existence as well as a plan and development for preserving the unique features of Jaffa's social and physical fabric (Tel Aviv-Yafo Municipality, 2019). A tourism and marketing plan aims at the global experiences that bring forward the characters of the city through promotion of sites of religious, heritage and multicultural nature and developing public space and transportation infrastructure to and from and within Jaffa (Tel Aviv Municipality, 2019).

Although the master plans acknowledge and address the challenges that Jaffa as a historic cultural districts face, in the light of economic, social, and cultural pressures, the interventions require a deeper level of documentation, research and policy and master plan frameworks to support it. The following section will highlight some of the on-going/ proposed projects in the historic city aimed at cultural, economic, and urban development.

## 2.1 Case of Shuq Ha Pishpashim / Greek market renewal project

The Greek Market compound presents a case of historical layering and development over a period and a complex case of economic pressures and conflicting interests of regional and local governance. The architectural history of the compound dates to early 20th Century CE, constructed by the Greek Orthodox Church, a land which previously was agricultural land in historic Jaffa, which was eliminated due to extensive construction during the British Mandate period. Archaeological evidences and excavations reveal that the market dates primarily to the Crusader, Mamluk-Early Ottoman and Late Ottoman periods whereas pottery shards from the Hellenistic, Byzantine and Early Islamic periods are also excavated (Arbel, 2016).

The market compound falls under the City Development plan no. 2572 Kikar HaShaaon<fnref n="1" /> along with the Clock tower and the flea market. The plan applies to North-West Jaffa and addresses redevelopment proposals in three touristic zones: the port, the Old City, and the markets area and received 12 million Euros of funding (Shalita, 2012). The 7500 sq.m area of the Greek market compound contains 13 designated buildings for preservation at various levels. The policy also aimed at controlling the permits for business such as restaurants to not exceed 25% of the total commercial area. The redevelopment and infrastructural upgrade of this area brought in investments and new business in the form of café's restaurants, merchandize and city services (schools, social services etc.) improved. However, this process soon brought in gentrification, and brought new residents to impact the low-income residents and veteran business owners, dramatically altering the historic socio-spatial configurations of the area (Shalita, 2012; Ramon, 2021). A Policy for Flea Market Discussion of Policy approval (2572/2)² was granted additional 40,000 sq.m. building permits for additional floors (Refer Figure 3). In 2018, the Greek market was purchased for NIS 243 million (approximately 60 million euros) by a group of private inventors. The District Committee for Planning and Construction sanctioned proposal for this compound which includes preservation and renovation of the historical buildings and transform the complex into a combination of hotels and residences with a commercial facade by adding building rights and floors to the existing building.

<footnote n="1">¹ Tel Aviv Town Plans; Specific Plan number 2752 ‘The Clock Circle Area of Jaffa’ (1995, March 3). Local Planning Tel Aviv-Jaffa.
https://apps.land.gov.il/IturTabotData/takanonim/telmer/5004906.pdf

2 https://www.tel-
aviv.gov.il/Business/BusinessLicense/DocLib/%D7%9E%D7%93%D7%99%D7%A0%D7%99%D7%95%D7%AA%20%D7%A2%
D7%99%D7%A8%D7%95%D7%A0%D7%99%D7%AA%20%D7%A9%D7%95%D7%A7%20%D7%A4%D7%A9%D7%A4%D7
%A9%D7%99%D7%9D%20%D7%95%D7%A9%D7%95%D7%A7%20%D7%A2%D7%9E%D7%99%D7%A2%D7%93.pdf</footnote>
<figure><img src="image_106.png" /><figcaption>[fig. 2] The view of Shuq Ha Pishpashim/ Greek Market, from the square with the clock tower.</figcaption></figure>

<figure><img src="image_107.png" /><figcaption>[fig. 1] Proposed external design and layout of the Greek Market/ Shuq Ha Pishpashim, designed by Ilan Pivko architects; Source: Ilan Pivko Architects</figcaption></figure>

However, the proposal was opposed by the Tel Aviv Municipality as the plan did not justify the increase in construction volumes in the area. They recorded the objections to the addition of built-up volume through permission of additional floors and rights as incentives for the preservation of the buildings and the new proposal does not justify the breaching of the existing City Development Plan for the additional transfer rights and incentives (Tzur, 2020). Many other objections submitted on the plan highlight the need to preserve the current spatial configurations of the historic area, protect the veteran merchants, mitigate densification, address vehicular traffic and parking issues and stresses that the quality of life of the residents will be severely impacted. In 2013, the new businesses and the restaurants that opened in the market composed more than 28% of the total businesses in the market, and the traditional businesses consisted of only 26%. New housing and gated communities, and redevelopment projects which often gentrify cities also introduce the spatial divisions within the urban environments, most time physical divisions of high walls, fences characterizing drastic separation of the private and the public as well as at a socio-spatial level
giving rise to a spatially fragmented urban fabric (Rotbard, 2006) which is unconducive for achieving the tenets of spatial sustainability.

## 3. Research concepts, methods, and process

### 3.1 Constructivists grounded theory analysis and assessment

The adoption of the CGT approach facilitates the documentation of various stakeholders and values of HUL attributes at different urban scales. The aim is to and how the urban heritage attributes and values are being/ have been undermined and often neglected in the course of action. In case or cities and historic values and significance, actors and stakeholders have divergent views and the degree of importance varies as per the mandates and dispositions of experts, organizations, or institutions. By application of CGT methods, which is a most commonly used qualitative methods in social sciences (Charmaz, 2011), is taken to allows the compilation of perceptions and views of stakeholders operating at different urban scales without diminishing the value at an individual level (Allen and Davey, 2018). The method is the discovery of theory from data and has been extensively used across disciplines for qualitative research. However, across urban studies, the application of CGT is limited, a method where subjective narratives and perceptions hold ground to construct and collate the relations through developing theoretical insights (Allen and Davey, 2018). The selection of this method is justified for furthering the IHD where diverse notions of heritage, narratives, mandates and visions, interpretations and uses of heritages by diverse actors is recognized (Halme et al., 2017).

### 3.2 Data collection and coding

Since the objective of the research is to further the IHD, use of purposive sampling of participants, based on the research objectives was adopted and participants were identified. The interview questions were formulated following the first research phase, were a set of all concepts emerging from the key research questions' related literature review and datascaping carried out on the case study was shared with the respondent. Narrative data was collected via semi-structured in-depth interviews, where the participants were able to assess the method of generating information through datascaping and its applicability, limitations, or challenges from an individual perspective. Since, the study develops further on the HUL recommendations, based on the tools of the guidelines, participants of this study were selected among public sector/provincial authorities, private sector/entrepreneurs, residents, and tourists (Refer Table 1).

<table><caption>Table 1: List of interview participants and their designations</caption><thead><tr><th>Participant No.</th><th>Stakeholder group</th><th>Urban scale</th><th>Institution/ Affiliations</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>1</td><td rowspan="5">Public organization</td><td>National</td><td>Israeli Planning Administration</td></tr><tr><td>2</td><td>Regional/ District</td><td>Tel Aviv District committee</td></tr><tr><td>3</td><td rowspan="3">City</td><td>Israel Antiquities Authority</td></tr><tr><td>4</td><td>Strategic Planning Department (Yaffo section), TLV Municipality</td></tr><tr><td>5</td><td>Historic Preservation Department, TLV Municipality</td></tr><tr><td>6</td><td rowspan="8">Consultant professionals and experts</td><td rowspan="8">All levels</td><td>VP Tourism, Tel Aviv Global</td></tr><tr><td>7</td><td>Urban Planner</td></tr><tr><td>8</td><td>Urban designer</td></tr><tr><td>9</td><td>Geographer</td></tr><tr><td>10,11</td><td>Conservation architect</td></tr><tr><td>12</td><td>Anthropologist</td></tr><tr><td>13</td><td>Project architect, Jaffa port redevelopment and strategic plan</td></tr><tr><td>14</td><td>Ecologist, Landscape Architect, Society for Protection of Nature, Israel</td></tr><tr><td>15</td><td rowspan="2">Architect and planner, Jaffa Islamic WAQF</td></tr><tr><td>16</td><td>Israeli Council for Preservation</td></tr><tr><td>17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22</td><td rowspan="2">Local community</td><td rowspan="2">Local area</td><td>Local community living in Jaffa (Diverse ethnic background group)</td></tr><tr><td>23</td><td>Tour Guide</td></tr></tbody></table>

The complete responses of the interviews were transcribed by the researcher and analyzed through a process of open coding with Atlas.ti. Primarily, the coding was carried out to document the perception of each stakeholder towards the significance, relevance, applicability of HUL Attributes (Article 9) (UNESCO, 2011) in process of design, planning and decision making. Based on the responses and coding, the following radar diagrams present a qualitative datascape of the perceptions and values of HUL attributes for stakeholders at different levels.
<figure><img src="image_108.png" /></figure>

[fig. 2] Radar diagram of outcomes for coding for Public Sector Organizations at National, District and Local Level

The Various departments under Strategic Planning, Tel Aviv-Yafo Municipality speaking from the perspective of conservation and management of heritage comments:

"The historic fabric will evolve eventually and is for the good, though there is a policy in place for this but the new development needs more refining/ designing/ planning guidelines."

"The area around historic Jaffa, there is an ecosystem of small industries, which are dependent on each other. For example: Metal workers and artists. It is becoming harder and harder for them to survive because there are more new housing projects that they doesn't go well with these kind of users. So this is a trend we are observing and we're trying to intervene because we believe it's important those users should exist in a city and not outside of the city. It's very important for certain activity, creativity that we think that should exist."

The Israeli Planning Administration at the level of Tel Aviv-Yafo district laid more importance preserving the urban historic fabric:

"Preservation policies should not only focus on preservation of the architectural styles of the historic districts, but aim at preserving the quality and the structure of the urban fabric. If only stylistic preservation is carried out, it does not do justice to the setting and the urban environment."

On the other hand, the District Planning Commission conforms to the ideology of the HUL approach which stresses on management and planning of cities, beyond the confines of boundaries and borders:

"Administrative borders create physical borders, and that is reflected in the local-level municipal plans which leads to fragmentation"
<figure><img src="image_109.png" /></figure>

[fig. 3] Radar diagram of outcomes for coding for Public Sector Organizations at Consultant professionals and experts

However, professionals who are individual, independent and in-house consultants to various departments at the Municipality, District and Planning Commission emphasize on the need of regualtory provisions to manage challenges which heritage conservation and planning are projeced to:

> *"We don't have a conservation plan at all at the district level. Heritage that is protected in Tel Aviv, may not be protected in another city."*

> *"One of the main challenges of policy is to mitigate and prevent gentrification and its impacts, along with finding tools to include the local identity and social values, specially at an economic level, to support local commerce."*

<figure><img src="image_110.png" /></figure>

[fig. 4] Radar diagram of outcomes for coding for Local community.

The local residents put more emphasis on the social infrastrucure such as provision of improved education systems:

> *"I am concerned with the education and future of my child; the municipality should aim at provision of more schools and education system improvement in Jaffa"*

> *"My father lived in Ajami and studied in the school next to the French hospital and visited it often, now after it became SOHO hotel, no one can think of going near that building."*

Through these multitude of interviews and interactions with actors, practitioners and preprofessionals, it was observed that collaboration, communication and interdisciplinary methods were highlighted as the need to address the complex issues to plan and design the historic city of Jaffa.
## 4. Discussion and conclusion

However, assessing the various stakeholders at different urban levels by applying the HUL approach reveals the potential to present information and insights about stakeholder perceptions and which maybe overlapping, matching as well as conflicting, values, needs and ethics (Veldpaus and Pereira Roders, 2017). The aim of conducting this exploration is to analyze a case study and assessing it with emergent values of HUL attributes through CGT. It is observed that the importance of the HUL attributes/ elements, which are crucial to contributing to the spatial configurations of a historic city, differ at different urban scales. In case of the Shuq Ha Pishpashim/ Greek Market, it is evident that changes in urban land use patterns and density by redevelopment and densification are going to have direct impacts on the historic spatial configurations of the area. This research also presented a qualitative datascape to document the incongruity in how the spatial apparatuses and frameworks through ‘conflict infrastructures’ that can intensify urban partitioned zones. Whereas, due to this intervention, besides impacting the visual and the material integrity of the place, the economic and social dynamics will be impacted drastically. While the Tel Aviv-Yafo Strategic Plan aims to create a space for shared existence as well as a plan and development for preserving the unique features of Jaffa’s social and physical fabric, the divergent perspectives, and non-overlapping frameworks within various stakeholders at different levels prevent the realization of the objectives. It needs to be further analyzed as to the absence or lack of detailed and informed frameworks are the underlying cause or the overruling of certain dynamics such as economic viability over historic preservation norms are the factors that have an impact on decisions and planning frameworks.

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# Urbanisation as land consumption, commodification and parceling out: Hybridities in spatial occupation in Bukavu

Gulain AMANI MUSHIZI

Affiliation: ULB Louise Laboratory and ISAU Space Planning Unit (UPS)

Supervisor: Geoffrey Grulois

Expected thesis defence: December, 2023

gulain.amani.mushizi@ulb.be

## Introduction

This article focuses on Bukavu, a medium-sized border town in eastern DR Congo, in the Great Lakes region, which is rich in mineral resources and plagued by armed conflict. The city is faced with major geomorphological constraints, in particular steep slopes and watercourses (lake and rivers) that cross the city, considerably reducing the capacity of the urban perimeter. In addition, the town is facing increased demographic pressure, largely due to the rural exodus caused by armed conflicts in the surrounding mining areas, and is currently undergoing a major transformation of its natural landscape. Against this backdrop, land is proving to be a highly coveted resource, and the pressure it is under is making it impossible to apply urban development plans and standards on the ground. As the urbanisation of Congolese cities is governed by the normative urbanism of comprehensive planning, which dates back to colonial times (Amani, Genard 2022), land management is regulated by law no. 73-021 of 20 July 1973 on the general property regime, the land and property regime and the system of securities, as amended and supplemented by law no. 80-008 of 18 July 1980. This instrumentarium, which is linked to Western-centric management, draws a clear line between the public and private sectors by defining the relationship between the public authority, which is supposed to translate society's needs into space via the plan and is represented by its clerks (civil servants), and the users, made up of the private sector and residents, for whom the administration draws up and monitors the application of the plan (town planning, subdivision) and the rules in the name of a collective interest, while protecting and promoting private investment. Against this backdrop of a priori clear governance, the urbanisation process reveals fairly complex alternative arrangements, the specific features of which can only be understood by describing them in detail. By tackling the major issues at stake in the land question, an analysis of the land production system provides an insight into the urban changes underway in Bukavu and the social context of the urban fabric. The aim of this paper is therefore to discuss the (de)regulation of land in the urbanisation process. The contribution of this article is to understand the logic of land tenure in relation to new urban forms in the process of urbanisation in Bukavu. In particular, it will focus on the blurring of public and private, administration and administered, leading to a hybrid form of governance in which collective and particular interests constantly interpenetrate. It is not possible to understand the dynamics of urban development in the DRC, and in Bukavu in particular, without understanding this hybridity: recognising the abundance of literature on land tenure in Bukavu, this work provides a critical analysis of the urbanisation process and the game of dupe in the instrumentation of public action linked to land tenure.

## Urban sprawl: between institutional and functional logic.

Urbanisation is rightly seen as a process of human appropriation and transformation of nature. This section looks at urbanisation as a phenomenon of land (over)consumption and appropriation in Bukavu. It will show how the public authorities have failed to protect land that is not suitable for urbanisation (easements and non aedificandi sites), made up of land that, because of its steep slopes, soil conditions (marshy areas) or geographical location (along watercourses), could have escaped urbanisation, but has ended up being appropriated by humans through the phenomenon of land grabbing, land rent and the generalised urbanisation of nature. A review of the literature (Muchukiwa 2016, Nyenyezi, Ansoms 2016, Nyenyezi, Ansoms 2014, Balegamire 2021, Nyenyezi, Mushagalusa 2021, Mugisho, Ndele 2019, Cléophace, Leonard 2021) and interviews reveal that Bukavu's urbanisation process is strongly dominated by the increase in demand for building land due to demographic pressure. After the 2nd World War, Bukavu became attractive and an important centre, given its position as the metropolis of the former Greater Kivu (North Kivu, South
Kivu and Maniema). It became an administrative and commercial city and, at the same time, the economic hub of the entire region. The colony began to take an interest in the living environment of the "natives". So it was that in 1940, in addition to the commune of Ibanda (the town occupied by the whites), Kadutu, "the first black town", was officially detached from the customary district and became an integral part of the town of Bukavu. The town's topographical situation did not allow for continuous development. With its steep slopes, the town was built in a discontinuous fashion depending on the availability of land deemed suitable for urban development (slopes of less than 12%). With the influx of the working classes, Kadutu was already saturated by 1954 and the search for a new housing estate became imperative. It was against this backdrop that the extra-customary centre of Bagira was chosen, despite its remote location. A housing estate was created on the crest of a hill that had once been reserved for a coffee plantation [fig.1].

