Civic food
68 places in the atlas
Food, gardens, agriculture and markets as an infrastructure of encounter and care: community canteens, shared gardens, agri-food networks.
Japan6
First Makishi Public Market第一牧志公設市場
Naha, Okinawa · Okinawa
"Okinawa's kitchen": a municipal market of over 70 stalls with the mochiage system (buy the produce and have it cooked upstairs), reopened in 2023 as…
VerifiedSee place →Participatory urbanismSpaceFurano Marcheフラノマルシェ
Furano, Hokkaido · Hokkaido
A food and retail complex on the site of a relocated hospital, a national symbol of citizen-led town centre revitalisation, combining local produce,…
VerifiedSee place →Commons and belongingSpaceIbasho House居場所ハウス
Ofunato, Iwate · Tohoku
A donated farmhouse dismantled and rebuilt by local artisans after the 2011 tsunami.
VerifiedSee place →Civic foodProjectKodomo Shokudo / Musubieこども食堂・むすびえ
Tokio · Nationwide
A network of community canteens that reached a record 12,601 in 2025, outnumbering public high schools.
VerifiedSee place →Civic labs and participationSpaceQUESTION (Kyoto Shinkin)クエスチョン
Kioto · Kansai
A community bank building conceived as a co-creation facility: coworking, a café, "Community Steps" and a communal kitchen on the eighth floor design…
VerifiedSee place →Third placeProjectYatai de Fukuoka福岡屋台
Fukuoka · Kyushu
The only large Japanese city with a living street stall culture.
VerifiedSee place →Spain5
Apadrina un Olivo
Oliete, Teruel · Aragon
Recovering 100,000 abandoned century-old olive trees in Oliete through citizen sponsorship: local jobs, an oil mill of their own and repopulation in…
Partially verifiedSee place →Commons and belongingSpaceEsta es una Plaza
Lavapiés, Madrid · Madrid
A lot abandoned for thirty years in Lavapiés turned by neighbours into a self-managed community garden: vegetable plots, open-air theatre, an exchang…
VerifiedSee place →Reuse of vacancySpaceGeltoki
Pamplona · Navarre
Pamplona's former bus station converted into a space for social economy and sustainable food: a producers' market, a gastroteca, activities.
VerifiedSee place →Civic foodSpaceHuerto del Rey Moro
Sevilla · Andalusia
A community garden in a historic void of Seville's old town, self-managed by neighbours: urban agroecology, free play and territorial memory in the h…
VerifiedSee place →Third placeProjectSociedades gastronómicas (txokos)
Donostia · Basque Country
Collective kitchens where members cook, eat and talk as equals: the vernacular gastronomic third place par excellence, with over a century of history.
Partially verifiedSee place →France8
Darwin Écosystème
Bordeaux · Nouvelle-Aquitaine
A former 19th-century military barracks, handed over in 2008 and transformed since 2011 into an ecological transition ecosystem with coworking space,…
Partially verifiedSee place →Civic labs and participationSpaceL'Hermitage
Autrêches · Hauts-de-France
A former 30-hectare farm estate in the Oise forest, bought in 2017 by a citizen initiative that brought together 850 people and a crowdfunding campai…
Partially verifiedSee place →Civic foodSpaceLa Cagette
Montpellier · Occitanie
A cooperative and participatory supermarket opened in 2017, run by more than 5,500 members who are at once owners, customers and volunteer workers.
VerifiedSee place →Reuse of vacancySpaceLa Cité Fertile
Pantin · Île-de-France
A third place established since 2018 in a former SNCF goods station in Pantin, with a vegetable garden, greenhouse, brewery and coworking space devot…
VerifiedSee place →Civic foodSpaceLa Louve
París · Île-de-France
Paris's first cooperative and participatory supermarket, opened in 2016 in the 18th arrondissement, inspired by the Park Slope Food Coop in New York.
VerifiedSee place →Third placeSpaceLe Champ Commun
Augan · Bretagne
A cooperative created in late 2009 in Augan, a village of 1,500 people in central Brittany, to sustain local shops in a rural area affected by the di…
VerifiedSee place →Italy18
Casa delle AgriCulture Tullia e Gino
Castiglione d'Otranto (Lecce) · Puglia
An association founded in 2013 in a village in the Salento to reclaim more than fifteen hectares of abandoned land lent free of charge by their owner…
VerifiedSee place →Commons and belongingSpaceCascina Cuccagna
Milán · Lombardia
This 17th-century farmhouse, municipal property since 1984, was abandoned and declared uninhabitable in the 1990s.
