Bottom-Up and Top Down Approaches for Urban Agriculture

Abstract

Urban Agriculture, developed in several forms according to different contexts, is a trend that is acquiring strength as it responds to the common need of a sustainable city in terms of environmental, economic, social and institutional sustainability.. Urban Agriculture is a complex phenomena that involves different kind of approaches and intervention typologies such as low tech and high tech solutions (from community gardens to vertical farms), that characterizes the city at different scales (territory, town, neighbourhood, building and house), and that responds to several exigencies and requirements fitting different users. The paper aims to classify and describe the different typologies of integration of agriculture in urban areas and its environmental, social and economics implications starting by dividing them according to the main approaches identified: bottom-up approach, top-down and commercial approach.