<figure><img src="image_111.png" /><figcaption>[fig.1] Land use in Bukavu up to 1960. Source: Elaborated by the author</figcaption></figure>

Following independence, the government kept the town within the boundaries of the three communes left by the Belgians. Urban growth then took place within the urban perimeter rather than extending into the surrounding rural areas. This led to an increase in built density. Demographic analysis of Bukavu shows that growth remained relatively constant during the 1960s-1970s and the early 1980s. Faced with the need for building land, from the 1970s onwards, the public authorities gradually agreed to subdivide large tracts of land in the city. This subdivision movement gradually continued, with limited respect for town planning rules, until there was no longer enough land to develop in Bukavu if these minimum rules were to be respected (Nyenyezi, Aymar 2014). The 'geomorphological constraint/land use' dimension thus sounded the death knell for the government, which decided in 1988 to subdivide 'Muhungu', a hilly area that would have required extensive servicing work before it could be made available to the population, but whose housing construction would also require appropriate techniques and resources [fig.2]. Following this subdivision and in response to demand, other areas were occupied without being officially subdivided. These included NYAKALIBA, IRAMBO, KARHALE, RUZIZI, etc., which had previously been considered undevelopable. Some of these plots of land were offered illegally, either by land registry officials, or by successive town mayors, or by neighbourhood chiefs and many other political and administrative authorities. From 1994 onwards, urbanisation increased exponentially as a result of the demographic pressure inherent in the political instability in the Great Lakes region, with the arrival of thousands of Rwandan refugees fleeing the genocide and accentuated by a series of wars - Alliance des Forces Démocratiques pour la Libération du Congo (AFDL) and Rassemblement Congolais pour la Démocratie (RCD) - between 1996 and 2000, of which Bukavu was the scene.
<figure><img src="image_112.png" /><figcaption>[fig. 2] View of the transformation of the urban landscape. Source: By the author on 9/12/2020</figcaption></figure>

This phenomenon led to a pronounced deterioration in the vegetation cover as a result of the spectacular demand for land, with major consequences for the organisation of urban space. By 1997, the city was saturated. From a geomorphological point of view, it had reached its carrying capacity. Faced with this situation, rather than seeing political or administrative action aimed at expanding the city beyond its 1958 boundaries (inherited from the colony) or a private or "popular" urban sprawl initiative, as can be seen in several Congolese cities such as Kinshasa, urbanisation continued within the urban perimeter through housing estates "outside the legal framework". Land was used as a means of reward for those who came to power following the wars between 1996 and 2003. The race for land took on unbelievable proportions, with demand for building land far outstripping supply. This period was marked by land grabs and the systematic plundering of land and property by those in power. A topographical analysis of the sites subdivided between 1996 and 2000 shows that the contours in these areas are more than 13% sloping [fig. 3]. Protected areas had once again been offered and registered by the administration, which was then lax in applying town planning standards. The IBANDA commune was then experiencing subdivisions and fragmentation. These divisions even affected the MUKUKWE sports ground. In this movement of limited access to land, most of the public areas and spaces were gradually sold off, as well as the ten meters of shoreline on the plots of land by the lake, which were previously considered to be "easements" on which it was forbidden to build or live. Over time, the state's supply of land was not enough to contain the strong demand. This triggered a new practice of parceling out land by private individuals. This corroborates the observation of aerial photographs between 1986 and 2018, which show that urbanised areas have developed rapidly to the detriment of wooded areas and fields. This increase in urbanised areas can be seen most clearly in the period from 2006 to 2018, with the occupation of sites unsuitable for construction [fig. 4]. A link has been established between the progressive loss of vegetation cover and the resulting vulnerabilities of the urban fabric (Cleophas, Leonard 2021; Muhaya, Chuma 2022), such as landslides, subsidence and erosion. In other words, the consequences of urban development where there should be none (Tzaninis, Mandler 2021).
<figure><img src="image_113.png" /><figcaption>[fig. 3] Topographical situation of sites developed between 1996 and 2000. Source : Elaborated by the author</figcaption></figure>

<figure><img src="image_114.png" /><figcaption>[fig. 4] Land use map from 1986 to 2018. Source : From Cléophace, Leonard 2021</figcaption></figure>

To sum up, during the colonial period, on the basis of a segregationist approach that took account of the site's orohydrography, the commune of IBANDA was separated from the communes of KADUTU and BAGIRA by large uninhabited areas. Following independence, the tendency was to develop the spaces between the three towns and then those within the old towns themselves. Attempting to comply with town planning and environmental standards, the town gradually reached the point where it could no longer offer building plots without breaking the rules. In view of the demand for building land, which was accentuated by the demographic explosion, those in power found no other solution than to subdivide land in the State's
public domain by decommissioning or outright appropriation. As this was not enough, subdivisions were built on sites unsuitable for urban development, or inappropriate sites were occupied. This story questions the notion of land ownership. If it refers to what is "relative to a piece of land, to its exploitation, to its taxation", then controlling urbanisation seems to require the State and the community to keep land that cannot be appropriated by humans. While it is true that 'informal' land production plays a large part in urbanisation, the consequences of the gradual privatisation of non-aedificandi sites mean that the urban environment should always include non-urbanisable land that cannot be appropriated by humans and therefore does not intrinsically constitute land. In other words, land that remains protected and common property but not exploitable. And it is this coexistence of urbanised and non-urbanised land that gives Bukavu its urban hybridity. Since this coexistence of urbanised and non-urbanised land, public domain and private domain of the State depends on the mode of governance, the following point will question contemporary land management in Bukavu.

## The hybridity of public and private issues

The previous point highlighted the fact that the common denominator of urbanisation is demographic growth and geomorphological constraints. Added to these two factors is the accumulation of capital in the same space. Land use is thus marked by horizontal densification, which highlights the tension between socio-economic and socio-spatial dynamics. Based on Latour's notion of hybridity (society-nature), this section looks at urbanisation as a dialectic between the public and the private, the common good and the individual good, the general interest and the particular interest in land use. If urbanisation represents the process of continuous socio-ecological transformation of space, the role of the administration, at least in its formal sense, is to ensure that it is controlled and that standards are applied. However, day-to-day land management brings to the fore other norms that we call 'practical norms'. These practical standards act as intermediary mechanisms, creating conditions that enable stakeholders to express both their freedoms and their constraints. They offer the possibility of negotiating and translating the constraints set and defined on the basis of an action mechanism with limited resources, by taking account of alternative resources in their relationship. Here, on the basis of a variety of resources, the relationship will be between the official and the subject, or between the official and the commissioner, whose role will be defined.

## Acquiring building land: corruption as a land management resource

One of the characteristics of Bukavu's urbanisation is the frantic race for land. This attraction is linked to the fact that land is wealth and, what's more, savings. Given the uncertainty of the system, investing in a building plot is a way of protecting oneself against future hazards (unemployment, political instability, etc.) as well as meeting projected needs (children's education, health, marriage, inheritance, etc.). The cultural dimension is also mentioned, as land is synonymous with social recognition. Also, land is seen not only as a place to live, but much more as an economic asset to be valued in a market with little public regulation. All these factors combine to increase demand to such an extent that the information received by the land registry and property titles department shows that the town is saturated. All 39km² of the 43km² available to the town have already been allocated. There is therefore no land reserve, as all the plots are in the hands of the concessionaires. In the State's private domain, the land is in the hands of private individuals who manage it as they see fit, often in violation of authorised boundaries. The administration is supposed to control transactions and changes in order to guarantee the general welfare. However, the process of regularising and formalising land runs counter to the usual procedure. Rather than starting with a request for land and an acknowledgement of receipt, the plot is first acquired by purchase or transfer, even if it is not legally registered. You then go to the land registry office to regularise the situation. The holder of the land, armed with a deed of sale or transfer and a plot occupancy sheet, comes to have the land measured and demarcated officially, at his own expense. At the same time, the purchaser looks for the lease contract, which attests to the existence of the land and the measurements taken by the land affairs department. From there, a file is opened to finalise the land application and the necessary works. This involves regularising a de facto situation, but at a price. This process, commonly referred to as "monitoring the rental contract file", officially costs US$17 in administrative fees. But there is a kind of social contract that means you have to pay more, as a land registry official in Bukavu told me: "because of the precarious resources allocated to
our services in terms of operating costs and officials' salaries, special arrangements have already been made between those subject to the law and land registry officials, who are like rules in their own right. Here at the Bukavu II land registry, as elsewhere, you will never get a rental contract at that price. You have to pay a lot more to keep the machine running. At the Bukavu II cadastre and land affairs division, it is established that in addition to the $17 paid to the bank as proof of payment, there are related costs, broken down as follows: CDC (Head of Cadastral Division): $20, CTI (Head of Real Estate Titles): $20, Surveyor: $20, Opening the file: $10, Typing and office stamp: $5, CB (Head of Office) Technical: $5, B2 (Office 2, Agent of the National Intelligence Agency): $5, Social Security Fund: $10, Accounting clearance: $5, Tax: $5. The minimum cost of obtaining a rental agreement is therefore $122, starting at $17 or $22, depending on whether or not tax is included. On the face of it, the formalities involved in recognising ownership rights are inexpensive. However, corruption thrives on the fact that there are different markets depending on the land services agent to whom the application is submitted, seeking to gain a significant financial advantage. Given the administrative slowness characteristic of these services, those subject to them are encouraged to pay more to speed up the process, thus motivating the agents with money to obtain their land rights. This creates competition between Ministry of Land Affairs agents to attract registrants. The actual amount of the bill and the time taken to process the file therefore depend on the agent's behaviour. In turn, applicants have developed a strategy to reduce costs and speed up the process. Nowadays, many dealers build directly without first obtaining a lease contract, concentrating solely on obtaining a certificate of registration after construction. Normally, the procedure requires you to have a lease agreement in order to obtain planning permission, and then, after a building survey and the drafting of a development report, you finally obtain the registration certificate. Once again, a fee of $50 is recognised as proof of payment of the cost of monitoring the certificate file at the public treasury. However, there are other related costs, which are broken down as follows: CDC (Chef de Division de Cadastre): $20, CTI (Conservateur des Titres Immobiliers): $20, Géomètre: $20, Bureau domaine foncier: $10, Bureau documentation: $5, Bureau technique: $5, Bureau taxation: $5, Bureau dactylographie: $5, Bureau enregistrement: $5, Caisse sociale: $10, Apurement Comptable: $5, Bureau enregistrement certificat: $40. In a weak institutional environment, negotiation and transaction are mechanisms for adapting and mitigating risks. This is what is known as the "coop" (Bilakila 2004), characterised by informal haggling, cheating, negotiation and inventive survival solutions to conduct business. According to Bilakila, 'coop' illustrates the perseverance of the Congolese in the face of adversity. Any attempt to obtain a service from land agents involves costs. These costs are far in excess of what is officially requested, without any supporting documents. From one point of view, this could be considered as "corruption". However, the surplus collected has already been "accepted" by the taxpayers and "formalised" by the land affairs departments without causing any problems. Taxpayers are aware that they have not strictly followed the procedures prescribed by law and that there is a price to pay for this. It should be noted that the specific breakdown of related costs is not known to the public. I had to be motivated to obtain it and find out more. According to this breakdown, the spoils are shared in a hierarchical and inclusive manner. Furthermore, with the solidarity that generally characterises African countries and public services in the face of the absence of state social security and health insurance, it appears that $10 from each application for a rental contract or registration certificate is reserved for the social fund to help agents in need in the event of illness, bereavement, marriage, birth, natural disaster, etc.

*The fragmentation of land parcels: the norm of accomplished fact*

« *Tusogeleyane tu eneye mu ville : Finding space to accommodate everyone in the city* »

The combination of the population explosion and demographic constraints has made land scarce in the region. In addition, insecurity in the region has meant that Bukavu has become a haven for people fleeing their villages because of the relative tranquility. These factors have had an impact on Bukavu's land market, leading to saturation on both the supply and demand sides. With no empty plots of land available in the urban area, a new form of land acquisition has emerged, known as parcel fragmentation, which reflects the over-exploitation of land. In response to the untimely parcelling out of land, which is disfiguring Bukavu's urban landscape, the authorities have not remained insensitive. Around 2010, the provincial minister responsible brought together the land registry and land affairs departments to discuss the problem.
Subsequently, the provincial governor signed a decree setting the minimum size of a plot at 3 ares, or 300 m² (15 m x 20 m). This measure only succeeded in putting an end to the granting of registration certificates for plots smaller than 300 m², but did nothing to curb the practice of subdividing plots below the size stipulated by the decree. "After two months, there was nothing in the treasury account. When the government authorities noticed this, they called to find out why the money was no longer coming in. We told them it was because they had banned the delivery of papers for plots smaller than 3 ares, so no one was coming to register their plots any more," says the head of the Bukavu I land registry division. In the meantime, property transactions continued in the town, with earthworks being carried out for new buildings, and houses being erected under the helpless gaze of the services of the ministries of land affairs and town planning. "It's a win-win situation. Why refuse to acknowledge a division that has already taken place? They come to regularise, and then we get a job and the State finds itself. The designer gets something, I get something, my colleagues get something. And the taxpayer gets his title deeds", she continues. The initial measure imposing a minimum plot size of 300m² was then revised to 100m² by the provincial government, allowing even smaller plots to be registered. This revision paved the way for the land registry services to register and issue plot titles even for concession holders with smaller plot sizes, sometimes as small as 70m² or 60m². However, because of the abuses observed, the practice of parcelling out plots was eventually suspended. This shows that the authorities have not been able to regulate land parcelling effectively, and where attempts have been made, they have resulted in lost revenue for the government. Land departments are waiting for new regulations, while concessionaires and agents are profiting from the situation. What's more, the state benefits from the taxes collected on these transactions. A land registry official explained that they are obliged to issue cadastral numbers after the sale of plots between residents. The process is therefore privatised, with everyone making a profit.

<figure><img src="image_115.png" /><figcaption>[fig. 5] Panoramic view of an island. Source: By the author on 15/12/2020</figcaption></figure>

Cities in the South have often been presented as centres of urbanisation where the informal sector plays a dominant role in public policy. Mike Davis (2006) has described these cities as chaotic slums where poverty thrives. However, the land market in Bukavu seems to contradict this assertion. From the perspective of Saskia Sassen and David Harvey, Bukavu is also a place of production and accumulation of wealth, like New
York or Paris. This is what we propose to show in this last point, where the land market transforms the civil servant-subject binomial into a civil servant-commissioner binomial. The latter plays a much more important role than that of a simple intermediary between buyers and sellers. The commissionaire, who can be likened to a property broker, acts in reality as a land developer, dividing up plots of land as he sees fit and putting them up for sale before they are regularised by the land affairs and land registry departments. This dynamic creates a balance of power between those who aspire to access land and those who control access, crystallising power relations and social relationships. Furthermore, it should be emphasised that the regulation of the land market does not depend solely on demographic growth or problems of land accessibility, but also and above all on property speculation. If we can characterise this speculation, two factors stand out. Firstly, the question of location rent, where the location of a plot of land has a direct influence on its price because of its locational advantage. But locational advantage does not explain everything. There is also another key factor, that of capital flows, the historical characteristic of which, as Harvey mentions, is that urbanisation reflects capital accumulation. The ability of landowners to take advantage of their situation enables them to maintain the competition necessary for the continued accumulation of capital. This presupposes a prior commodification of land, where location rent highlights the link between land price and building density (Ruegg 2008). The surveys revealed that this phenomenon is at the root of the rise in the price of plots of land in Bukavu. For example, a plot of land bought in 2003 for $900 was resold five years later for $9,000, an increase of 1,000%. Between 2007 and 2012, plots were sold for between $8,000 and $20,000, and from 2015 onwards, prices have continued to rise, with a sample of plots surveyed fetching $30,000 for the smallest plot and $150,000 for the largest plot with a dilapidated building in 2020. This land speculation results in significant profits for commission agents, as shown by the example of a plot in NGUBA bought for $290,000, which generated a profit of $319.000 for the commission agent after being divided into several lots sold at various prices as follows: lot 1: $69,000, lots 2 and 3: $100,000 each, lots 4 and 5: $30,000 each, lot 6: $42,000, lot 7: $40,000, lot 8: $30,000, lot 9: $30,000, lot 10: $60,000, lot 11: $29,000, lot 12: $29,000 [fig.6].

<figure><img src="image_116.png" /><figcaption>[fig.6] Parcelling of land on Avenue Patrice Emery Lumumba in Nguba. Source: Elaborated by the author</figcaption></figure>

The high prices of plots of land in Bukavu exceed those observed in Kinshasa, which has until now been considered the city with the most expensive land in DR Congo, given its status as the capital, with the ratio ranging from simple to double. In examining the factors contributing to the high prices of plots of land in Bukavu, demographic pressure and the scarcity of building land are explanatory factors, but are not sufficient to justify the considerable sums spent to acquire a plot of land in this city. Field surveys accompanied by in-depth analysis will highlight the impact of artisanal mining on this situation in two ways. On the one hand, several studies reveal a close correlation between insecurity in the mining areas surrounding Bukavu and the massive movement of rural populations towards the city, which increases the
demand for building land. On the other hand, mining activity attracts many players, particularly miners, who
invest in real estate or use the acquisition of plots as a means of laundering their capital at a later date.

