Chapter 14 - Grown in the city: a design typology for productive urban landscapes

Abstract

Many cities currently focus on high-tech farming; but the future of urban food security depends on diverse strategies. Urban agriculture can take a variety of forms from small scale community gardens to medium scale urban farms to large scale food forests. Beyond the benefits of producing food and other resources, urban agriculture can be understood as a microsystem embedded in macro-scale economic, social, ecological and infrastructural systems of the city. This framing as embedded in the urban ‘system’ challenges cities to address urban agriculture not as a discrete activity, but as an important component of infrastructure and urban planning. I argue that there are innovative options across low to high tech approaches if we contextualize landscape types across the urban gradient. This chapter aims to categorize diverse opportunities across 10 landscape types for multifunctional urban land uses that integrate agriculture. Multifunctional land uses that integrate agriculturally productive landscapes will be a critical adaptation for the sustainability of future cities.