terminals) have been influencing the practice also changed established
institutional routines. Relationships between practices matter too. For example, the new linkages
between New York State policymakers and farmers markets associations and between New York City
and the federal government (especially through the 2008 Farm Bill) substantially reconfigured the
bundle of institutional practices connected to shopping at farmers markets with SNAP and determined
its reassembling.
5.6. Tracking practice change
Policymakers and planners need to track practice innovations to steer and sustain a long-term
endeavor like the transition to a sustainable socio-technical system. Measurement is critical because
it helps practitioners compare current everyday practices to past, future, and alternative practices, and
thus decide whether the shift in practices is preferable (Shove et al., 2012). Cities need mechanisms
for mapping and tracking practices to drive transitions through innovations in practice and to develop
strategic practice management expertise. While practice theorists have shown how tracking shapes
practices at the individual level (Pantzar and Shove, 2005), we are less capable of gauging practice
performance at higher scales (i.e., city, region, or national).
Methods can include monitoring new practice outcomes (e.g., SNAP benefit redemption rates),
the changes in practice elements, and transformation of correlated practices, which may require
qualitative data on attitudes, meanings, motivations, but also on how opportunities to participate in
the practice are distributed spatially (e.g., EBT-equipped farmers markets and cooking classes across
all communities). Not only is it important to measure enrollment in new practices, but cities must
also track defection from a changed practice. Defection may signal that the elements comprising the
practice are not aligned, that the practice fails to fit existing routines, or that higher order social struc-
tures (e.g., class, race, gender, culture) are resilient to change through this practice. Practice data are
also vital for the politics of practice innovation, as they are used to support or refute practice-based
approaches and practice changes themselves.
The case study illustrated that agencies, academic institutions and civil society have limited capac-
ities to track practice changes, using inconsistent units of analysis, population samples, time frames
and research techniques. For example, in the case it was unclear to what extent increased SNAP sales
were caused by new practice carriers, increased frequency of purchases, or more expensive or larger
purchases per customer. Obtaining feedback on how the practice alters other bundled practices, both
at the system level and in everyday life, is even harder. Valuing the degree to which an emerging
shopping practice is normalizing more environmentally sound farming, the institutionalization of
government mechanisms to support purchases with SNAP, or the deviation from unsustainable food
choices at supermarkets is still a huge measurement challenge.
6. Conclusions
Urban transitions research is still in its infancy and knowledge of which distinctively urban levers
drive systemic change and how they can be activated remains limited, particularly with respect to the
food system. Given that food is fundamental to health, ecological well-being and social equity, such
research is important and timely. To address the research gap we turned to scholarly work on social
practice and everyday life (Shove, 2004; Shove and Walker, 2010; Shove et al., 2012) and posited that
the influences of cities on everyday practices offer new opportunities for cities to lead in sustainability
transitions. We drew theoretical insights from the geography of sustainability transitions to which
the present special issue is dedicated, focusing on the question of where transitions take place and
the notion of socio-technical systems as systems of practice (Watson, 2012), two additions aimed at
extending the analysis of practice innovation beyond the micro-scale of everyday life.
To illustrate the potential for cities to contribute to sustainability transitions through changes to
everyday practices, we presented a case study showing how New York City succeeded in restoring the
abruptly dismantled practice of using SNAP benefits at farmers markets. A practice-based perspective
allowed us to focus on the role of the city and NGOs in changing understandings of normality, forms
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of practice, socio-technical systems, and unequal geographies of practice. Building on our findings, we
suggested a set of preliminary steps for a strategic practice management approach to sustainability
transitions in cities, noting where additional theoretical and empirical validations are needed. Inves-
tigating other practices within the urban food system undergoing sustainability-oriented change (e.g.,
food growing, processing, transport, waste management), as well as cross-city comparisons, would
build the capacity for cities to influence the broader food system. Most importantly, research on urban
food practices in transition would advance the ability of cities to use strategic practice management
to drive change in other domains as well.
Compared to competing transition frameworks such as strategic niche management (Schot, 1992,
1998; Rip and Kemp, 1998; Schot and Geels, 2008), and to policy approaches focusing on individual
behavioral change (or what Shove (2010) refers to as the attitudes, behavior, choice (ABC) model),
strategic practice management offers new ways to think about the role of cities in socio-technical
transitions. With social practices as the unit of analysis, cities can begin to shift economic sectors
traditionally perceived as the purview of national government or private businesses by transforming
seemingly inconsequential everyday practices that in the aggregate produce huge economic, ecological
and public health impacts. Strategic practice management is not a substitute for supporting disruptive
technologies or imposing Pigouvian taxes but can be an important tool to change seemingly entrenched
systems like food.
In addition, because social practices are made up of multiple socio-technical systems (e.g., cooking
is sustained by water, energy, transportation, agriculture, distribution, packaging, retail, and food
waste management systems), they offer cities a lever to affect multiple socio-technical regimes at
once. Most important, because practices are performed in particular places, mapping socio-technical
systems through the lens of social practices can uncover spatial and social inequalities in steering
transitions and the potentially uneven distribution of both the “seeds” (Wiskerke and van der Ploeg,
2004) and outcomes of transitions.
Future research should investigate how cities can integrate social-practice based approaches into
urban planning and design for resilience and sustainability, and how mainstream policy tools such as
taxation, financial incentives, zoning incentives, land use regulation or educational programs, can be
deployed to foster sustainable and just everyday urban practices. Answering these pragmatic questions
and developing effective strategic practice management techniques requires building a robust theo-
retical and methodological framework that can enable transition scholars, policymakers and activists
to identify and learn from isolated cases of positive deviance (Pascale et al., 2010) from conventional
practices in cities.
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Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Environmental Innovation and

Transitioning the food system: A strategic

∗ Corresponding author. Tel.: +1 646 664 8340.

2. The role of cities in transitions: a practice-based perspective

2.1. Socio-technical transitions to sustainability

A socio-technical transition is a non-linear process that leads to radical transformation of soci-

2.2. Deﬁning practices

2.3. Changing practices

2.4. Socio-technical systems as systems of practice

4. The practice of using SNAP beneﬁts at farmers markets

4.1. Shopping at farmers markets

4.2. Disruption of the use of SNAP beneﬁts at farmers markets

4.3. Re-establishing the practice

4.3.1. Re-establishing material elements

4.3.2. Evolving meanings about food access

4.3.3. Improving competences

4.4. Impacts of practice change

5. A strategic practice management approach

5.1. Changing dominant understandings of normal practice

Using communication tools to change dominant understandings of practice is an important task of

5.2. Choosing practices strategically

5.3. Targeting elements of practice

5.4. Targeting asymmetries in geographies of practice

5.5. Targeting related practices

5.6. Tracking practice change

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