Conclusion

Starting from praxis, this article shows how the city and its socio-political and environmental context have
strong implications for the way in which the natural landscape is urbanised. Looking at the urban sprawl of
Bukavu, the paper raises the issue of land parcelling as a strategy for providing building land in the face of
the shortage of available space in urban areas. This approach is controversial, with some seeing it as
disfiguring the natural landscape and a source of land disputes. Others see it as a necessary response to the
demand for housing in a context marked by insecurity and demographic pressure. In other words, there are
urban and environmental processes that negatively affect certain social groups while benefiting others
(Heynen, Kaika 2006). Land management is a major challenge in this context, with complex issues relating
to the allocation and appropriation of land. It brings to light new resources and new logics of urban
production. Although these arrangements do not formally resemble official ones, they are not informal. It
is a social contract in which the clear boundary between public and private becomes blurred, with state
agents using their position to participate in the land market on an individual basis. However, this is not
without consequences. Those subject to land services see their freedoms increased but also their constraints
reduced. Ultimately, this land market is characterised by speculation, fuelled mainly by capital from artisanal
mining, but not exclusively.

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Foodscapes: from soil to policies. Food as a design tool for landscape and territory. (p.252)

Ambrosi Amerigo Alberto, IUAVenezia (IT)
# Agricultural islands in Paris metropolis. An investigation into possible interactions and complementarities between urban and food landscapes

Axelle Thierry

Affiliation : CY Cergy-Paris Université, Ecole Universitaire de Recherche « Humanités, création, patrimoine », Ecole nationale supérieure de paysage (ENSP Versailles), Laboratoire de recherche en projet de paysage (LAREP)

Supervisors : Sylvie Salles (academic supervisor, professor ENSP) and Rémi Janin (professional supervisor, landscape architect, farmer, and lecturer ENSA-Clermont-Ferrand)

Expected thesis defence : July, 2024

email : a.thierry@ecole-paysage.fr

## Abstract

The intra-urban agricultural enclaves of the Paris metropolis are part of "agro-sylvo-urban" landscapes and form a constellation of islands. How do this archipelago and the metropolis interact? What role can these enclaves play in the future of the metropolis in a context of socio-ecological transition? By investigating nine enclaves, we have been able to identify recurring problems linked to the metropolitan situation, and to analyse the projectual dynamics at work in these areas, involving a range of players, in particular landscape designers. It appears that agricultural activity generates co-benefits for the enclaves and the metropolis, which can be amplified by the spatial project. What's more, their respective vulnerabilities mean that the complementarities between agricultural enclaves and woodland-urban areas need to be strengthened, and new planning strategies need to be devised that include landscape designers.

## The archipelago of agricultural enclaves in the Paris metropolis

Urban agriculture (UA) takes many spatial forms (interstice, indoor farm, rooftop vegetable garden, peri-urban agriculture, etc.) with a variety of socio-economic models (inhabitant gardening, micro-farms, professional farms, etc.). This raises questions about their role, place and modalities in the urban fabric (Aubry, 2014; Morgan, 2014; Caro et al., 2016; Bognon and Cormier, 2018; Consales and Bories, 2018). Among UAs, the intra-urban agricultural enclaves of the Paris metropolis constitute a singular spatial figure. The notion of enclave (from the Latin *clavus*, nail, lock) refers to a territory enclosed by another, echoing that of island, isolated. The agricultural enclave, a rarely used concept, has been defined as follows: "The agricultural enclave is the contemporary observation of agricultural forms of various scales now physically, and very often involuntarily, caught up in the urban fabric [...]. Beyond these areas, agricultural enclavement is a global observation of the isolation of agriculture in urban societies, both physical and cultural, which needs to be overcome" (Janin, 2017). In this article, it is understood as a productive agricultural area isolated by predominantly urban areas, and disconnected from the agricultural continuities of the Paris region, such as the Brie plateau or the French plain. It is also characterised by its spatial, functional and regulatory constraints, as well as its size<fnref n="1" />. Some enclaves in the Paris region have been the subject of research in geography and agronomy, notably as part of the Agrige research programme<fnref n="2" /> on agri-urban programmes in the Green Belt (Bonin, 2021), showing the extent to which they face numerous challenges and issues; but they have not been studied as an insular spatial typology. Faced with this observation, this doctoral research mobilised cartographic tools [fig.1] to reveal and characterise these Ile-de-France agricultural enclaves (Thierry, 2023).

<footnote n="1">¹ The surface areas of the enclaves were determined on the basis of cartographic analyses and interviews with farmers. Ranging from 1 ha to 2,500 ha, they are larger than the majority of UAs in dense urban areas. For example, for a farm to be profitable, a minimum of 1 ha is needed for organic market gardening (short distribution channels), 8 ha in a single holding for integrated arboriculture (short distribution channels), and 10 ha for organic livestock farming (short distribution channels). Furthermore, of the sites studied, the largest enclave identified is on the Saclay plateau (approx. 2,500 ha).</footnote>

<footnote n="2">² AGRIGE : Archipels agriurbains, Résistances et Gouvernances, du programme Pour et Sur le Développement Régional (PSDR 4)</footnote>
<figure><img src="image_117.png" /></figure>

[fig.1]. Recognition of enclaves as a spatial form. Source: elaborated by the author (2021), from IGN and MOS 2021.

### Agri-sylvo-urban landscapes

The agricultural soils of Paris's former food belt have been heavily urbanised since the 19th century. Urban sprawl has accelerated since the 1950s, as part of the process of Parisian metropolisation, disconnecting the city from local food systems (Steel, 2013), complicating the relationship between urbanised areas and peripheral agriculture (Brand and Bonnefoy, 2011) and enclosing peri-urban farmland, which then becomes intra-urban [fig.2]. These enclaves are the result of a chaotic development process – isolated by urban sprawl, infrastructure construction, existing woodland and forests – but also of policies and projects aimed at maintaining agriculture. Their situation characterises an ill-consideration of role for agriculture in metropolitan planning. Most of them are located in the Green Belt, a project launched in 1983 to structure a network of agricultural, natural and forest areas between the dense city and rural areas. The project has been criticised for allowing urban sprawl onto agricultural land, and was almost abandoned in 2013. A comparison of the respective use of agricultural soils and forest soils between 1982 and 2021 [fig.3] shows that agriculture has shrunk considerably, while forests have remained stable or even expanded, benefiting from a separate regional policy (Flegeau, 2018).

### Agricultural lands

<figure><img src="image_118.png" /></figure>

### Urban areas

[fig.2]. A metropolis disconnected from agricultural areas, pushed to the fringes and swallowed up by urban development. Source: elaborated by the author (2021), from IPR.
<figure><img src="image_119.png" /><figcaption>Forest areas lost between 1982 and 2021</figcaption></figure>

<figure><img src="image_120.png" /><figcaption>Agricultural lands lost between 1982 and 2021</figcaption></figure>

[fig.3]. Contrasting trajectories for agriculture and forestry in the Green Belt between 1982 and 2021. Source : elaborated by the author (2021), from Evolumos 2021.

Today, this Green Belt is one of Île-de-France's main development objectives. In 2019, it was made up of 38% urbanised areas, 37% agricultural areas and 23% forested areas. Mapping shows that these three types of juxtaposed or even interpenetrating landscape structure are highly fragmented. As a result, the Green Belt appears to be an eminently a 'agri-sylvo-urban' landscape [fig.4].

<figure><img src="image_121.png" /></figure>

[fig.4]. Enclaves, components of agro-sylvo-urban landscapes. Source : elaborated by the author (2021), from Mos 2021, IGN.

### An inverted archipelago

These enclaves form a constellation of landscapes around Paris (ring), between the dense urban area and rural spaces. As part of the process of describing the territory, through a combination of immersive walks and cartographic production, the PhD research refers to the actual enclaves as 'islands' and those in the pipeline as 'almost islands'. This terminology echoes the figure of the archipelago, where water surrounds islands, dividing and connecting them. This essential spatial concept of the twentieth century (McGrath, 2021) is a fertile figure in urban planning [fig.5]. Ungers and Koolhaas used it in 1977 to describe Berlin (Ungers et al., 2013). Since 1967, it has also guided the planning of Rennes, which is trying to establish a consensus between city and country through the organisation of an 'Archipelago City' (Chapuis, 2008).
<caption>The City in the City -
Berlin: A Green Archipelago (1977)</caption>

Oswald Mathias Ungers, Rem Koolhaas, Hans
Kolhoff, Arthur Ovaska, and Peter Riemann.

<figure><img src="image_122.png" /><figcaption>Rennes Green Belt
Change in land artificialisation
in Rennes Metropolis from
1984 to 2005</figcaption></figure>

<figure><img src="image_123.png" /></figure>

[fig.5]. The archipelago figures of Berlin (Source : Berlin as Archipelago, 1977) and Rennes (Source : Audiar)

If we reinterpret this concept, the constellation of agricultural enclaves in the Paris region would form an 'agricultural archipelago', rather than a Green Belt. An inverted archipelago thus emerges, made up of agricultural spaces separated by the sylvo-urban spaces of the Parisian metropolis. Using such a concept to read and understand the Paris metropolis means revealing the presence of these unique agricultural landscapes at different scales and questioning their role. The agricultural archipelago of enclaves is in fact a sylvo-agricultural archipelago, since the agricultural islands are frequently bordered by woods and forests, constituting complementary landscape structures with regard to the dynamics of the living, both plant and animal. So these notions of islands, almost-islands and archipelagos are tools for designing metropolitan areas on the basis of agricultural areas, and offering an alternative to their urbanisation.

## Enclave internalities and externalities

The inverted archipelago is characterised by the coexistence of two spatial logics [fig.6]. On the one hand, the enclaves are defined by an interiority with a specific function: one or several farms structured by a network of paths and landscape features contributing to a agronomic project (greenhouses, sheds, groves, hedges, ponds, streams, etc.). On the other hand, they are defined by externalities, by logics that go beyond those of the enclave, linked to the spaces that surround them. In this way, agricultural landscapes are capable of simultaneously providing various ecosystem services and amenities for urban dwellers (positive externalities); but they are also subject to severe constraints (infrastructure, conflicts of use, etc.), and are reciprocally vectors of nuisance (negative externalities). How do these two spatial structures interact? How does the multifunctionality of enclaves, which is specific to Uas (Wegmuller and Duchemin, 2010), create links with the surrounding woodland and urban areas, and vice versa?

Taken as a whole, the enclaves form an archipelago of 'food islands' that are the focus of socio-cultural and biodiversity dynamics, and which are linked to regional networks : footpaths, agricultural and forest ecosystems, local food production (processing, short-distance sales), etc. They constitute significant landscape structures (around 18,000 ha identified in the research), which play a key role in local food systems and are part of the biodiversity networks of the *Schéma Régional de Cohérence Ecologique* (SRCE). They represent a major challenge for urban-agricultural relations, as their positive and negative externalities are spread over much larger areas than other UA.
<figure><img src="image_124.png" /></figure>

[fig.6]. The internalities and externalities of enclaves. The example of the Montesson plain. Source : elaborated by the author (2023), from Mos 2021, IGN.

What role can agricultural enclaves play in the Paris metropolis? In what way could they help to rethink the urban-agricultural-forestry links, or even guide the future of the metropolis in a context of socio-ecological transition? We hypothesise that the spatial project within the enclaves can develop co-benefits and complementarities with the metropolis.

Based on this premise, this article presents the results of observations made in enclaves. It identifies problems, issues and project dynamics. It opens a discussion on the added value of designers in supporting agricultural projects, particularly from the perspective of co-benefits and complementarities between urban areas, agriculture and forest. This article is based on a chapter currently being written, linked to an ongoing PhD research project (PhD by landscape design). This research focuses on the future role of agricultural enclaves and aims to respond to two issues: to clarify how agricultural project – via landscape project – can constitute a tool for urban design, and to specify the potential contributions of landscape architects in renewing reflection and action on the future of relations between the metropolis and agriculture.

## Investigation of nine enclaves in the archipelago

### *Material and method*

Nine enclaves [fig.7] were analysed between 2021 and 2023 as part of a partnership with the Agence des Espaces Verts de la Région Ile-de-France (AEV), a key player in the spatial embodiment of the Green Belt (Flegeau, 2018). The AEV has a land tool, the *Périmètre Régional d'Intervention Foncière* (PRIF), which enables it to acquire non-urbanised land (natural, agricultural and forest areas) to create the Green Belt, in particular with the aim of opening them up to the public. These sites have been selected on the basis of a number of criteria. They vary in terms of scale, objectives and location, and are all covered by a PRIF.

The survey was based on multidisciplinary methods – investigation of the terrain by walking (regular and attentive observations), observation of meetings by accompanying the AEV's
Agricultural Mission in its actions, interviews with farmers, developers, local authorities, etc., diachronic and multi-thematic mapping production – to identify a diversity of situations, characteristics and problems – and to analyse the projectual dynamics at work in the enclaves.

<figure><img src="image_125.png" /><figcaption>[fig.7]. The nine fields of PhD research in the Green Belt. Source: elaborated by the author (2023), from Mos 2021.</figcaption></figure>

## Site characteristics and issues

The enclaves observed are not anonymous islands, almost all of them have a name linked to their geographical characteristics: 'plain of', 'mountain of' etc. [fig.8]. They are farmed by professional farmers with relatively traditional farm business models. However, the nine sites present very different situations:

- the Andilly Plateau is characterised by renaturation issues. Here, farming is a management method for repairing the site and bringing it to life, with experiments in eco-pasturing and agro-forestry;

- the Argenteuil Plaine, historically a market-gardening area, is now partly occupied by sedentary Travellers, and illegal dumping has polluted the soil. As a result, the agricultural function of the site has been undermined. A complete overhaul of the site is currently under study, with a view to reconnecting it with the city and introducing mixed farming in the few areas that are not polluted;

- The Nézant Hillside et Mont de Veine are a rare arboreal vestige of the former Parisian food belt. The future of the site, which is in a state of partial abandonment, is threatened by the imminent retirement of farmers. The lack of action by local authorities is leading to a status quo.

- the Mandres-les-Roses Plateau is defined by the cohabitation of an intense activity of horticultural greenhouses and cereal fields. The site studied is the subject of a project for an organic market-gardening centre (with short-circuit baskets, permaculture, recycling of organic waste, etc.).

- The Montesson Plain is an emblematic site due to its size (400ha, twelve market gardeners) and its proximity to the La Défense business district. It is subject to many conflicts of use (theft, damage, illegal dumping, etc.), which are partially dealt with by a recently-developed soft mobility network.

- The Mont Guichet, a former vineyard that became a cereal-growing site, is now used for mixed farming (vines, market gardening, fodder). This site symbolises the return of vines to the Ile-de-France region, authorised in 2016, and is based on the principles of short circuits and wine-forestry.

- The Montjean Plain is home to an agri-neighbourhood currently under construction. It represents a compromise between construction (200 dwellings) and partial preservation of agriculture. The
site, which grows cereals, is the focus of a vast project to diversify agriculture and make the transition to agro-ecology through the landscape project.

- The Marnières site in Palaiseau is at the tip of the Saclay Opération d'Intérêt National, a vast development project in south-western Paris (education and research cluster, metro line 18). An agricultural project aims to replace the cereal-growing activity to meet the challenges of food relocation (farmer employed by the municipality) and ecological compensation.

- The Saulx-les-Chartreux Plateau is a very active agricultural site (more rural than the other eight), where multiple informal transfers of land have created a situation that is very complex for the public authorities to manage.

<figure><img src="image_126.png" /><figcaption>[fig.8]. The nine sites and their landscape units. Source : elaborated by the author, 2021.</figcaption></figure>
Cultivating enclosed land : meaningful and complex links between food-producing areas and inhabited areas

It is paradoxical that agricultural enclaves are still frequently perceived by local authorities and developers as 'empty spaces', potential land reserves, because they are 'full spaces' that are lived in, managed and multifunctional. Compared with other types of UA, enclaves have a range of advantages: this soil-grown agriculture, on relatively large plots of land, favours short-distance sales and products with high added value, which ensures economic balance in a context of strong societal demand for food traceability. As food production is globally diversified (market gardening, arboriculture, viticulture, livestock, etc.), the enclaves present a variety of landscape qualities that are appreciated by local residents. This landscape diversity also helps to reinforce the green and blue networks. Lastly, some farms have forged important social links by organising farm sales, educational activities and so on.

However, farming in enclaves also has its drawbacks: this type of agriculture receives less support than urban agriculture in dense areas (see the 'Parisculteurs' programme in inner-city Paris, for example) and rarely receives Common Agricultural Policy aid because of the small areas and types of production. Farming is subject to numerous regulatory constraints (urban, environmental, heritage, health, etc.). Farming is hampered by the fact that it is landlocked (difficult for machinery to get around, few agricultural buildings permitted by urban regulations, etc.), by the difficulties of recruiting and housing labour in an urban environment, and by the problems of social acceptability, noise and odour pollution, conflicts of use and so on. Finally, access to land is even more complex than elsewhere.

<figure><img src="image_127.png" /><figcaption>[fig.9]. Examples of issues identified. Source : elaborated by the author, 2023.</figcaption></figure>

Project-based dynamics in enclaves

By analysing the trajectory of nine sites over the last ten years, seven of them have been the subject of spatial projects<fnref n="1" />. How is agriculture conceived and created in these enclaves? Is it part of institutionalised planning contexts?

