Spaces, Systems and Infrastructures: From Founding Visions to Emerging Approaches for the Productive Urban Landscape

Joe Nasr () and Matthew Potteiger ()
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Joe Nasr: Centre for Studies in Food Security, Toronto Metropolitan University, 350 Victoria Street, Toronto, ON M5B 2K3, Canada
Matthew Potteiger: Department of Landscape Architecture, State University of New York, Syracuse, 1 Forestry Drive, Syracuse, NY 13210, USA

Land, 2023, vol. 12, issue 2, 1-22

Abstract: The proliferation of urban agriculture on an array of urban spaces is one of the more visible responses to perceived failures of contemporary food systems. This paper seeks to identify fundamental strategies connected to food system change efforts, linking these with diverse attempts at designing and planning the productive city. It first situates the contemporary concept of the productive city within a broader historical dialogue of foundational figures in urban and regional planning, architecture, and landscape architecture for whom food production was a central component of future cities. Recently, a growing number of practitioners have theorized the need for integrating urban agriculture in urban design and planning. Across this spectrum of emerging theory and practice, we identify three approaches to designing productive cities. First, spatial design strategies identify new territories for food production. These offer the potential for systems design thinking that links the individual spaces of production to other sectors of food systems that extend across networks of spaces and multiple scales. Finally, both spatial and systems design involve strategies of designing productive infrastructures of soils, water, nutrients, and other essential flows. The engagement with spaces of production, food systems, and productive infrastructure opens up a range of challenges as well as opportunities for emerging forms of practice and design thinking for the productive city.

Keywords: productive landscapes; urban design; urban agriculture; green infrastructure; food system planning (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q15 Q2 Q24 Q28 Q5 R14 R52 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jlands:v:12:y:2023:i:2:p:410-:d:1056944

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