How will the marriage of ecologies and technologies enlighten bio-urban form? | A conversation on TED.com. La ciudad huerto, Valencia y las agriculturas urbanas. En esta ocasión, desde la curiosa mirada de Hipatia queremos mostrarle las oportunidades que abren las AGRICULTURAS URBANAS como estrategia de planeamiento urbano, a través de un estudio-propuesta para la ciudad de Valencia desarrollado por 2T-huerting. Para aquellos que desconozcan el término, la agricultura urbana es la práctica de una agricultura con cultivos, ganados, y pesca dentro o en los alrededores del área urbana. La agricultura urbana surge como una alternativa para el desarrollo local y comunitario, con una visión de aprovechamiento integral de los espacios existentes.
Dentro de una ciudad, ¿qué tierra utilizamos? Ésta puede ser privada, pública o residencial, balcones, paredes o techos de edificios, calles públicas o márgenes y antiguos sotos deforestados de los ríos. Gracias a este tipo de agricultura se facilita el acceso a verduras y frutas frescas para los consumidores urbanos. Para más información: Greening the City: Urban Landscapes in the Twentieth Century - Google Livres.
Alex Steffen : l'avenir partageable des villes. Densification: Examining the pros and cons of denser cities | Money. Cities are amazing places, bringing together all sorts of different people. Different ideas and customs often mix and multiply, providing new and exciting opportunities for work and play. And this intellectual and cultural fermentation does require a certain density of population. But is denser always better? Government measures like the Greater Golden Horseshoe Growth Plan are designed to limit so-called "urban sprawl" in southern Ontario and keep cities dense.
In Quebec, Jean-François Lisée, the minister responsible for the Montreal region, has set up a special committee to figure out how to keep families from moving off-island. Environmentalist David Suzuki sure thinks that denser is better. In a recent piece for the Victoria News, he praises densification, rapid transit infrastructure projects, and efforts to contain urban sprawl. Canadian cities don't spend enough on public transit, Suzuki argues, which leads to traffic congestion with its associated economic and environmental costs. Sustainable cities must be compact and high-density | George Monbiot | Environment.
For at least a century, governments have tried to urbanise their nations. Communist states sought to drag people out of what Marx and Engels called their "rural idiocy". Capitalist governments – Mahatir Mohammed's administration in Malaysia is a good example – tried to persuade and bully indigenous people into leaving the land (which then became available for exploitation) and move to the cities to join the consumer economy. Urbanisation was equated with progress and modernity. In a few nations such as Britain there is a significant middle-class flight to the countryside, while in most places, as agro-industry replaces subsistence farming, as local marketing networks collapse and ecosystems fail, the countryside is emptying out and the cities are bulging. In 2007 the balance of the world's population tipped from rural to urban.
It's not all push. The environmental consequences depend on where you are. Monbiot.com.