<footnote n="1">¹Saulx-les-Chartreux et les coteaux de Nézant n'ont fait l'objet d'aucun projet.</footnote>
The role of designers in the project dynamics of the nine enclaves

Local authorities and developers rarely have expertise in agriculture, so they have recourse to specific engineering (agronomy, legal expertise, hydraulics, etc.). In addition, designers have been involved in most of the enclaves occasionally. Their involvement varied in terms of scale (entire enclave, farm, etc.), mission (advice and assistance to the project owner, design, site supervision, etc.), framework (project management office, association, consultancy firm, local authority, institution), themes and outcome (studies, construction site, etc.). Four configurations emerge from the analysis of the sites:

Case 1. Classic urban and landscape project management service where the challenge is to propose a diagnosis, development scenarios and a masterplan for the site, integrating an agricultural programme. In this case, farming is already established, but is considered unsatisfactory. It is both a component of the site and a programme. Four large sites are involved: Argenteuil, Montesson, Montjean and Mont Guichet. The designers involved – Agence TER (landscape and urban planning) in Argenteuil (2014-2016), Agence Folléa-Gauthier (landscape and urban planning) in Montesson (2011), Agence Laq (architecture and urban planning) in Montjean (2014-2023), Agence Roberta (landscape) in Mont Guichet (2012) – were commissioned by the local authorities or the AEV to rethink the agricultural revitalisation of the sites and their interfaces with urban areas. In Argenteuil, a network of paths is restructuring the plain, bypassing a sedentary camp that blocks access to the plain. In Montesson, thick borders of housing create a smaller agricultural area in the heart of the plain, which takes on the appearance of a vast public space. At Montjean, the project is also based on a compromise between the construction of a new residential area on the northern flank and the preservation of agricultural land to the south. At Mont Guichet, promenades link the agricultural terrace and the wooded hillside. These masterplans therefore covered the total area of the enclaves, but none of them were implemented within the agricultural areas. The designers, three of whom were landscape and urban planners, had no specific expertise in agriculture, but some of them were supported by a dedicated engineering team. In addition, the clients had also called on dedicated engineering services.

Case 2. Service provided by the AEV on its owned land. This type of assignment is carried out by the Landscape department of AEV, which designs the projects, and the Development department of AEV, which monitors the work. It also involves the Agriculture department of AEV, which is responsible for agronomy, and the regional delegates, who are responsible for regulatory urban planning and regional strategy. In addition, projects are developed in close collaboration with local authorities. In this case, the farming activity is already established, but it will evolve. The developments are designed as a prelude to the installation and development of plots of land by new farmers, who are leased by the AEV. Five sites are involved: Montjean, Mandres, Palaiseau, Andilly and Palaiseau (in progress). The issues differ on each of the sites, but the project proposals are all spatially constrained by the AEV's and the local authorities' control of the land. They have two objectives : to open up the sites to the public (creation of paths, viewpoints, signposting, etc.) and to ensure agronomic efficiency (drilling, fencing, etc.). These projects benefit from engineering tailored to agricultural issues : legal, hydraulic and pedological expertise, etc.

Case 3. Service provided by an association or company employing designers and sometimes landscape architects. These structures are mobilised to provide advice and technical support for the development of the site. The configurations vary : the Agrof'ile association (support for agroecological projects) was hired by AEV at Andilly to design an agroforestry project with a view to renaturation; it was also asked by a winegrower at Mont Guichet to design a climate change-resistant wine-forestry system, as part of an experimental partnership. The agro-ecological transition of the sites is at the heart of the approach, and the projects are designed as give-and-take experiments, beneficial both for the site operators and for the association, which collects the data. The association brings together not only landscape architects, but also farmers, agronomists and scientists, so its skills are both project-based and technical. In Palaiseau-les Manières, the local authority called on the services of Cultures et compagnies, a start-up specialising in urban agriculture, to make up for its lack of agricultural expertise in developing the urban agriculture project it had initiated. The collaboration proved financially costly, but delivered a turnkey project. This start-up brought together a wide range of skills – agronomy, sociology, project management, small-scale market gardening, educational activities, etc. – but no professional designer. These three
cases therefore illustrate projects without a designer's signature, focused on farms and production, with no overall view of the site.

Case 4. Voluntary service provided by the farmer himself, a former designer. In Mandres-les-Roses, two of the four farmers are former landscape architects who have converted to permaculture. From the outset, they began to spatialise their farm project, proposing to structure the landscape, which until then had been very open, with hedges that created functional cells with several components : permaculture production, experimental orchard, natural areas for agro-pastoralism, farm sheds. Here again, the approach remains limited to the farm, without being part of a wider landscape approach.

<table><caption>[tab.1] Types of spatial project by site. Source : elaborated by the author, 2023.</caption><thead><tr><th>Project configuration</th><th>Andilly</th><th>Argenteuil</th><th>Mandres</th><th>Montesson</th><th>Mont Guichet</th><th>Montjean</th><th>Nézant</th><th>Palaiseau</th><th>Saulx</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>masterplan by designers (mostly landscape architects)</td><td></td><td>X</td><td></td><td>X</td><td>X</td><td>X</td><td></td><td></td><td></td></tr><tr><td>development project by AEV (direct management)</td><td>X</td><td></td><td>X</td><td></td><td>X</td><td>X</td><td></td><td>X</td><td></td></tr><tr><td>development project by external players who are not designers</td><td>X</td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td>X</td><td></td><td></td><td>X</td><td></td></tr><tr><td>development project by farmers, formerly landscape architects</td><td></td><td></td><td>X</td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td></tr></tbody></table>

## Enclave-metropolis co-benefits

*Initiating a dialogue between agricultural, forestry and urban areas through spatial planning*

The analysis of the project approaches observed in the enclaves reveals a different objectives. The first concerns all the sites (except Nézant and Saulx) and aims to design a framework of public spaces to open up the site to residents, create spaces where people can meet and share at the edges, and develop spaces for multi-purpose use (sales, events, enjoyment, etc.). In this way, the aim is to improve access to the site by creating social, physical, visual and functional links between urban, agricultural and forestry areas, and between local residents and local producers. The second objective aims to integrate an architectural programme into agricultural area, with distinct cases in point: agricultural building projects to ensure production conditions (sheds, greenhouses, etc. in Mandres, Mont Guichet and Palaiseau) ; ‘agri-neighbourhood’ projects in Montesson and Montjean, which reflect a compromise between urban sprawl and agricultural preservation. The third objective is to bring about an agro-ecological transition on farms, by making production and the associated ecosystem more complex. Andilly, for example, is undergoing renaturation and experimentation with agroforestry, Argenteuil a project to return to mixed farming, Mandres a transition from an 'open field' landscape to a permaculture farm, Mont Guichet an experimental wine-forestry project, Montjean the creation of an ‘agro’valley’ with non-irrigated crops, and so on. However, some of these projects have more to do with rhetoric than with a finely-tuned agro-ecological transition project.

The projects of designers, particularly landscape architects, have in common that they involve agronomic and landscape complexity. They are based on the specific features of the landscape project : management processes that take place over a long period of time (in an ecological circularity) and that mobilise the ‘living’ as main resource. This leads to management practices that are attentive to the sites and to the economy of means (gravity-fed irrigation, minimal development,
etc.) in order to take account of tight agricultural budgets. But they are not systematically take place on a variety of spatial scales, going beyond that of the enclave. In so doing, they have an impact which could be strengthened on the links between city, agriculture and forest (a network of shared paths, new uses, views, increased biodiversity, etc.).

*Federating designers at the heart of multi-stakeholder projects and around a spatial framework?*

Given the variety of agricultural issues in enclaves, there is clearly a need for designers, who are themselves supported by agricultural experts, to take agronomic needs into account in a detailed way. The study of project-based approaches has shown that the agricultural project must be the driving force behind the landscape project, and not the other way round. Designing agriculture involves thinking from a cyclical point of view (life, seasons, crop rotations, etc.). Several types of fruitful collaboration are emerging, bringing together agricultural and agronomic skills on the one hand and landscape skills on the other : between the AEV's Landscape and Agriculture departments ; between an association such as Agrof'ile (with expertise in agriculture and landscape) and institutional players such as the AEV or farmers ; or between a consultancy such as Cultures et compagnies and local authorities. The designers' projects provide a unifying spatial framework for the various stakeholders.

However, the transition from a guide plan (masterplan) produced by a designer to a more operational phase is complex to implement without full control of the land. What's more, the timescales for urban planning projects – of the order of ten years or so – do not sit well with the rhythms of farmers. There is therefore a risk of producing projects that are disconnected from agricultural realities, particularly if they are drawn up on derelict sites, without any contact with farmers. Indeed, the presence of farmers on the site at an early stage is a pivotal issue : if they are present, the project must be designed with them in mind ; if they are not, then this gives greater freedom, but it also means prefiguring a credible agricultural landscape.

*Towards co-benefits and complementarities?*

Observing the enclaves, it appears that agricultural activity generates co-benefits for the enclave and the spaces of the metropolis. Moreover, these co-benefits are amplified by the designers' projects, which enrich the agricultural project through the spatial project [tab.2]. This notion of 'co-benefit', borrowed from that of 'climatic co-benefits', refers to a reciprocity of advantages (win-win).

From a spatial point of view, thinking in terms of co-benefits makes it possible to go beyond the objectives of multifunctionality of agriculture and ecosystem services to undertake more ambitious and systemic projects that address metropolitan issues such as waste management, water and soil protection, creation of renewable energy, etc., while enriching agricultural production with organic matter, crops that consume little water and are resilient, and income supplements (agrivoltaics, etc.).

However, few of the sites studied have succeeded in creating strong complementarities between agro-sylvo-urban landscapes. How can this be improved?

<table><thead><tr><td>Improving the agricultural projects</td><td>Co-benefits for the agricultural enclave</td><td>Co-benefits for the metropolis</td></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Creating paths</td><td>Crop surveillance</td><td>Living environment<br>Connectivity, Soft mobility</td></tr><tr><td>Mixed farming, landscape grid</td><td>Crop auxiliaries</td><td>Biodiversity</td></tr><tr><td>Sales outlet at the edge of the farm</td><td>Direct valorisation<br>Simplification of the chain</td><td>Traceability of products consumed</td></tr><tr><td>Increased use of trees in production (arboriculture, agro-forestry, wine-forestry, etc.)</td><td>Diversification<br>Soil maintenance</td><td>Reduction of heat islands<br>Carbon storage<br>Landscape quality</td></tr><tr><td>Renaturation</td><td>Specific agricultural uses (methanisation, eco-pasture, etc.)</td><td>Space open to the public</td></tr><tr><td>Educational workshops, events</td><td>Enhancement of the farm</td><td>Link with the land</td></tr><tr><td>Use of organic urban waste</td><td>Integration as organic matter to enrich the soil</td><td>Waste recycling</td></tr><tr><td>Recovery of rainwater from buildings</td><td>Irrigation</td><td>Less water to infiltrate or treat</td></tr></tbody></table>
[tab.2] Examples of reciprocal co-benefits observed between enclaves and the metropolis. Source : elaborated by the author, 2023.

## Essential complementarities between enclaves and their territories

### *Inventing intervention strategies*

The notions of agricultural enclaves, islands, archipelagos and agro-sylvo-urban landscapes all contribute to a different view of the role of agriculture. The archipelago of enclaves represents a major challenge for the future of the Paris metropolitan area. It has the capacity to host local agriculture that respects environment, is rich in ecosystem services and provides co-benefits for agricultural, forestry and urban areas. However, this is not enough. How can we design projects that are not limited to the perimeter of agricultural enclaves, but are simultaneously defined on other territorial scales, in relation to urban and forest areas?

A number of lessons can be learned from studying these nine sites. To ensure the long-term survival of these enclaves and meet the challenges of the metropolis, it is necessary to put in place public policies that are favourable to agriculture (encouraging the installation of farmers, facilitating access to land, providing financial support for projects). Landscape planning tools (SRCE, *Orientations d'aménagement et de programmation, Atlas et Plans de paysage*, etc.) could play a federating role in bringing together the strategies, regulations and tools that coexist in the metropolis.

Furthermore, relating to professional practice of designers, design strategies should systematically incorporate an agro-sylvo-urban landscape viewpoint, and therefore be part of larger territories in order to address issues in a cross-cutting and re-territorialised way, and to engage greater reciprocal dependencies. Thinking in terms of the essential complementarities between metropolitan bodies can help to identify their vulnerabilities and formulate intervention strategies. What spatial forms might these complementarities take? What kind of urbanism could recreate some links of interdependence between rural and urban areas, within which enclaves could act as relay points?

This means inventing new design methods. Furthermore, introducing food and agricultural thinking into urban planning and design is an effective focus for renewing territorial practices ((Steel, 2013; Boulianne and Despres, 2016; Janin, 2017; Marot, 2019), moving from a logic of 'agriculture in the city' to an approach that guides urban planning, particularly an agroecological urbanism (Tornaghi and Dehaene, 2021).

### *Links with PhD research*

The study of these nine sites is a fundamental stage in the PhD research process. By highlighting design drivers with a view to mutual benefits and complementarities between urban, agricultural and forestry areas, this observation phase provides the conceptual and operational basis for moving on to 'action' by initiating a design approach on one of the nine sites, the 'Coteaux de Nézant'. This site was selected because of its highly uncertain future and the absence of designers involved. This new phase of research by design will enable scenarios for the development of an agricultural enclave to be spatialised, as part of an in-situ incubator with local stakeholders. It will foreshadow avenues for renewing practices towards processes of sustainability and resilience in urban, agricultural and forestry systems.

## Bibliography

* Aubry, C. (2014) ‘Les agricultures urbaines et les questionnements de la recherche’, *Pour*, 224(4), pp. 35–49.

* Bognon, S. and Cormier, L. (2018) ‘Agriculture urbaine et urbanisme : la terre et le faire, ce que cultiver la ville produit dans les espaces urbains’, *Urbanités*, 10.

* Bonin, S. (2021) ‘Enfin du projet pour le périurbain ? La dynamique agriurbaine en question, à partir de situations franciliennes’, in, pp. 251–283.

* Boulianne, M. and Despres, C. (2016) ‘Vers un urbanisme alimentaire’, *Urbanité*, Aménager pour s’alimenter, pp. 45–48.
Brand, C. and Bonnefoy, S. (2011) ‘L’alimentation des sociétés urbaines: une cure de juppence pour l’agriculture des territoires métropolitains?’, *VertigO - la revue électronique en sciences de l’environnement*, (Volume 11 Numéro 2).

Caro, Y.L. et al. (2016) ‘Agricultures et villes: des articulations renouvelées’, *Annales de geographie*, N° 712(6), pp. 553–563.

Chapuis, J.-Y. (2008) ‘Rennes: La Ville archipel et son corollaire: La Ville des proximités’, *Annales des Mines - Responsabilité et environnement*, N° 52(4), pp. 37–43.

Consales, J.N. and Bories, O. (2018) «Expériences d'agricultures urbaines et aménagement», *VertigO - la revue électronique en sciences de l'environnement* [Preprint], (Hors-série 31).

Flegeau, M. (2018) *La Ceinture verte d'Ile-de-France à l'épreuve du Grand Paris: effacement ou renouveau ?: Reconfigurations spatiales, territoriales et paysagères dans les marges de l'aire urbaine métropolitaine*. These de doctorat. Sorbonne Paris Cité.

Janin, R. (2017) *La ville agricole. éditions Openfield*.

Marot, S. (2019) *Taking the country's side. Agriculture and architecture*. Lisbonne: Poligrafa.

McGrath, B. (2021) ‘Island as urban artifact/archipelago as urban model’, *Island Studies Journal*, 16(1), pp. 81–100.

Morgan, K. (2014) ‘Nourishing the City: The Rise of the Urban Food Question in the Global North - Urban Studies 2014’, *Urban Studies*, 52. A

Steel, C. (2013) *Hungry city: how food shapes our lives*. London: Vintage Books.

Thierry, A. (2023) ‘Interroger le rôle de l’agriculture dans la construction métropolitaine francilienne: la cartographie au service de la recherche par le projet’, in Collectif, Paris: Editions du Patrimoine (coll. Recherche & Architecture).

Tornaghi, C. and Dehaene, M. (2021) *Resourcing an agroecological urbanism: political, transformational and territorial dimensions*. Londres: Routledge.

Ungers, O.M. et al. (2013) *The City in the City. Berlin: A Green Archipelago*. Zürich: Lars Müller Publishers.

Wegmuller, F. and Duchemin, É. (2010) ‘Multifonctionnalité de l’agriculture urbaine à Montréal: étude des discours au sein du programme des jardins communautaires’, *VertigO - la revue électronique en sciences de l’environnement*, (Volume 10 numéro 2).
# Agro-social parks: an analysis of planning and design projects for Italian periurban areas

Antonio José Salvador

Politecnico di Milano

Supervisor: Antonio Longo

Co-supervisor: Joaquín Sabaté Bel

Expected thesis defence: March 2025

antoniojose.salvador@polimi.it

In planning, the notion of an 'agricultural park' has been used as a mechanism that attempts to acknowledge and protect agricultural production near urbanized areas while providing a wide range of services and becoming essential public spaces for the nearby cities. The first parks focused primarily on containing urban expansion. In contrast, more recent parks address other aspects, such as territorial cohesion, food sovereignty, and supply chains.

