Using a Multimethod Approach to Define an Urban Farming Network to Oporto Metropolitan Area

Abstract

The multi-functionality inherent to the concept of Urban Agriculture (UA) can be associated with a recreational occupation, a method of overcoming financial distress, and a requalification of the landscape. However, urban development and the poor implementation of urban planning policies resulted in the loss of agricultural land and the emergence of residual and interstitial empty spaces within our cities. This article uses a case study of urban agriculture in Oporto City, as a guiding principle to recover and re-establish the continuous productive urban landscape. This paper expands on the currently existing urban planning policies. It establishes new ones, which strive for the protection and the insertion of the continuous productive urban landscape in urban design while regarding the urban/agricultural dichotomy and ensuring the occurrence of its processes, flows, and systems. This article defines urban agriculture as a method for the reliable integration of urban agriculture into urban space planning. The case draws on research in Oporto, focusing on the recovering of the ancient rural ring. This idea is based on recent and historical arguments to support the advantages of retrieving and introducing urban agriculture into open urban space. The paper concludes with a newly defined urban farming network in Oporto, which focuses on connecting these rural areas within the city with the rural areas outside the city.