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Carrot City Canada explores how design can enable the production of food in Canadian cities. By examining the connection between urbanism, design, and food the exhibit demonstrates how design can be used to bring healthy food systems closer to home, showcasing design work that challenges the urban-rural and form-function dichotomies. While the Carrot City initiative looks at design work from many countries, this exhibit focuses on the innovative design found in Canada. It examines the relationships between design and urban food systems according to five categories: City, Community & Knowledge, Housing, Rooftops and Components for growing.

Concerns about climate change and the distances our food travels from farm to plate have stimulated renewed interest in producing food close to where people live. Recognizing the opportunities this offers for urban design and living, the Carrot City initiative aims to disseminate ideas and knowledge about best practices in urban agriculture as well as the development of food hubs and community involvement in food production.

Carrot City was conceived by students and faculty at the Department of Architectural Science, Ryerson University as an exhibit first held in 2009 at the Design Exchange (DX) in Toronto. Since then, the initiative has expanded into a traveling exhibit that has been shown in many cities around North America, Europe and Africa. A repository of information gathered for the exhibitions to date can be found on the Carrot City website (http://www.ryerson.ca/carrotcity/), intended as a research tool for anyone who is interested in the links between design and food in today’s cities. The book Carrot City: Creating Places for Urban Agriculture was published by The Monacelli Press in 2011.