Chhaya Kolavalli’s new book is a richly evocative 'insider ethnography' tracing local food policy from its ideological roots in white supremacy and the logics of settler colonialism to its critical role in shaping Kansas City’s contemporary racialized landscapes. Her chapters carefully document the role of upper-middle class, white foodie culture in shaping food policy for a city seemingly obsessed with green urban development, including hundreds of farmers markets, urban orchards, school and community gardens, and a thriving farm-to-table culinary scene. How green urban development policy targeting historically 'blighted' (read: Black) urban neighborhoods is pitted against individual and community agency grounded in longstanding historical geographies of food practice and agricultural experience. The Kansas City case is impeccable and a methodological model. The lessons transcend Kansas City and will fascinate anyone interested in green urban development, green gentrification, urbicide, food policy, Black agency, and the insidious consequences of and challenges to white hegemony and white supremacy in the American urban landscape.

—Richard Schein, professor of geography at the University of Kentucky

Well-Intentioned Whiteness presents an interesting and needed analysis of racial dynamics in the dominant alternative food movement situated in a U.S. city beyond than the coastal cities that have been the focus of much urban food systems scholarship. . . . This type of analysis is important in broadening awareness of the problematics of white dominance in the food system and moving toward more equitable realities.

—Kristin Reynolds, coauthor of Beyond the Kale: Urban Agriculture and Social Justice Activism in New York City