The Qualities of Urban Agriculture to Overcome the Urban Crises

Abstract

This thesis examines urban agriculture as a tool in city planning to overcome a different form of urban crises, such as urban poverty, war, and climate crisis. By examining those specific crises based on historical events, I define agriculture integration strategies in urban planning and their effectiveness to restructure the urban fabric to overcome the different forms of urban crises. The city of London is a case study that is investigated at three specific moments; the early 1900s, during the First and Second World War, and from 1970 to the present. The first part of the research analyses the concept of ‘Garden Cities’ (1902) created by urban planner E. Howard to overcome urban poverty. The second part investigates ‘Victory Gardens’ and the ‘Dig for Victory’ campaigns that were introduced to cope with the food shortage during both World Wars. The last part of the thesis explores sustainable cities concepts created in the 70s and the theory of Continuous Productive Urban Landscapes (2004) to overcome climate crises. In addition to this, I am mapping London’s agriculture fields, community gardens, and allotments at each section of the research that monitors the changes of physical connection between food cultivation and urban areas. The analysis defines three main strategies of agriculture integration into urban planning: zoning line; integrated into the urban areas; intermixed with the urban fabrics. Those urban planning strategies have qualities to restructure the physical environment, the ecological, socio-cultural, and economic structure of the city.