| Author V.B. Price considers Albuquerque, New Mexico, a tributary city; it "connects with mainstream America, but its sources remain in the hinterlands." The city itself is an amalgamation of historic Southwest forms and identities overrun with decades of postwar pragmatic attempts at maximizing Albuquerque's national relevance while importing the decentralized automobile culture of California. In many ways, Albuquerque is a perfect laboratory city for studying the effects regional identity struggling against place-less suburban expansion, as the "hinterlands" of the Rio Grande basin offer identity, security, and longevity in the form of cuisine and agricultural legacy. This thesis is an analysis of Albuquerque's genus loci; which is rooted deeply in the history and culture of the region. It is from this series of resilient identities that this thesis seeks to posit that food, and the Rio Grande Foodshed, could be a link to reaffirming regional identity and reinforcing local economic ties between the city and the agricultural lands surrounding it. The current access and resilience of the regional agricultural foodshed and urban identity of Albuquerque could be enhanced with the presence of a Central Market Terminal program; this type of program would allow for a multiplicity of economic interactions to occur within the region, not just on the farmer's market scale, but potentially allowing a greater degree of accessibility to the food needs of Albuquerque and New Mexico. Essentially, Albuquerque encapsulates a multitude of issues surrounding mid-sized municipalities that require political, economic, and architectural solutions. |
