The Governance of Urban Agriculture and Multifunctional Land Use in the City of Zurich

Abstract

Aspects of multifunctional land use are increasingly gaining the attention of different urban actors in the city of Zurich, including urban gardeners, farmers and policy-makers as well as city administrators. This contribution is based on an exploratory case study on approaches and challenges for multifunctional land use with regard to urban agriculture in Zurich, including personal interviews, document analysis and a workshop with different actor groups. The city of Zurich, as the owner of a large area of farmland, has taken several approaches to multifunctional urban agriculture, which follow typical aspects of rural development, mainly targeting farmers. City dwellers, who are active in urban agriculture and gardening initiatives, increasingly challenge the current policies. The study results showed that there are different interests for land use between, but also within, the various urban actor groups. In particular, farmers partly consider the diverse land use functions as conflicting objectives within the multifunctional concept. Varying actors with similar land use interests may compete for control of land due to their different forms of organisation such as professional urban gardening initiatives and farmers, as well as more hobby oriented gardening initiatives and allotment gardeners. This new and potentially conflicting situation illustrates the need for an integrated urban approach of land use planning and territorial governance towards multifunctional land use in cities; which bridges interests and fosters co-operation between different actors (city administration, farmers, gardeners in urban gardening initiatives, traditional allotment gardeners).