This paper analyzes three cases in Italy that were part of nine presented during a doctoral seminar. It aims to understand the role of 'design' within the planning process of these types of parks and how it interacts with their management and governance dimensions, as well as its potential for provoking new practices, innovative forms of production, and for becoming a planning and design mechanism for periurban areas.

## Tracing agricultural parks

The term 'agricultural park' and similar ones have been part of the European planner's lexicon since the 1980s. Various scholars trace its origins to the specific planning process that emerged to address aggressive urban expansion that neglected natural areas and, more specifically, the agricultural activities and production occurring contentiously with urban dynamics (Yacaman, Zazo 2015; Fanfani 2019). This planning mechanism acted, on the one hand, as a tool for farmland preservation and urban containment (Zasada 2011) and, on the other hand, in transforming these large-open spaces into green public infrastructure for the nearby cities and their inhabitants (Ferraresi, Rossi 1993).

Since the beginning, these parks were conceived as multifunctional spaces able to produce a variety of environmental, cultural, and social services that could restructure economic dynamics that benefit local farmers (Ferraresi, Rossi 1993). Although the first agricultural parks of the 1990s were conceived as a "territorial defense" mechanism, the more recent parks address emerging issues such as territorial cohesion and sustainability, food sovereignty, local development, and food supply chains (Yacaman, Zazo 2015).

The notion of an agricultural park has been used in France, Germany, Italy, The Netherlands, and Spain (Ferraresi, Rossi 1993; Magnaghi 2000; Donadieu, Mininni 2006; Van Blerck, Harsema 2014; Yacaman, Zazo 2015; Timpe 2017; Fanfani 2019; Timpe 2020a; Zazo, Paul 2022). In each context, these 'type' of park has been conceived or traced to different roots and planning traditions.

In Germany, as Timpe (2020b) argues, the park has served as an "experimental field" to design, test and innovate the human's relation to nature, even smaller scale testing activities that were later transferred to more significant landscapes. He cites the example of the 18th-century English parks that explored new agricultural techniques that later spread throughout Europe through new land use systems. Timpe explores the idea of "productive parks" as the re-emergence of pre-industrial forms and visions in which production and nature can reclaim the link lost to a fossil-dependent capital and human labor model that transformed the notion of 'park' into an "urban facility" for a labor-intensive lifestyle. Timpe also acknowledges the role of the international building exhibition IBA EmscherPark in experimenting with the aesthetics and form of the massive contrasting elements of a post-industrial era next to "wilder" forms of landscape and vegetation. Timpe (2017) envisions and studies emerging "co-created" forms of parks in which 'production' becomes the narrative of testing fields that play a crucial role in polycentric city regions, such as the *Landschaftspark Duisburg-Nord* in the Ruhr Metropolis or the *Landswirtschaftspark Belvedere* and *Waldlabor* in Cologne (Timpe 2020a).

In France, the rise of landscape design and practice has played an important role in acknowledging the potential of periurban agriculture that contrasts infrastructural elements in periurban areas. In the 1980s, Claire and Michael Corajoud's winning proposal for the *Parc Départemental du Sausset* in the Seine-Saint-Denis Department introduced an innovative form in which landscape design and
programming transformed these 200 hectares of the agricultural landscape into a public space. The park is structured through six “concept espaces” which are defined as forests, gardens and horticultural landscapes, sloped bocage, urban park, wetlands, and water bodies (Courajoud, Courajoud 1992). Pierre Donadieu has also contributed to theorizing periurban agricultural landscapes and practices through his “campagne urbaine” definition. The Italian translation of his book, co-authored with Mariavaleria Mininni (2006), attempts to conceptualize the notion of the “countryside park” as one of three “forms” that can structure and materialize this concept. The examples cited are the *Parc des Lilas* in Vitry-sur-Siene, *Parc de la Lironde* in Montpellier, and the *Lottissements agricoles* in Perigny sur Yerres. Another form is the landscape plans such as Rennes’ *Code vert* or Anger’s *Schéma de District*. The third form is the landscape charters such as the Natural Regional Parks in Vexin Français and Haute Vallée de Chevreusse.

The Italian and Spanish traditions share a common start. Yet, developing these agricultural parks – *parchi agricoli* and *parques agrarios* – took slightly different pathways in its planning and design, management, and implementation processes (Zazo, Yacaman 2015). The first planning experience acknowledged in both traditions is the one of the *Parco Agricolo Sud* in Milan that evolved from it is initial discussions in the 1970s and matured through the 1980s to eventually be formally established in 1990, employing a regional law for green belts (Ferraresi, Rossi 1993). This experience served as a model to simultaneously develop in the mid-1990s *Parco Agricolo dei Ciaculli* in Palermo and *Parque Agrario de El Baix Llobregat* in Barcelona (Zazo, Paul 2022). These projects were funded and implemented through a Life EU program. In both contexts, these processes emerged through a collective effort of planners, agronomists, and agricultural trade unions. They matured into a planning and technical resource that set the basis for future parks, primarily in Spain (Sabate 2015). A 16-case comparison conducted by Zazo and Paul (2022) of implemented and not implemented parks in Spain highlighted the lack of consistency regarding planning, management, and governance. In this study, the design aspect of the parks is not explicitly considered. However, other professionals that were involved in the planning and design of the Baix Llobregat case have more specifically attempted to understand the “elements” and “structure” of an agricultural park and how it relates to a larger planning context and its role within the management and governance of the park. Mainly to understand how to build the synergies between agricultural production, consumption, and public use (Sabate 2015). The agronomist and first director of the Baix Llobregat Park, Josep Montasell (2001), attempted to differentiate and compare large-scale parks systematically [Tab.1]. This attempt reveals planners’ desire to conceptualize agricultural parks based on attributes and the urge to distinguish them from other types of parks.

In this model, the cultural and social dimensions seem to be numerically diminished and separated from one of the agricultural park’s main hypotheses: the social and cultural dimensions embedded within the agricultural activities in its landscape. This model also appears to weigh productive and economic dimensions excessively. An aspect that has been criticized for favoring productivity and larger producers and neglecting informal and socially oriented agricultural practices within and near it (Pirro, Anguelovski 2017).

<table><caption>Table 1: Typologies of parks. A weight is assigned according to the value and function of each type of park. Source: Elaborated by the author based on Table published by Montasell (2001).</caption><thead><tr><th rowspan="2">Values</th><th rowspan="2">Functions</th><th colspan="8">Type of parks</th></tr><tr><th>Agricultural Park</th><th>Natural Park</th><th>Rural Park</th><th>Urban Park</th><th>Periurban Park</th><th>National Park</th><th>Natural landscape of national interest</th><th>Natural Reserve</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Productive</td><td>Economic</td><td>60</td><td>20</td><td>20</td><td>0</td><td>0</td><td>0</td><td>10</td><td>0</td></tr><tr><td>Ecological</td><td>Environmental</td><td>30</td><td>60</td><td>40</td><td>20</td><td>40</td><td>80</td><td>70</td><td>100</td></tr><tr><td>Cultural</td><td>Social</td><td>10</td><td>20</td><td>40</td><td>80</td><td>60</td><td>20</td><td>20</td><td>0</td></tr></tbody></table>
## Methodology

Although various scholars and practitioners have compared agricultural parks, it has primarily led to theorizing them in terms of planning, management, and governance models (Zazo, Yacaman 2015). However, the role of the ‘design’ of the park and, within it, its form, structure, and the mechanisms used to shape them have been less explored.

Through these experiences, this study aims to understand how ‘design’ positions itself within the planning process of these types of parks and how it interacts with its management and governance dimensions. As well as the potential for provoking new practices, innovative forms of production, and establishing new relationships between the built and unbuilt environments that challenge a ‘performance’ perspective commonly used when conceiving ‘public spaces.’

This paper presents the results of a seminar conducted on April 4, 2022, entitled *Parchi agrosociali: esperienze e indizi per la cura e la cultura dei paesaggi periurbani* as part of this doctoral research project. The seminar invited nine scholars and practitioners to present study cases in Italy in which the ‘agro-social park’ figure has been implemented or is currently undergoing planning and design processes. The cases were identified during a literature review phase and initial discussion with scholars. These cases are located in periurban areas and are drawn from various geographical locations and contexts [Fig. 1].

In this paper, three of these cases are analyzed and compared to identify similar and different traits that lead to understanding the role of ‘design’ within this planning mechanism. The analysis is conducted with the material presented by each scholar and enriched with further consultation of scientific and non-scientific sources, visits, and interviews. The chosen case studies represent projects at different design, implementation, and agricultural production stages. This could lead to a progressive understanding of this type of tool and how it can respond to current issues and challenges.

## Exploring the morphology of an agricultural park

The process described by Ferraresi and Rossi (1993) for Parco Agricolo Sud in Milan reveals its planners’ theoretical framework and design intentions and the struggle and journey to conceive this unprecedented ‘hybrid’ park typology.

As carefully narrated by these authors, they recurred to other similar planning processes, policies, and projects that shared similar intentions of challenging and bridging nature and agriculture with the dynamics and needs of the urban contexts. Some of the projects analyzed were the *Giardini di Arezzo* and *Parco di Ferrara* in Italy, ‘green policies’ at the city and metropolitan level for Turin and Bologna, planning of large open areas in London, specifically the Green Belt, and the relationship established in Erlangen between the elements of the urban public space with the natural and agricultural features, as well as the role of civil society. Furthermore, Ferraresi and Rossi were highly concerned about identifying the elements and structure that could exemplify an agricultural park, the technical skills and knowledge needed to plan and design it, and how they should interact with its implementation, management, and governance. Moreover, they proposed a series of planning tools that looked beyond the park and recognized other elements such as the urban-rural fringe, the surrounding rural settlements, the quality of the agriculture produced, and its relationship with the environment.

Ferraresi and Rossi considered morphology, together with functional and legal, as the three dimensions of the park. They addressed the complexity of this typology through a zoning type of strategy that aimed at defining its “morphology” through elements and a structure that would result in smaller domains to enable more dynamic forms of design and intervention. They described an agricultural park as the intertwining – *intreccio* – between two systems that co-exist with each other: the agricultural “platform” and the network of public spaces in the shape of a “linear” public park. In which the outcome produces a series of conditions and benefits that could be perceived as a “production of services.”. Ferraresi and Rossi also emphasized the need for categorizing the types of agricultural production [Tab.2] to recognize the role of natural elements, identify the heritage-built tissue, and various other systems that enable agricultural activities such as hydric resources, roads, and vegetation, which also play a crucial role in becoming elements of the public park.
<figure><img src="image_128.png" /><figcaption>Figure 1: Case studies presented during the seminar. Source: Author</figcaption></figure>

<table><caption>Table 2: Classification of types of environmental services and their essential characteristics. Source: Translated and elaborated by the author based on Table published by Ferraresi and Rossi (1993).</caption><thead><tr><th colspan="2">Classification of types of environmental services and their essential characteristics</th></tr><tr><th>Definition</th><th>Description</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>1. Productive green areas</td><td>Regular pursuit of agricultural activities</td></tr><tr><td>2. Productive green areas with landscapes, hedges, canals</td><td>Regular pursuit of agricultural activities with the obligation of preserving and planting of trees</td></tr><tr><td>3. Productive green areas with operational constraints</td><td>Conduct agricultural activities with obligations to maintain buildings, size of fields, meadows, canal networks, roads; Restrictions on buildings used for supporting farming activities</td></tr><tr><td>4. Productive green areas with imposed crop production</td><td>Conduct agricultural activities with crops or livestock prescribed by the park</td></tr><tr><td>5. Educational agriculture with visitors</td><td>Conduct agricultural activities with restrictions on technologies, obligations of maintaining paths for schools and other visitors in general</td></tr><tr><td>6. Museum-type of agriculture</td><td>Restricted activity in terms of technologies, crops, and infrastructure; Restrictions as mentioned above</td></tr><tr><td>7. Organic productive green areas</td><td>Exercise of agricultural activity with restrictions on the use of certain chemical products (quantity/type)</td></tr><tr><td>8. Ecological agriculture</td><td>Semi-extensive farming; protection of fauna, flora, biological technologies, etc.</td></tr><tr><td>9. Natural oasis</td><td>Comprehensive respect for flora-fauna, natural shelters, visitors birdwatching, naturist trails, etc.</td></tr><tr><td>10. Public Park</td><td>Maintenance, surveillance, etc. of green areas equipped as an urban park.</td></tr></tbody></table>
## Emerging tendencies in planning and design

Agricultural parks have primarily recurred to restrictive land use types through zoning and fitting into existing park laws. At the same time, agricultural parks have heavily relied on private farms diversifying their economic activities through a 'multifunctionality' approach. Scholars such as Magnaghi (2000) challenge agricultural parks to seek multifunctionality by employing more complex cultural and environmental functions to avoid reducing it to a mere diversification of activities. Current planning perspectives seek to strengthen the relationship of urban-rural planning and food production in cities through the idea of "productive urban landscapes" capable of becoming instruments that address issues such as territorial fragility, social cohesion, food security, environmental and economic benefits, among others (Brisotto, Lemes de Oliveira 2022).

Expo 2015, organized in Milano, became a key milestone in which various local governments committed to an international Food Policy Pact to address nutrition through planning and policies. Instruments such as 'food policy programs' and 'food atlases' have emerged in cities worldwide. For instance, In Italy these policy documents have been drafted in Milan, Rome, Turin, Trento, Livorno, and Matera. In Rome, it was driven by a bottom-up process (Mazzochi, Marino 2020). However, these ambitious agendas often lack a spatial and operational component.

Additionally, publications such as *Capital Agricole: chantiers pour une ville cultivée* curated by Augustin Rosentiehl (2019), have attempted to spatially locate and describe raising practices occurring within and outside the city and new forms in which the urban and non-urban intertwine. This publication reveals a complex system and scales of production. Most of these initiatives are bottom-up practices, often led by former urbanites and professionals. An initial analysis conducted during this doctoral project described various practices and "forms of consumption" emerging in the Milanese periurban fringe. Often they recur to collaborative processes for finding financial support and the resources for implementing them, such as crowdfunding and participating in start-up calls, mechanisms primarily employed within urban contexts (Di Campli et al. 2023).

## Parco Agricolo dei Ciaculli, Palermo

Parco Agricolo dei Ciaculli is located within the impressive valley of the Conca d'Oro. Although it is now known for the production of fine citrus and other fruits, primarily the mandarine known as *tardive*, in the past, this area possessed a wide variety of trees such as olive, medlars, peaches, mandarins, lemons, oranges, pomegranates, among others. In 1994, when the idea of transforming this area into an agricultural park, the mandarine production was struggling against urban expansion. However, as described by Giuseppe Barbera<fnref n="1" />, the story of this "Mediterranean garden" is far more complex and reflects the rich multicultural heritage of Sicily shaped by Arabian, Norman, and Mediterranean cultures. The notion of the 'garden' borrows from the Arabian tradition of creating aesthetical productive landscapes for pleasure and contemplation (Barbera, 2021).

When the project was executed, this area had several social problems mainly due to the mafia's control of the hydric and land resources, which created an atmosphere of untrustworthiness among citizens, especially farmers. This aspect was a critical aspect addressed by the project (Istituto de Ricerche Ambiente Italia 1997).

This park emerged as a top-down initiative led by the Municipality but quickly engaged the academia and the agrarian unions to shape it jointly. The project was shaped by design and regulating guidelines that were materialized by specific interventions of subprojects. This was a Life EU initiative executed simultaneously in Barcelona and Grenoble, and it included an exchange between these cities.

As described in the project's design guidelines, the intention of creating a park aimed at going beyond the perspective of seeing agriculture as an environmental service that produced social benefits. Instead, it placed agriculture at the center of the project. It sought innovation in its techniques and forms of production through private and public incentives and by working directly with the involved stakeholders. In this way, the park acknowledges agriculture as an "active

<footnote n="1">¹ Professor emeritus at Università di Palermo. He was part of the scientific and technical team for this project. He specializes in Mediterranean landscapes, particularly in its trees and gardens.</footnote>
process” that shapes the landscape according to its modes of production and the conservation of its activities that integrate the people who are actively engaged with this land (Istituto de Ricerche Ambiente Italia 1997). Therefore, the notion of a ‘park’ avoided reducing this area to a leisure platform but as a place that possesses an important environmental quality and is self-sustained through the activities there exists.

The project identified the essential elements in agricultural activities and their natural features and challenged them to transform them into spaces suitable for public use. For instance, the elements created to sustain agriculture and maintained by its continuous use, such as roads, hydric system, terraces, and the traditional wall – *muri a secco* – are among others. Also, the project acknowledges four types of environmental areas with specific actions and interventions. These are the mountainous area of Grifone to preserve the Mediterranean shrub ecosystem and the mountain passes. Some agricultural terraces were abandoned, so the project targeted the conservation of its farming activities and the reactivation of the underused areas through agroforestry practices. The third area belongs to the agricultural production happening in the lower lands, and the fourth is the residual spaces of abandoned agricultural activities in which environmental actions were needed and transformed for public use and as places to locate the park's services.