VerifiedSee place →Civic labs and participationNeighbourhood or villageCastel del Giudice
Castel del Giudice (Isernia) · Molise
A small mountain municipality in the Alto Molise that in the early 2000s launched, under mayor Lino Gentile, a regeneration model based on a combinat…
Partially verifiedSee place →Commons and belongingSpaceComunità di San Benedetto al Porto
Génova · Liguria
The priest Andrea Gallo founded this Christian base community in the port of Genoa in 1970 to take in people struggling with addiction, homeless peop…
VerifiedSee place →Commons and belongingProjectCooperativa di Comunità dei Sibillini
Comunanza (Ascoli Piceno) · Marche
After the 2016 earthquake in central Italy, Slow Food promoted in Comunanza, a municipality of around 3,000 people in the Marche Apennines, the creat…
Partially verifiedSee place →Civic foodProjectCooperativa Placido Rizzotto
San Giuseppe Jato (Palermo) · Sicilia
The first cooperative of the Libera Terra project, founded in November 2001 to legally farm more than two hundred hectares confiscated from mafia bos…
Partially verifiedSee place →Thailand8
Alternative Agriculture Network Isanเครือข่ายเกษตรกรรมทางเลือกภาคอีสาน
Yasothon · Northeast (Isan)
Network of north-eastern small farmers defending food sovereignty against the chemical model and debt to the agricultural bank.
VerifiedSee place →Commons and belongingSpaceBosque comunitario Suan Pa Ket Nom Klao (Bang Kachao)
Phra Pradaeng (Samut Prakan) · Central
Some 63 rai of degraded forest and canals that Song Khanong residents cleaned up and replanted with local species, on public land and under the super…
Partially verifiedSee place →Commons and belongingNeighbourhood or villageBang Rongชุมชนบ้านบางโรง
Thalang (Phuket) · South
Muslim fishing village in north-east Phuket, among mangroves and plantations, that has run its own community tourism since 2001.
VerifiedSee place →Reuse of vacancySpaceChiang Mai Urban Farmสวนผักคนเมืองเชียงใหม่
Chiang Mai · North
A dump used for about twenty years beside the Mae Kha canal, turned into a community farm in 2020, when the pandemic left thousands of tourism worker…
VerifiedSee place →Commons and belongingProjectHuay Hin Lad Naiห้วยหินลาดใน
Wiang Pa Pao (Chiang Rai) · North
Small Karen village that since 1993 has managed more than 10,000 rai of forest with its own rules, firebreaks, a community map and rotational farming.
Partially verifiedSee place →Commons and belongingNeighbourhood or villageKhiriwongบ้านคีรีวง
Lan Saka (Nakhon Si Thammarat) · South
Village at the foot of Khao Luang mountain that lost around a hundred houses to a flash flood and landslides on 21 November 1988.
Partially verifiedSee place →Laos23
Ban Sai Lao-Lao Cooperative
Saysetha (Attapeu) · South
In Ban Sai, a village the government classes as poor, women distilled lao-lao (rice spirit) separately and sold it cheaply.
VerifiedSee place →Commons and belongingProjectBeung Kiat Ngong Wetland and Ban Kiet Ngong
Pathoumphone (Champasak) · South
Some 7,400 people from 20 villages live off the Beung Kiat Ngong wetland, where a 2010 district regulation sets zones, assigns conservation pools to…
VerifiedSee place →Civic foodProjectCoffee Producers Cooperative (CPC)
Bachiangchaleunsouk (Champasak) · South
A cooperative of smallholder coffee growers on the Bolaven Plateau that washes beans at village centres, exports organic and fair-trade coffee and sp…
VerifiedSee place →Commons and belongingProjectFish Conservation Zones (FCZ)ວັງສະຫງວນ
Vientiane (Xaysettha) · Nationwide
Pools and river stretches where the village bans or limits fishing under its own rules, signed by the district.
VerifiedSee place →Commons and belongingProjectHouaphanh Village Bamboo Forests (BNDA)
Sop Bao (Houaphanh) · North
Sop Bao district allocated about 4,950 hectares of bamboo forest to 29 villages (2018 figure).
Partially verifiedSee place →Civic foodProjectJhai Coffee Farmers Cooperative (JCFC)
Paksong · South
A cooperative of coffee-growing families from several Paksong villages that exports fair-trade arabica, with pulping in community machines and shared…
Partially verifiedSee place →Related events See the theme Rural life and depopulation →
European Week of Regions and Cities 2026
Bruselas · Belgium
24th edition, fully in person in Brussels, under the motto 'Strong regions, strong Europe' with over 110 sessions on how cohesion policy can help eve…
See the event →16 to 18 October 2026Participatory urbanism and placemaking1st Renovation School Naruto第1回リノベーションスクール＠鳴門
Naruto · Japan
First school in Naruto (Tokushima), 16 to 18 October 2026 with an online pre-session on 5 October, at the city hall.
See the event →22 to 25 October 2026Third places and tiers-lieuxTEH102 Camp Meeting, SilandroTEH102 Camp Meeting in Silandro / Schlanders
Silandro (Schlanders) · Italy
Autumn Camp Meeting at BASIS Vinschgau Venosta, a social innovation hub in a former barracks in South Tyrol, under the theme 'GRINTA! Under Ground: g…
See the event →What they share: Eating with others remains the oldest and most direct way of making community.