Food, Integrating Urban and Agricultural Dynamics in Pisa, Italy

The book gives an overview of frameworks, methods, and case studies for the analysis of the relations between agriculture and the city, in Europe and the Mediterranean. Its origin is the DAUME Project (Sustainability of urban agriculture in the Mediterranean) and the 5th annual Conference of the Sustainable Food Planning group of AESOP, held in Montpellier (France) in 2013. The book provides a set of approaches of the sustainability of urban food systems from an actors’ perspective. The Part I presents systemic approaches of agricultural-urban interactions at the city-region scales in France, Egypt, Italy and Morocco. Local food issues, agriculture-urban relations, short food chains and urban livestock are taken as examples to develop systemic approaches showing both integrative and dualism processes linking agriculture and the city. The Part II deals with methods and tools for urban planning and local development, in order to design and assess sustainable food systems. At the city-region scale, chapters show how to estimate relevant boundaries of a sustainable foodshed, to design tools including local food supply In urban planning, and to evaluate contributions of local projects to global sustainability. The Part III inventories the recent changes in urban agriculture and the new forms of governance which are emerging in European cities (Athens, Berlin, Lisboa, Montpellier, Paris and Zurich). Referring to urban agriculture, chapters show how sustainable pathways can be fostered by a wide range of multiscale grassroots initiatives (farms, gardens, buildings, urban green areas …) embedded in transitioning trends of sustainable development.