Urban Agriculture and Territorial Heritage: Keys to Resiliency
Planificación y gobernanza territorial
Santiago, Jesús
This chapter focuses on the role of urban agriculture as a multifunctional component of urban and metropolitan areas. Although agricultural land on the periphery of the city is often regarded as no more than a blank canvas for urban development, it offers important benefits to the urban system. In this sense, urban agriculture should be viewed as a significant component of territorial heritage that plays a major role in both the preservation of the cultural landscape and in the configuration of the urban green infrastructure. In this context, the multifunctional character of urban agriculture can be considered a key factor in its resiliency, increasing its chances of withstanding such processes as urban sprawl, road infrastructure expansion, and land speculation. The connection between the economic, cultural and environmental dimensions of urban agriculture and their relationship with the process of territorial development are analysed in the Seville urban area. The chapter focuses on two latifundia as case studies, the cortijos of Gambogaz and El Alamillo, as they provide relevant examples of multifunctional urban agriculture located in the vicinity of the city of Seville. By way of conclusion, some reflections are provided on how to integrate urban agriculture into planning strategies to improve its resiliency.