Urban Agriculture And Its Potential In Urban Development

Urban agriculture is defined as a kind of local agricultural cultivation, located inurban and peri-urban areas. It provides high quality, safe agricultural products and jobopportunities, gives new concept to urban landscape, and offers a new way to protect theenvironment. Urban agriculture can be divided into three types by size: urban farmland,small-scale urban farming, and vertical farming. The development of rban agriculture couldfit perfectly into China‘s reality. With the growing population, cropland loss and changingdiet, China is losing the capacity to feed itself and heading towards bringing the whole worldan inevitable food disaster. In order to ensure domestic food security, China should releaseland productivity in the city. With the country‘s current political policy, two-track economicsystem, and small-scall agriculture tradition, urban agriculture is a perfect way to save Chinafrom the coming crisis.This dissertation is the first research of urban agriculture potential in urban renovation,the main contents include:(1) Overall research: summarize the research and development ofurban agriculture, clarifying the basic concepts. According to the research timeline anddevelopment characteristics, urban agriculture research and development process could bedivided into five stages, every stage has its own background, characteristics, and influencialtheorie.(2) Development Difficulties: Conclude the difficulties of urban agriculture inexisting cities, including source of labor, irrigation water, and arable land; technicaldifficulties; and lack of strategies.(3) Difficulties Analysis and solutions: firstly, put forwardthe technology and Strategy solutions. Explore the problems and solutions of urbanagriculture development in existing cities, including urban soil pollution possibilities andremediation approaches, the collection and processing of agricultural irrigation watertechnology; and then, proposes the general approaches of promoting urban agriculturedevelopment in urban renovation, including the prerequisite for the development of urbanagriculture, the required support policy (management and urban planning polies) for thedevelopment of urban agriculture in existing cities, the implementation of the policy,economic incentives, and the use of current technologies. Secondly, use case study to analyzethe difficulties in real world. Take New York City as an example, investigate the role anddevelopment potential of urban agriculture in existing cities. In the cooperation withColumbia University, we accomplished the field survey of nearly1,000city farms in New York, obtained first-hand information of the locations and production of existing farms inNew York City. Based on official documents, this dissertation summarizes the current statusof political and economical development of urban agriculture in New York City. Through theinvestigation of the New York metropolitan area, which includes all the open space,education land, government’s public land, surface parking places, green space, private-publiclands, the private courtyard lands, as well as the roof space, ultimately put forward concreteproposals to promote the development of urban agriculture in New York and the potential forthe future development. Thirdly, discusses the last two decades of urban agriculturedevelopment in the field of urban design, residential areas, and architecture, to explore thedevelopment trend of urban agriculture and give conclusions of this dissertation.