The design emphasized the system of paths and roads used for agricultural activities, especially the ones connecting to the agricultural terraces. The intervention activated these spaces for public use by designing itineraries and physically intervening in five thousand linear meters of roads, repairing and constructing new dry walls, and planting over 6000 trees. The project also proposed an agricultural museum that narrates the rich agricultural complexity and diversity that existed in the Conca d'Oro by planting tree species that previously lived in the area. The initial study surveyed all the agricultural parcels and provided valuable information on agricultural activities. These actions led to investment in research for elaborating guidelines for the *tardivo* mandarine producers and later for genetic studies and creating a producers' consortia and a product label.

As explained by Barbera, the association became an essential element that brought together the farmers, but unfortunately, the project lacked a management body. The relationship between the Municipality and the town of Ciaculli suffered a rupture, and this affected the park's ambitions of transforming the Conca d'Oro into a place for innovation, as it was for various centuries.

<table><caption>Table 3: Key data for Parco Agricolo dei Ciaculli</caption><tr><td>Type of park:</td><td>Local Plan</td></tr><tr><td>Status:</td><td>Executed</td></tr><tr><td>Inception year</td><td>1994</td></tr><tr><td>Constitution year:</td><td>-</td></tr><tr><td>Involved municipalities:</td><td>1</td></tr><tr><td>Main metropolitan area:</td><td>Palermo</td></tr><tr><td>Orientation:</td><td>Landscape management, land-use planning, and farming management</td></tr><tr><td>Style of governance</td><td>Top-down</td></tr><tr><td>Management entity:</td><td>There is no management entity. Since 1999, the farmer's consortia Il Tardivo di Ciaculli has promoted the production and protection of the agricultural area.</td></tr><tr><td>Promoters:</td><td>Comune di Palermo<br>Programma Life - EU project (1994-1996)<br>Consorzio Il Tardivo di Ciaculli (from 1999)<br>Istituto di Ricerche Ambiente Italia</td></tr><tr><td>Size:</td><td>800 ha. - approximate size since the area is not limited</td></tr><tr><td>Type of agricultural production:</td><td>Fruit grove</td></tr></table>
<figure><img src="image_129.png" /></figure>

Figure 2: Analysis of the structural elements in Palermo and its relationship with Parco Agricolo dei Ciaculli. Source: Elaborated by the author with information from Sistema Informatico Territoriale of Regione Sicilia.

## Parco GruBria, Monza and Brianza

GruBria Park was conceived by combining two existing supralocal parks – *Parchi Locali di Interesse Sovracomunale* – in the Monza-Brianza province. Ten municipalities promoted it, and it is located within one of Europe's most urbanized and industrialized areas. This decision has allowed a more cohesive yet complex structure that grants the management entity to apply for EU and national resources. The park aims to protect these municipalities' remaining green and agricultural areas while also attempting to give them continuity through various elements, mostly cycle paths and the Villoresi Canal. The park aims to strengthen agroforestry practices and preserve the hydric system that crosses it and is part of a more extensive system that starts in the Alps and reaches the lakes and the Ticino, Po, and Adda rivers.

This park has a clear legal framework, intention, and guidelines. However, the park's design project has adopted an 'incremental' and 'low-cost' approach that, through design, resolves specific needs and creates new public amenities by reutilizing the existing elements. The project has primarily two components, smaller local urban parks, and scattered agricultural mosaics that connect them. Some of these urban parks were designed decades before. For instance, *Parco Lago Nord* in Paderno Dugnano dates back to 1985 and was designed by the architect Maurice Munir Cerasi. The proposal transformed a former quarry into a proper park with various landscape and recreational features [Fig.2].

Other urban parks, such as *Parco Agricolo di Meredo*, correspond to these later 'low-cost' interventions, as defined by Arturo Lanzani<fnref n="2" />, that aim at integrating some of the existing agricultural activities. The design elements of these areas consist primarily of tactical interventions, such as transforming the existing agricultural roads into public infrastructure for recreational activities, planting new tree rows and patches of woodlands, allocating resting areas, and attempting to connect this park to its surrounding context.

<footnote n="2">² Arturo Lanzani is a full professor at Politecnico di Milano and also GruBria's president.</footnote>
As stated by Lanzani during the seminar, the park's design project is a “canovaccio” – dishcloth – that adapts to the funds and calls identified and which an immediate response is needed to obtain them. In recent years, some of the projects have been financed by Fondazione Cariplo, a Milanese non-profit organization that funds various social projects in this Metropolitan area.

Lanzani stated that the park's limited financial and human resources are among the challenges. Although this park is advantageous in having the political support of 10 municipalities, their financial commitment is low, and the management entity relies on external funding sources and volunteers. Therefore, primarily on the agency and will of local associations, public employees, public administrations, and citizens. Lanzani considers that this limits the park's capacity to carry forward a more robust project.

The project primarily focuses on developing a sound governance and management structure while its design and implementation adapt to specific situations. Some of the current challenges are giving spatial unity and coherence to the park, ensuring that these areas are not abandoned near the park's boundaries, and being transformed into small services or storage warehouses to later become urbanized. Another struggle is better integrating the farmers and challenging them to be actively engaged and innovate their farming activities. As a user, the agricultural activities that connect the 'urban parks' are not as evident as these small urban parks, each with its own local identity and features.

<table><caption>Table 4: Key data for Parco GruBria</caption><tr><td>Type of park:</td><td>Supra-local park – PLIS Parco Locale di Interesse Sopracommunale</td></tr><tr><td>Status:</td><td>Passed plan</td></tr><tr><td>Inception year</td><td>1999 – Parco Grugnotorto<br>2001 – Parco Brianza Centrale</td></tr><tr><td>Constitution year:</td><td>2019 – Union of both parks</td></tr><tr><td>Involved municipalities:</td><td>10</td></tr><tr><td>Main metropolitan area:</td><td>Monza and Brianza, Milano</td></tr><tr><td>Orientation:</td><td>Nature conservation and recreation</td></tr><tr><td>Style of governance</td><td>Top-down</td></tr><tr><td>Management entity:</td><td>Consortia Parco Grugnotorto Villoresi e Brianza Centrale</td></tr><tr><td>Promoters:</td><td>Municipalities of Bovisio Masciago, Cinisello, Balsamo, Cusano, Milanino, Desio, Lissone, Muggiò, Nova Milanese, Paderno Dugnano, Seregno e Varedo</td></tr><tr><td>Size:</td><td>2.062 ha.</td></tr><tr><td>Type of agricultural production:</td><td>Cereals and livestock</td></tr></table>

<figure><img src="image_130.png" /><figcaption>Figure 3: On the left, Parco Lago Nord – designed in 1985. On the right, Parco Agricolo Meredo – part of the new generation of ‘low-cost’ interventions. Source: Author</figcaption></figure>

## Terre di Città, Milan

Terre di Città is in the northeast of Milan, within the city's administrative limits and the 47,000 ha of protected farmland that constitutes Parco Agricolo Sud Milano. Unlike its southern territories, its northern part is composed of a series of large metropolitan parks that emerged after the world wars as experimental domains propelled by “independent civic agency” and “innovative policies” (Caravaggi et al., 2021). Among them, *Boscincittà* exemplifies these aspects and the Municipality's willingness to support these civil-led initiatives. This specific park started in the 1970s and evolved
spatially through a design process that guided its implementation through an “open design” strategy that led to its incremental growth. Socially, it evolved into a recognized institution capable of leading significant transformations through volunteers and a daily commitment to the park’s activities (Toeschi, 1985).

The *Centro di Forestazione Urbana - CFU* of the association Italia Nostra is the managing entity behind *Boscoincittà* and the leading promoter envisioning Terre di Città. Although CFU manages a series of community orchards within its 110 hectares of woodlands, lakes, and canals, this new annex would mean integrating the adjacent 100 hectares of underused agricultural fields at-risk of being re-developed into housing units [Fig.4].

As explained by Carlo Masera,<fnref n="3" /> the aim is to create an “ecosystem” of agriculture that can trigger social and environmental improvement in the area. The project is framed within the rich and complex system of the immediate, metropolitan, and regional ‘green infrastructure.’ It inserts agricultural production within a larger and more complex set of landscapes in the area, which are fully accessible to the public. This area was previously owned by the Ligresti business group, a prominent real estate developer, and due to bankruptcy, these fields were passed to Comune di Milano and two financial institutions.

The project is led by a private consortium that created a “non-profit context” of enthusiasts, farmers, professionals, and actors in this area, as described by Masera, to define the implementation strategy to shape it. In 2018-2019 Fondazione Cariplo financed this initiative to conduct a feasibility study.

For now, the design project is defined by a system of guidelines that structure the development of these open areas. As explained by Masera, the design intention avoids defining a precise idea of the landscape. For him, through its activities, techniques, and management, agriculture has historically produced the landscape. Therefore, the guidelines attempt to spatially integrate these areas with the rest of the park and the city through itineraries and physical connections, reorganize various scales of agricultural production, and increase the ecological biodiversity through vegetation and transitional areas. The existing farmhouse, *Cascina Melghera*, is intended to become a key architectural and agricultural heritage element that integrates productive and social practices. Nowadays, the farmhouse is not part of the farming activities in the surrounding rice fields. The agricultural production targets diversifying the current rice production through a biological type of farming that includes open fields and fruit and vegetable production, which are intended to be commercialized directly on-site through a membership scheme and short-circuit networks. As explained by Masera, these initial design ideas led to a more accurate feasibility study.

Although Terre di Città lies within the boundaries of Parco Agricolo Sud Milano, as argued by various authors (Di Campli et al. 20223), the vastness of this area and its lack of spatial strategies and definitions has provoked multiple initiatives. Although it has guided its transformation intentionally, it has given a certain kind of land-use ‘stability’ in which many social, environmental, and agricultural practices are emerging. Terre di Città is one of them, but it is evident that for these ‘bottom-up’ initiatives to occur and successfully move forward, they need a technical, social, and political capacity for coordinating these complex processes. This includes, as seen in this specific case, the importance of inserting this project within larger planning processes and recognizing the various spatial, environmental, social, and political assets.

<table><tr><td>Type of park:</td><td>Local plan to be executed within the limits of the Regional Park Parco Agricolo Sud Milano</td></tr><tr><td>Status:</td><td>Proposal</td></tr><tr><td>Inception year</td><td>2018</td></tr><tr><td>Constitution year:</td><td>-</td></tr><tr><td>Involved municipalities:</td><td>1</td></tr><tr><td>Main metropolitan area:</td><td>Milan</td></tr><tr><td>Orientation:</td><td>Farming management and farmland preservation</td></tr><tr><td>Style of governance</td><td>Bottom-up – private consortium</td></tr><tr><td>Management entity:</td><td>Fondazione Terre di Città – non-profit foundation</td></tr><tr><td>Promoters:</td><td>Centro per la Forestazione Urbana - Italia Nostra<br>Fondazione Cariplo</td></tr></table>

<footnote n="3">³ Architect in charge of designing the project. He has also been involved at *Boscoincittà* since its initial years.</footnote>
<table><caption>Table 5: Key data for Terre di Città</caption><tr><td></td><td>A committee of founding members<br/>Additional supporting members (persons and institutions) such as Associazione Italiana di Agricoltura Biologica, Acli Terra, Associazione Casa dell'Agricoltura.</td></tr><tr><td><strong>Size:</strong></td><td>100 ha.</td></tr><tr><td><strong>Type of agricultural production:</strong></td><td>Currently intensive production of rice. It is expected to convert into biological production of rice and include fruit and vegetable production</td></tr></table>

<figure><img src="image_131.png" /><figcaption>Figure 4: New residential units built across from the area chosen for the Terre di Città project. Source: Author</figcaption></figure>

## Discussion

Although these parks roughly share similar objectives, this analysis demonstrates that 'agricultural parks' are far from homogenous. Not only due to a lack of a common etymological understanding and consensus in its model, as argued by various authors (Zazo, Paul 2022), but also due to the complexity and contested nature of periurban areas, the specificity of each agricultural production and its social and cultural structure, and the management, legal and financial challenges faced by each project.

Some initial projects considered its morphology and programming elements key components (Ferraresi, Rossi 1993; Sabate 2015). However, this design dimension has been relegated to political, legal, social, and financial perspectives. In the Palermo case, the park's design became a vital tool for establishing a link between stakeholders, prioritizing interventions, and defining additional elements within the park that can acknowledge the area's rich agricultural heritage. Both design and legal guidelines were used to shape the park jointly. In the case of Parco GruBrìa, the legal and political dimensions of the park have been heavily prioritized to bring together ten municipalities and find the mechanisms to preserve the remaining non-urbanized areas. In this process, the design dimension of the park has progressively emerged to respond to the limited financial opportunities being identified by the management entity. Although there is no overall design, the general strategies established formally by the park guide the design decisions.

Lastly, the case of Terre di Città reveals the capacity of external private stakeholders that, with a design-oriented and collaborative approach, are attempting to lead a project that challenges agricultural and environmental practices and enables new models for food production and consumption. However, this project exposes the challenges of pursuing public actors and financial
institutions to support it. In this case, the park's 'size' played an essential role in calibrating its feasibility and designing a self-sustaining project.

The 'size' is among the most diverging aspects of 'agricultural parks.' For instance, Parco Agricolo Sud Milano has an area of 47.000 hectares, while other projects presented during the seminar range from 100 to 7.000 hectares. It is an aspect that has not been addressed but should undoubtedly be considered in its design with the other economic, management, and planning dimensions.

New perspectives and planning tendencies are increasingly looking at periurban territories, their agricultural production, and natural elements as critical 'green infrastructure,' as places to challenge food production and consumption, and as an essential element for a transition towards more 'sustainable' territories that respond to the current crises (Brisotto, Lemes de Oliveira 2022).

The 'agricultural park' is a figure that already exists within planning and design processes. Although it is not entirely defined, it could serve as a base from which to construct new hypotheses for productive periurban areas. Therefore, revisiting this 'hybrid' and 'had-oc' mechanism with a design-oriented approach could catalyze the complexity and richness of periurban territories by acknowledging the emerging practices and other instruments in these areas.

## Bibliography

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# Exploring the Potential of Agroecological Urbanism through Participatory Action Research: Two Case Studies in the Breede Valley, South Africa.

Georgina (Jani) Truter

Affiliation: Arenberg Doctoral School, KU Leuven (Belgium), and the Centre of Excellence in Food Security (CoE-FS), the University of the Western Cape (South Africa)

Supervisor(s): Prof. Dr. Ir. Bruno de Meulder (KU Leuven) and Prof. Julian May (UWC)

Expected thesis defence: January, 2027

jani.tru@gmail.com

The high levels of inequality experienced by city dwellers in South African cities are starkly reflected in the urban food systems and environments. One in every four South Africans is considered food insecure. Framed within the growing field of research focused on food planning in African cities and ‘reconciling agriculture and the environment’, this paper explores the potential of agroecological urbanism to transform inequities in the current urban food system. Agroecological urbanism presents a strong transdisciplinary methodology and process for re-designing urban food systems. The study area is focused on a secondary city, Worcester, and a smaller town, Touwsrivier, in the Breede Valley as two case studies for addressing urban food insecurity through participatory action research at a local level. The research forms part of a proposed PhD dissertation that is exploring how the (re-)integration of agroecological urbanism can empower and feed underserved areas, generate new forms of co-produced urbanity and reconstruct ecological resilience for the Western Cape, South Africa.

## The Urban Food Question in Secondary Cities and Towns

South Africa has a positive food balance and yet nearly a quarter of the 60 million people living in the country report that they have limited access to food and experience seasons of extreme hunger (FAO and European Union, 2022; Stats SA, 2022). Since 65% of South Africa's population lives in urban areas and two-thirds of households that experience hunger live in cities, food security is a critical and predominantly urban issue (Haysom, Battersby and Park-Ross, 2020). The persistent food insecurity experienced by many urban dwellers highlights the paradox of the South African food system. Recent food systems outcomes show high levels of hunger, malnutrition and diet-related diseases (Van der Berg, Patel and Bridgeman, 2022). The prevalence of urban food and nutrition insecurity is coupled with rapid urbanisation, increasing environmental degradation and climate change shocks, extreme territorial imbalances and a slow transformation towards inclusiveness (FAO and European Union, 2022). Global shocks like the COVID pandemic, the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war and the devastating droughts and conflict in Africa have deepened the global food crisis and resulted in staggering food price hikes. The rising cost of energy and food diminishes people's resilience to increasingly more pervasive socio-economic and environmental challenges. These crises disproportionately burden the poorest and most vulnerable communities, exposing the entrenched inequities and inadequacies in the globalized food system.

As in the rest of Sub-Saharan Africa, most of the projected future urban and population growth in South Africa is projected to happen in intermediary cities (Joubert, Battersby and Watson, 2018; Haysom, 2022). Secondary towns are important regional economic hubs and can play a key role in accommodating the needs of a growing urban population, but these towns are currently still under-researched (May et al., 2022). Intermediary cities and towns, therefore, offer strategic sites for exploring alternative strategies to address the inadequacies in the current South African food system (Kesselman, 2023; Riley and Crush, 2023).

This essay presents the Breede Valley in the Western Cape, South Africa, as a compelling study area to address local food and urban challenges in line with the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)<fnref n="1" />. The research is focused on a secondary city, Worcester, and a rural town, Touwsrivier, in the Breede Valley, as case studies to explore the potential of agroecological urbanism through participatory action research.

