Urbanism and agriculture practices

Abstract

This article introduces and discusses the phenomenon of cultivating vegetable elements in urban sites. Initially the theme is approached in its symbolic aspect: the concept of paradise, the origin of agriculture and the birth of the cities. In a second moment, the agricultural practices are analyzed within the context of their relation to the utopian propositions. The third part of the text approaches the phenomenon of urban agriculture in the industrial age: the diffusion of gardening practices, the family gardens, the industrial gardens, the working-class gardens, urban self supply, the ideology of the campaigns to promote such activities, and finally the landscape practices that followed the urbanistic projects of the Industrial Era. In its final part, before conclusion, the article outlines a brief report and discusses a landscape practice recurrent in urban environments: the cultivation of lawns, their anglo-Saxon origins, their transference to North american urban environments, their symbology, and the conflicts that followed the diffusion of such landscape in the cities of North america.