Considering the rise in new urban plots and this new interest in this kind of urban agriculture in Portugal and worldwide, what, in fact, are the new urban plots? How and why did they appear? We found this concept is used... [ view full abstract ]
Considering the rise in new urban plots and this new interest in this kind of urban agriculture in Portugal and worldwide, what, in fact, are the new urban plots? How and why did they appear? We found this concept is used indistinctly whether referring to traditional urban plots (a.k.a gardens) or to the new generation of urban plots. How can they be distinguished? What is its legal and conceptual framework? How can they contribute to sustainable development goals? With this growing interest in urban plots, urban agriculture increases and a new paradigm of development emerges based on the concepts of sustainable development. The methodology to respond to our questions is a synthesis of the literature reviewing the international history of urban gardens framework to allow for the comparison of different case studies of urban plots in distinct geographical. This will support the build of a conceptual contexts across the globe, with the aim of understanding their contribution to sustainable development and how the respective legal context played (or not) a relevant role. From the analysis of urban plots case studies in different geographical contexts, it becomes evident that they often constitute complementary sources of food security and income, whereas there’s an increase of social, physical and psychological wellbeing attached to these collective experiences. Urban households use these spaces to grow fresh and healthy food along with the opportunity of achieving relaxing moments, doing outdoor light exercise and attaining inter-personal interaction and social integration. Hence, urban plots appear to play an important role in the promotion of health, social inclusion, civic participation and sustainable living practices. The contributions to environmental sustainability are evidenced by the good farming practices being adopted, such as wastewater re-utilization, solid waste reduction, soil quality improvement, reutilization and raising population awareness to the importance of the environment and ecological issues. The role of urban plots in social cohesion is also noticeable by the evidence that collective urban plots experiences promote inter-personal interaction, facilitate integration of newcomers and help raising the sense of community and neighborhood. They also appear to help linking economic and other dimensions of sustainability by providing households and communities the opportunity to value food variety and food safety along with the cost and effort of producing food in an environmentally-sound way. In this sense, organic urban plots are a model of enhancement of the quality of life of its users, contributing significantly in making people feel happier, changing and improving their habits. The new generation of urban plots is not distinguished from the traditional urban gardens by their size, legitimation or geography, but by the motivation and wellbeing that they can bring to growers. In this paper, we will develop a conceptual framework to compare different urban plots regarding their contribution to the sustainable development goals and to discuss how legal framework can be adjusted to help the implementation of public and local policies that promote sustainable development strategies in cities, by scaling-up this small-scale and bottom-up experiences.
Keywords: Urban plots, legal framework, urban agriculture, sustainable development
9d. Law and sustainability