<footnote n="1">¹ This essay will focus particularly on the urban food question as it relates to SDG 2: 'Zero Hunger', SDG 3: 'Good Health and Well-being', SDG 10: 'Reducing Inequalities', SDG 11: 'Sustainable Cities and Communities', and SDG 12: 'Responsible Consumption and Production' (THE 17 GOALS | Sustainable Development, n.d.).</footnote>
<figure><img src="image_132.png" /><figcaption>Fig1. Western Cape Location Map. Elaborated by author from WikiMediaCommons.</figcaption></figure>

Context: The Breede Valley

Worcester and Touwsrivier are located in a broad valley in the middle reaches of the Breede River in the Western Cape province, approximately 120km and 180km northeast of Cape Town respectively. Worcester, Touwsrivier, Rawsonville and De Doorns fall within the Breede Valley Municipality (BVM). The Breede Valley today is an important agricultural region predominantly focused on export-oriented production (CoE-FS, SA Food Lab and WCEDP, 2022).

Worcester is a well-positioned commercial farming, logistics and food processing hub that supplies the Cape Metro and other inland markets. It is an archetypal South African secondary city embedded in a commercial agricultural economy that reflects the same spatial and socio-economic inequality as in the metropoles. The urban structure of the town is the result of colonial and Apartheid spatial planning policies and is comparable to most intermediary and small towns in South Africa. It has a central business core and suburban edge, with peripheral low-income and township areas that force the most resource-poor inhabitants to travel the furthest to access the urban core for economic opportunities, retail, and other urban services. Many people in these areas rely on the informal market for housing, employment, retail and food (Joubert, Battersby and Watson, 2018).

<figure><img src="image_133.png" /><figcaption>Fig2. Urban and Socio-Economic Structure of Worcester. Elaborated by author from BVM GIS database.</figcaption></figure>
<figure><img src="image_134.png" /><figcaption>Fig2&3. Informal Food Traders in Zwelethemba in Worcester.</figcaption></figure>

Touwsrivier is a small town at the gateway between the Mediterranean-like agroclimatic zone of the Boland and the harsher semi-arid Karoo region. Originally a railway town, the decline of rail in the early 1990s resulted in economic decline, which accelerated by the early 2000s. Transnet, the national railway company, still owns a lot of land and assets around the town, but most of these properties have fallen into disrepair. The current unemployment rate is estimated at 80%. Touwsrivier as a case study represents a challenge that many small South African towns face, which is how a community sustains itself once a large state-owned entity or industry withdraws or fails. Most people in Touwsrivier live on social grants and rely on local soup kitchens and feeding schemes at the schools (CoE-FS, SA Food Lab and WCEDP, 2023).

<figure><img src="image_135.png" /><figcaption>Fig4. Urban and Socio-Economic Structure of Touwsrivier. Elaborated by author from BVM GIS database.</figcaption></figure>

The socio-economic and food insecurity challenges are mounting in both towns. Worcester (Zwelethemba), De Doorns, and Bonnievale are the main ‘entry points’ for seasonal workers seeking employment on farms in the Western Cape, with most people coming from the Eastern Cape or outside South Africa. Farmers in the region rely on seasonal workers to meet their labour requirements during harvesting season, but increasingly these labourers are settling in Worcester and surrounding towns once the season is over. The Breede Valley Municipality is experiencing increased pressure on local authority systems, employment opportunities, land resources, infrastructure and social services of a growing population. Food insecurity in the area has worsened since COVID, particularly amongst migrant seasonal workers. Unpublished data from the Western Cape Government indicate that Zwelemthemba and Avian Park, two of the lowest income communities in Worcester report that 37% of the households are food insecure (May, 2023).
<figure><img src="image_136.png" /><figcaption>Fig5. Graffiti in Touwsriver – ‘We are hungry, BVM make a plan’. Photo by author.</figcaption></figure>

The Breede Valley is also faced with climate change-related shocks, water insecurity and ongoing disruptions in the national supply of electricity. Agricultural industries in the valley are impacted differently by climate change depending on the different agroclimatic regions. The Breede Valley has both Mediterranean and semi-desert climatic zones and is located in the Breede River Catchment area. The decreased flow and salination of the river threaten the area's ecological and economic well-being. Important wetland areas in the valley like the Papenkuils wetlands are endangered by unsustainable agrarian and urban practices (May, 2023). Touwsrivier is exposed to the more arid climate of the Karoo but is simultaneously vulnerable to flash flooding. About a third of the town is settled in a flood plain (CoE-FS, SA Food Lab and WCEDP, 2023).

<figure><img src="image_137.png" /><figcaption>Fig 6&7. Recent flooding in Touwsrivier (Donkiesrivier left) and Worcester (Zwelethemba right) – April and May 2023 respectively. Photo by author.</figcaption></figure>

## The Foundations of the Food System in the Breede Valley

In the words of Carolyn Steel in her seminal book, Hungry City, *In order to understand cities properly, we need to look at them through food* (Steel, 2008, p. 10).

Income poverty and food insecurity not only threatens the health and wellbeing of the growing population in Worcester and Touwsrivier but it also severely hampers the development potential of these communities, perpetuating existing poverty cycles and socio-spatial inequalities (Haysom, Crush and Caesar, 2017). In order to address these challenges, it is necessary to review the foundations and structure of the current food systems and how this is impacted by other urban processes (Haysom, 2022).

A crucial departure point is to note that South African cities and its food system have been constructed by deliberate colonial, political and neoliberal strategies that favoured specific socio-economic groups, commercial industries and formal economies (Haysom, Battersby and Park-Ross, 2020). Permanent human settlement and agriculture was only introduced to the Breede Valley in the 1800's when colonial settlers forcefully appropriated land and natural resources from the indigenous tribes that roamed the land before their arrival (May, 2023).
The precolonial inhabitation of Breede Valley was based on a system of ‘nomadic pastoralism and a decentralised system of natural resource governance’. San and Khoikhoi tribes inhabited the Breede Valley in the 17th century. The tribes raised livestock, drinking their animals’ milk and eating wild fruits, berries and indigenous tubers. Heavily reliant on water and grazing, tribal boundaries were fluid and herders often migrated together along the rivers. Their traditions of collectivism and earth stewardship were disrupted by the private ownership imposed by slave-owning settlers. The region was hard to cultivated and the first settler farmers relied heavily on the indigenous knowledge and practices introduced to them by the Khoi traders, and later indigenous labourers (May, 2023).

The second big wave of land dispossession came with the seizing of black farms and the relocation of non-white businesses from central business districts during the British rule and Apartheid eras. Policies like the 1913 Native Land Act dispossessed indigenous and non-white communities of land and resources, forcing many to seek livelihoods as labourers in cities, mines or on farms. The economic ring-fencing of key infrastructural assets, combined with the early adoption of the supermarket economies, resulted in farming opportunities having been predominantly reserved for capital-intensive farming by white farmers (Haysom, Crush and Caesar, 2017). Therefore most of the prime land and financial resources in the current food system are still owned by the descendants of the colonialists and the former ruling party minority (May, 2023).

The South African food system was foremostly designed to be an urban food system aimed at feeding a pacified but not necessarily well-nourished urban workforce. A filling high energy diet aligned well with the modernist industrialisation of South African agriculture and the urban food system (Haysom, 2022).

The modernist spatial planning policies implemented during Apartheid resulted in segregated cities with a disparate distribution of land, infrastructure, and socio-economic opportunities. Large infrastructure, industrial zones and natural corridors buffered the central business district and affluent neighbourhoods from non-white communities on the periphery. This layout is evident in both Worcester and Touwsrivier, with the rivers, railway and a large industrial zone (in Worcester) acting as spatial barriers. Spatial segregation has resulted in the unequal distribution of and access to safe and culturally appropriate food options at a city scale. For the urban poor, this means expensive food journeys, time poverty and a lack of cooking resources that result in the consumption of ‘fast’, processed or nutrition-poor foods (Haysom, Battersby and Park-Ross, 2020).

<figure><img src="image_138.png" /><figcaption>Fig8. Long Food Journey from Avian Park to Worcester CBD. Photo by author.</figcaption></figure>

Land tenure and water security are inextricably linked to the urban food question. The urban poor are in an ongoing struggle for land, employment, and food. Many settles in informal neighbourhoods like Mandela Park in Zwelethemba which is built in an area exposed to a high risk of flooding and with limited access to services. These issues prompt the need for transformative action at the intersection of food, urban and natural ecosystems (Haysom, Crush and Caesar, 2017). The principles of agroecology present a powerful and robust solution to challenge the systemic inequality in the current urban food system (Deh-Tor, 2021; Haysom, 2022; Marot, 2022; Specht et al., 2022).
Agroecological Urbanism and Participatory Action Research for Reimagined Food Futures

The main objective of the proposed doctoral dissertation is to develop agroecological urbanism strategies through participatory action research (PAR). Various participatory action research and design-research methods will be tested to facilitate local dialogues and reimagine foodscapes in the two case studies outlined above. The research is embedded in ongoing critical research in the Breede Valley.

The DSi-NRF Centre of Excellence in Food Security (CoE-FS) at the University of the Western Cape (UWC) in partnership with the French Agricultural Research Centre for International Development (CIRAD) and the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam is currently conducting a multi-year place-based project concerning food system governance and transformation in the Breede Valley (South Africa), Nakuru county (Kenya) and Constantine (Algeria). The project is titled ‘Urban Food Resilience Under Climate Challenges (URBANFOSC)’. One of the methodologies used is learning journeys. ‘The learning journeys bring together representatives of local, district and provincial government, academics and grassroots organisations working within the food system, including Early Childhood Development Centres, advocacy groups and practitioners’ (CIRAD, CoE-FS and VUA, 2020). Critical insights gained during the learning journeys in Worcester and Touwsrivier inform the design of this doctoral thesis and proposed participatory action research methodology.

<figure><img src="image_139.png" /><figcaption>Fig9&10. Learning Journey in Zwelethemba, Worcester. Investigating Indigenous Food Sources. Photo by author.</figcaption></figure>

The proposed doctoral research is framed within the emerging global agenda to reintegrate agroecology and urbanism. Agroecology, defined at the end of the 1990s as ‘the ecology of the entire food system’, ‘includes all aspects and participants in the food system’ and is aimed at ‘re-establishing the close relationships between the people who grow the food and the people who eat it, while reducing the negative impacts of the intermediary system between the two. Agroecology can become a way of building relationship-based market systems that are equitable, just, and accessible for all’ (Gliessman, 2006, 2014).

Agroecological urbanism focuses on sustainable agroecosystems and regenerative processes, but also on the social inclusion of marginalised voices like that of indigenous people, women and the youth (Wezel et al., 2020). It explores the reinvention of just social arrangements through the transformation of food systems and provides a holistic socio-ecological and political framework embedded in a growing body of research focused on ‘reconciling agriculture and the environment’ and finding solutions ‘beyond industrial agriculture’ (Marot, 2019).

‘Lidzhegu and Kabanda (2022) detail that indigenous knowledge is the knowledge that helps society make decisions about activities, such as agriculture and education, that are acceptable to their lifeways. Indigenous knowledge, along with Western and European-based knowledge, helps create development solutions that are culturally acceptable to the society being helped.’ (Diko, 2023, p. 269)

The participatory action research methodology aims to establish a more inclusive community-
driven inquiry. The expanded 13 Principles of Agroecology specifically includes participation as a
critical approach to food sovereignty and the co-creation of just food systems (HLPE-FSN, 2019).
This proposal draws particularly on the work of Brittany Kesselman in her exploration of participatory action research in the South African context ‘as both a normative commitment and an approach to inquiry, is a means by which research can contribute to food justice. Going beyond both ‘public sociology’ and ‘critically engaged sociology’ in its attempts to empower research participants and respond to their needs, participatory action research (PAR) seeks to change not only through policy influence but also through the very process of the research’ (Kesselman, 2022, pp. 171–172). Kesselman’s research on urban agriculture and food sovereignty in Johannesburg revealed the potential of PAR to empower and have a more direct impact on the lives of local communities through engaged scholarship.

## Reintegrating Urban Agroecology in the Breede Valley

This essay focuses on introducing the case studies, and the theoretical framework and methodological approach for exploring how the integration of agroecological urbanism can empower and feed underserved areas, generate new forms of co-produced urbanity and reconstruct ecological resilience in these intermediary towns. The next phase of the research includes mapping urban fragments and identifying potential commons, gathering precedent studies for alternative urban infrastructure systems, co-creating strategies with local stakeholders for areas like the river corridors, and looking for opportunities to connect community-led projects as a local food network. To challenge the inequities in the current systems, other systems like natural ecosystems, traditional farming and indigenous knowledge systems, food sovereignty and the informal economy must be acknowledged and reintegrated into the way cities and landscapes are planned.
**Bibliography**

CIRAD, CoE-FS and VUA (2020) ‘Urban Food Resilience under Climate Change Challenges: URBANFOSC (Joint Call - Project Proposal)’. The French Agricultural Research Centre for International Development (CIRAD), DSI-NRF Centre of Excellence in Food Security (CoE-FS) & Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam.

CoE-FS, SA Food Lab and WCEDP (2022) *Worcester Food Learning Journey Report*. Learning Journey Report. Worcester, Cape Town: DSI-NRF Centre of Excellence in Food Security, Southern Africa Food Lab & Western Cape Economic Development Partnership.

CoE-FS, SA Food Lab and WCEDP (2023) *Touwsrivier Food Learning Journey Report*. Draft Report. Touwsrivier, Cape Town: DSI-NRF Centre of Excellence in Food Security, Southern Africa Food Lab & Western Cape Economic Development Partnership.

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# Plots on hold: hybrid landscapes in rural Tamil Nadu through ordinary farmland conversions

Marine FRANTZ

Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - UMR 8504 Géographie-Cités and Institut Français de Pondichéry (UMIFRE 21)
Eric Denis, UMR 8504 Géographie-Cités
Expected thesis defence: 2026
marine.frantz@parisgeo.cnrs.fr

Over last two decades, rural areas around the agglomeration of Pondicherry in Tamil Nadu (South India) have undergone profound changes in their landscapes. Real estate projects are being developed beyond the fronts of urbanization, scattered between rice paddies, in the middle of villages and along roadsides. For the most part, these layouts are left to lie fallow and are resold as building plots for investment or savings purposes. Based on field surveys conducted in 2022 and 2023 in the outskirts of the urban agglomeration of Pondicherry, this paper presents preliminary results of ordinary land conversions. By tracking transfers of ownership and changes in land status and use, the aim is to analyze the biography of land. By taking the landscape as a starting point, we can understand the different strategies used to commodify land. These empty lands and hybrid landscapes, which seem to be neither rural nor urban, raise questions about urban production processes.

## Introduction

In a context of structural decline of family farming, India is experiencing a profound transformation of land in its peri-urban and rural spaces (Chakravorty, 2013). In addition to the issues of agricultural land grabbing on the outskirts of Indian metropolises for infrastructure, large real estate, or industrial projects (Vijayabaskar and Menon, 2018); the subdivision of agricultural land into small plots for popular residential construction is constantly expanding, well beyond the urbanization fronts.

In south-eastern India, on the outskirts of the Pondicherry agglomeration, rural areas have been transformed over the past fifteen years under the effect of layouts: these subdivision projects appear along roads, inside villages (Denis, 2016). This process leads to a phenomenon of prolonged fallow land and scattered constructions that disrupt rural landscapes. Despite the visible intensification of these subdivisions, little reliable data is available: many remain unauthorized and are still, in fact, outside of official statistics. Agricultural owners, real estate agents or developers carry out these conversions before reselling on a lot-by-lot basis (Dinh, 2015). This paper aims to document these forms of popular commodification of farmland through the formation of hybrid landscapes, neither urban nor rural. Commodification is understood here as the exacerbation of the exchange value of agricultural land in relation to its use value (Fauveaud, 2022). These popular conversions reveal a mechanism of anticipation of the city through the production of a reserve of land destined for residential construction, occurring at varying distances from the centre of the Pondicherry agglomeration. The term conversion refers to the action of removing land from agriculture by stopping agricultural production suddenly. The subdivision can be carried out immediately or several years later and consists of the demarcation of micro-lots (plots) that are then sold separately<fnref n="1" />. By "popular" we are referring here to the types of actors who mobilize this agricultural land, whether they are real estate agents, small local developers, or farmers: they are distinguished by their lower available capital than the real estate actors present in the projects around the large metropolises. The term "ordinary" is also used to highlight the trivialization of this process of conversion and subdivision, both in the landscape and among the population that participates in it as buyers or intermediaries.

This leads us to question the processes of urbanization beyond the continuity of the built environment, through the phenomena of land commodification, which raise critical interrogations about the very definition of the urban. How do the hybrid landscapes resulting from land conversion help us to understand the process of urbanization and its complex nature?

