Urbanising in Place
As cities expand into peri-urban areas, urban agriculture and the complex ecosystems on which it depends are increasingly under threat. Despite the significant benefits farming communities bring to the management of the food-water-energy (FEW) nexus, however, their activities are typically marginalised with the encroachment of urban development.
Urbanising in Place seeks to explore how farming and food growing practices on the metropolitan fringe, threatened by an ever expanding urbanisation, may be reimagined and reconfigured within an ‘agroecological urbanism’: a model of urbanisation which places food, urban metabolic cycles and an ethics of land stewardship, equality and solidarity at its core. The project will include research and collaboration in four urban contexts in Argentina (Rosario), Belgium (Brussels), Latvia (Riga) and the United Kingdom (London).
The findings, drawing on multidisciplinary expertise from academics, civil society and local governments, will create a valuable evidence base for the design of better management and support of farming systems in per-urban areas.
Chiara Tornaghi (Principal Investigator, Senior Research Fellow)
Moya Kneafsey
Alex Franklin (Senior Research Fellow in Water and Resilient Communities)
Vanesa Castan Broto (Professorial Fellow)
• Development of transformative pathways for the reconfiguration of the food, water and energy nexus in case study cities.
• Creation of a ‘social platform’ to support knowledge exchange and collaboration between international networks and communities of practice.
• Dissemination of findings to broader audience through a range of dissemination activities.