Agrarian Questions Under Planetary Urbanisation
Future Cities Laboratory Global

What is the future of the manifold agricultural territories across the world that support contemporary cities? While discussions on urban sustainability have focused on cities and urban regions, agricultural territories are equally exposed to rapid and far-reaching urban transformation processes with massive social and environmental implications, opening a research gap for agroecological territorial design.

Through the analysis of case studies situated in different agrarian regions, the project aims to address the gap and better understand processes of extended urbanisation in agricultural territories, exploring their urban challenges and transformation potentials. By analysing selected processes in these territories, namely 1) operationalisation of agriculture; 2) peripheralisation of mountain regions; and 3) enclosure and fragmentation of agricultural landscapes, we aim to enrich the vocabulary with which we describe and conceive novel patterns and processes of extended urbanisation.

The research part of the project NEW URBAN AGENDAS UNDER PLANETARY URBANISATION—Agrarian Change and Agroecological Transitions, embedded in the Food and Territories cluster of ETH Future Cities Laboratory Global—an interdisciplinary research programme that seeks to address the worldwide circumstances of rapid urbanisation.