<footnote n="1">¹ A layout is defined as the subdivision of land into a minimum of 8 plots (Town and Country Planning Act 1971, Government of Tamil Nadu).</footnote>
Analysis at the plot level allows for a detailed approach to the conditions of transformation of agricultural land. Through the study of changes over time in the status and uses associated with these converted agricultural lands, the “biography of the land” (Huard, 2016) makes it possible to trace the stages of conversion. First, the conversions are identified with the help of Google Earth satellite images by going back in time to define the date of the conversion. This conversion is materialized by the sudden stop of agricultural activity, and we then observe a change in land use that is also accompanied by the appearance of dirt roads that delimit the future roads of the subdivision [fig. 1]. These initial data are then enriched by field observations. When visiting the layout to verify the conversion, several clues can help identify it despite the prolonged state of wasteland: the presence of a sign, often yellow, indicating the name of the project and the telephone number of the people in charge of selling the plots; there are also markers that delimit the plots within the layout. Finally, the third phase of the study consists of semi-structured interviews that take place according to informal meetings, often as a snowball effect. These interviews, conducted for the most part in Tamil with the help of two interpreters, took place mainly during a field survey between June and May 2022, supplemented by field visits in March 2023.

<figure><img src="image_140.png" /><figcaption>— Outline of Vedhavalli Nagar layout</figcaption></figure>

[fig 1]: Conversion stages of Vedhavalli Nagar layout, Pondicherry district. Source: Google Earth, elaborated by the author.

The study area chosen is around the city of Pondicherry, located 150 kilometers south of Chennai which is the capital of the state of Tamil Nadu and the sixth most populous Indian metropolis. It is a dynamic agglomeration of about one million inhabitants with a population growth rate of 3% per year. The different examples presented here are in rural areas within the district of Pondicherry (Pondicherry Union Territory<fnref n="2" />), or within the Viluppuram district (Tamil Nadu) [fig. 2]. This article primarily concentrates on the analysis of landscape transformations and does not delve into the intricate details of the divergent regulation of the land market observed in the two districts.

<footnote n="2">² The urban agglomeration of Pondicherry is spread over two distinct administrative entities: the Union Territory of Pondicherry and the State of Tamil Nadu. The eight Union Territories are separate administrative entities from the 28 states of the Indian Union and report directly to the central government. Both of those entities are then divided into districts.</footnote>
<figure><img src="image_141.png" /></figure>

Sources: Land Use 2018, J. Andrieu (IFP UMIFRE 21), 2021
administrative boundaries O. Telle et E. Denis (UMR 8504 Géographie-cités), 2015

[fig. 2]: Map showing the location of the study area and of the various photos presented in the text.
Elaborated by the author.

A context conducive to the commercialization of agricultural land: the decline of the
agricultural sector

The agricultural sector has been declining through the last decades, leaving farmers and farmland owners in a difficult economic situation. Statewide, the weight of the agricultural sector in Gross Domestic Product has declined from 25 percent in 1993-94 to 8 percent in 2012-13, the second lowest in the country and half the national average. Despite some of the highest yields in the country for most major crops, including rice, sugarcane, and agricultural products, fertile and irrigated land is being taken out of agriculture. With 40 percent of workers in agriculture and cultivation, the employment structure is still largely agriculture based. However, the 2011 Socio-economic and Caste Census showed that only 18 percent of rural households report agricultural production as their main source of income, compared to 30 percent nationwide. Several factors undermine the conditions of agricultural production in Tamil Nadu and the income that can be derived from it. The average size of farms has continuously decreased since the 1970s, from 2.28 ha to 1.00 ha in 2020 (GOI, 2020). This dynamic of property fragmentation over generations calls into question the viability of farms. The increase in production costs, particularly due to the rise in input prices, destabilizes rural households, many of which are getting into debt (Guérin, 2014). Added to this are environmental changes whose effects on the Tamil countryside are already being felt: irregular monsoons, the drying up of water tables accelerated by competition from urban and industrial demand...

As for the study areas, Viluppuram district is the district with the biggest rural areas within the state. Between 2008-2009 and 2018-2019, the share of farmland in the district remained at around 45%, higher than the state average (35%). The district specializes in rice production (paddy) with 40 % of its cultivable area dedicated to the crop in 2016-17, which is the second highest in the state of Tamil Nadu3. In Pondicherry district, farmland represent only 20 % of the land use. With a

<footnote n="3">³ Tamil Nadu Rural Transformation Project, Viluppuram district diagnosis - *Vazhndhu Kattuvom Project*, Department of Rural Development and Panchayat Raj, Government of Tamil Nadu.</footnote>
general shift towards tertiary sector in the last three decades, Pondicherry agriculture has been declining rapidly 4. However, some villages still depend on agricultural activities with up to 52 % of the working population in farming activities. Both the district are highly irrigated areas, with a long standing and efficient irrigation system allowing several crops a year, up to even four in some places.

Those layouts mushrooming inside villages or along highways and main roads disrupt these irrigation systems by cutting out or polluting canals. Landscapes of paddy fields are being muted by the appearance of layouts, more or less developed [fig. 3]. By showing different examples of landscapes around the study area, we will try to highlight the spectrum of development and the different ways in which these hybrid landscapes are produced.

<figure><img src="image_142.png" /><figcaption>[fig. 3]: In the foreground, a converted layout, with white blocks marking the boundaries of individual plots. In the background, a rice field still being cultivated in a very fertile, well-irrigated area.</figcaption></figure>

## Spectrum of landscapes showing the gradient of land commodification

The different processes of land conversions and subdivisions seem to create a large spectrum of “layout landscape”, also indicating a variety of investment strategies: from empty land subdivided mainly for land speculation, to developed and formalized gated communities. From empty land of underdeveloped layouts to formalized gated community, those examples are showing different stages of land commodification.

### Profitable fallow lands

Starting with the first stages of agricultural land conversion, empty land is the first type of landscape to be observed. This fallow land has been withdrawn from agricultural production and is still waiting to be put to good use. At this stage, two situations can explain this landscape: either the land remains the property of a single person, awaiting the necessary authorizations to convert and subdivide agricultural land, or the plots have already been sold and this is a very active land market, even if not much is happening on the surface. Often without any services, very few elements indicate the actual conversions: yellow sign at the entrance, dirt roads, yellow and white blocks delimiting the individual lots and invasive plants like the *prosopis juliflora* [fig.4]. When unauthorized

<footnote n="4">⁴Comprehensive Development Plan for Puducherry Planning Area- 2036, Pondicherry Planning Authority</footnote>
these lands remain in land records as agricultural land, contributing to the statistical illusion of maintaining farmland.

<figure><img src="image_143.png" /><figcaption>[fig. 4]: Layout left uncultivated since 2010, in the foreground left corner we can see a yellow sign indicating the entrance to the “layout”. The land has been transferred to several owners but remains registered as irrigated cultivable land. In the background on the right, we can see the invasive plants taking over. Pondicherry district. 2022</figcaption></figure>

Those empty spaces seem to occur everywhere, no matter the localisation or the distance from the city centre (refer to picture localisation on the map, fig. 2). These lands can also be the object of reappropriation by the nearby villagers: such as grazing, cricket, or more festive as suggested by the empty liquor bottles often left there. They can also be produced by small local real estate agents or bigger developing companies [fig. 5].

<figure><img src="image_144.png" /></figure>
[fig. 5]: An empty layout developed by a Chennai-based developer SSLF, although roads and amenities (including playground that as seen in the background) have been built, no plots have yet been constructed. Viluppuram district, 2022.

## Underdeveloped layouts that allow access to home ownership

A second types of layouts that can be observed, are half empty ones with often few houses built but merely any services provided. Just like the example below [fig. 6], those layouts often remain underdeveloped with a lack of basic services and sanitation. Those types of layouts often occur from an untheorized conversion. Indeed, to obtain the necessary authorizations, one must first lay out the land with roads and set aside land for common use (often a playground). By avoiding this process, real estate agents can minimize their investment and get more out of the conversion. Once all the plots have been sold, it's up to the owners to form an association to approach the authorities and request connection to services.

<figure><img src="image_145.png" /></figure>

[fig. 6]: Vedhavalli Nagar, a layout converted in 2010 by a local real estate agent who sold all plots within four months still registered as farmland, leaving to each individual plot owner the responsibility to apply for residential land conversion. From 2016, several houses have been built. Mostly by households from the city of Pondicherry who were looking to buy their own land. Roads are still in dirt and only electricity is available, each house has its own drinking water supply and septic tank. In the background, you can see a coconut farm.

Buying land is the first investment households must make. Once that is secured, they will often wait several years before being able to build the house. During this period, land can also be used as a savings vehicle, to be resold at any time when money is needed, whether to pay a hospital bill or the dowry for a daughter's wedding.

## Formalized layout as secure investments

The next and last type of conversions observed are considered more formalized. These layouts seem to follow of different process of development and amenities are being offered. Even though asphalts roads and common spaces are developed [fig. 7], very few plots are built on. These types of layouts are enclosed compared to ones that are less developed. These plots seem to be aimed at a slightly higher class of investor, guaranteeing security of ownership thanks to the regularity of administrative formalities. These types of layouts appear closer to regular residential
production; however, by remaining empty they participate in land speculation without contributing to the housing supply.

<figure><img src="image_146.png" /></figure>

[fig. 7]: Pondy Gateway is a gated community located 40 minutes away from the center of Pondicherry, along the highway. Converted in 2007 by the landowner, a farmer looking to get out of agriculture, the layout was progressively developed with the first roads appearing in 2017 after obtaining authorization. In 2023, only a dozen houses were built.

## Conclusion

In conclusion, this paper seeks to highlight the hybrid landscape resulting from the expansion of the commodification and financialization of land. By converting agricultural land, the various stakeholders seek to make a profit in anticipation of the arrival of the city. Observed at varying distances from the city, and in more or less developed rural areas, these ordinary conversions take place both in developed sectors, often boosted by the construction of new infrastructures (national roads, facilities, industries...), but without necessarily giving rise to real estate construction. The question left to answer is how to categorize these new places? Withdrawn from agricultural production, these lands are no longer truly considered rural, and without construction or development, can they be considered urban?

The absence of planning and the mobilization of this agricultural land as a source of investment and savings testify to a form of financialization of urban production from below. Moving forward, further fieldwork and interviews with investors, households and developers are essential to better understand the factors influencing the development of these different types of conversions.
## Bibliography

Chakravorty, S. (2013) *The price of land: Acquisition, conflict, consequence*. New Delhi, Oxford University Press, 273p.

Denis, E. (2016) « Désirs de ville et convoitises foncières. Marchandisation du sol dans les Suds ». *Métropolitiques*.

Dinh, S. (2016) *Des rizières aux plots : conversion foncière et stratégies des acteurs locaux en Inde du Sud. L'exemple du village de Bahour, Pondichéry* : Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, mémoire de master 1 Aménagement et Urbanisme, 132p.

Fauveaud, G. (2022) « Géographies de la spéculation et urbanisation du capital dans le Sud Global : une perspective à partir de Phnom Penh au Cambodge ». *Annales de géographie*, n° 746 (4), p. 5-31.
https://doi.org/10.3917/ag.746.0005.

Guérin, I. (2014) « Juggling with Debt, Social Ties and Values: The Everyday use of Microcredit ». *Rural South India. Current Anthropology*, 55(S9), p. 40–50. https://doi.org/10.1086/675929

Government of India Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare Department of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare Directorate of Economics & Statistics. (2021) *Land Use Statistics At A Glance 2009-10 to 2018-19*, 154 p.

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Pondicherry Planning Authority (2019) *Comprehensive Development Plan for Puducherry Planning Area-2036*, 522p.

Vijayabaskar, M. and Menon, A. (2018) « Dispossession by Neglect: Agricultural Land Sales in Southern India ». *Journal of Agrarian Change*, vol. 18, n°3, p.571-87. https://doi.org/10.1111/joac.12256.
# Foodscapes: from soil to policies. Food as a design tool for landscape and territory.

Amerigo Alberto Ambrosi

IUAV University of Venice

Supervisor: Maria Chiara Tosi, Marta De Marchi

Expected thesis defence: October, 2026

Email: aambrosi@inav.it

The research considers the notion of foodscapes (FSS), a term increasingly used within the fields of nutrition, public health, and food studies. Considering the increasing number of studies on foodscapes, some hypotheses could be drawn to define how the origin of the idea of foodscapes can be included within the framework of urban landscape. No more exclusively focused on the material aspects of the landscape connected to food, but considering instead a wider spectrum of elements including the intangible features of a cultural landscape. There is a strong link between the materiality and immateriality aspects of food systems, which suggests we frame foodscapes as the sum of material realities, cultural spaces and food-related practices. [Figure 1]

At first, adopting a top-down point of view, a series of protection systems are intercepted, which perimeter and define areas and boundaries within which food production has an economic-social value but not a spatial value.

At the same time, the actions activated by regional and provincial subjects and organisations are analysed, intercepting the projects and practices implemented or still underway.

In a second moment, adopting a bottom-up point of view, a series of associations, projects, actions are intercepted, and implemented in a spontaneous or organised manner that contributes or collaborates in shaping the territory.

Finally, by crossing points of view and traversing the different scales, one intercepts within those systems, those 'best practices' that, at the same time, manage to produce peculiar economies and landscapes and how these can serve as input for common policies for a project of territory.

<figure><img src="image_147.png" /><figcaption>Figure 1. The heuristic model implied by the concept of foodscape (Credit: Michele F. Fontefrancesco).</figcaption></figure>

## From top to the territories: landing in the foodscapes

The General Conference of the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organisation adopted the Convention for the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage in November 1972. The aim of the agreement is to identify, protect and guarantee the transmission of a Heritage considered to be of 'outstanding universal value'. In 1977, Operational Guidelines, periodically revised by the Commission, were added to the Convention and became one of the main tools for determining the inclusion of sites on the World Heritage List. The first part of the text outlines the premises and objectives of the Convention, framing the need for an agreement, which promotes the protection of a heritage destined to be increasingly
vulnerable, due to the sudden and radical changes in social and economic conditions. Therefore, an
urgent need for rapid and systematic action is established, on a larger scale than national, to
respond to the need to preserve and safeguard the heritage of collective interest, which can be
defined as World Heritage.

This is an extremely important operation, which aims to raise the awareness of communities, local
as well as national and international, with regard to historical, cultural, and natural heritages that,
from the perspective of the Convention, cannot be considered permanent without appropriate
strategies to protect them. As much as this is an extremely important stance because it reveals an
urgency that can no longer be overlooked about strategies for the protection of human and non-
human environments, it is necessary to emphasise that the way in which these arguments are
formulated and addressed is not a secondary issue.

Italy's World Heritage Sites are the sites declared by UNESCO¹ as World Heritage in Italy, which became a contracting party to the World Heritage Convention on 23 June 1978.

As of the year 2023, there are fifty-eight sites inscribed on the World Heritage List: fifty-three sites are cultural, and five are 'natural'; seven of them are part of transnational sites. Italy is the country with the largest number of heritages, particularly cultural heritages, within the UNESCO network.

Within the list of heritages of cultural character there are only two areas that include a food species or foodstuff from the title what in other words we can call foodscapes: "Vineyard Landscape of Piedmont: Langhe-Roero and Monferrato (2014)", and "Le Colline del Prosecco di Conegliano e Valdobbiadene (2019)" Those are valued as 'cultural heritage', as 'works of man or combined works of man and nature, including archaeological sites, of outstanding universal value'¹.

It is in this parenthesis generated by the two surveys that the focus of this research lies,
investigating everything that is land construction, excluding, thanks to a first elementary distinction,
that which is mineral soil, built or impermeable. The area intercepts three regions located in
northern Italy: Piedmont, Lombardy and Veneto, which are of particular relevance and importance
both geographically and economically. These three portions of Italy's territory are closely
interconnected by an important European road axis E70, coinciding with the European corridor
Lisbon - Kiev and following the corridors Berlin - Palermo and the Corridor of the Seas. The
European and trans-European network of multimodal corridors2 connects the main metropolitan
cities of strategic importance for the economy of the Union, also involving the Italian territory.

In this area characterised by the presence of strong economies linked to several fields of
production, the physical and economic presence of the primary sector remains relevant. Taken
individually, the three regions are potentially autonomous systems, rich in food culture and variety,
with a still strong food-related economy, whose food security, particularly in recent years, is
compromised by various factors, notably climate change, access to water, and production and sales
costs.

Going beyond the physical and territorial aspect of these ‘special landscapes’, it is intuitive to realise
that these niche productions, while enriching certain cultures and economies, alone do not
guarantee the survival of communities and the preservation of an essential and non-renewable
resource such as soil. These places considered special tend to obscure certain aspects of the food
system, in particular, that on which the survival of communities, for whom food remains a
fundamental human right, is based.

A second level of information referring to foodscapes is constituted by food quality marks
categories. These, superimposed on the first order of mappings derived from the logic dictated by
Unesco contribute to the identification of other geographies referring to food productions that
produce typical or peculiar foodscapes in precise and localised places and spaces. These are to be
superimposed on this first consideration. Quality marks are defined according to Commission
Implementing Regulation (EU) No. 668/2014 of 13 June 2014 "laying down detailed rules for
implementing Regulation (EU) No. 1151/2012 of the European Parliament and of the Council on
quality schemes for agricultural products and foodstuffs "³:

Italian products branded PDO - Protected Designation of Origin;

Italian products with PGI - Protected Geographical Indication;

Italian products with TSG - Traditional Speciality Guaranteed;

Italian products with GI - Geographical Indication.