Experimental Living and Housing Forms: Cities of the Future as Sustainable and Integrated Places of Food Production

Population growth and urbanization are progressively leading to an increase in the global food demand within cities resulting in a rise in global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, land consumption, resource depletion, and social tensions. The key challenge for future decades is to feed a growing population in an ethical and socially, economically, environmentally sustainable way. Traditional city and housing models are no longer capable of providing a compelling solution. The urgency of providing dynamic responses in terms of integrated urban solutions must coexist with a medium- to long-term perspective in which production is gradually embedded within the urban structure. Since the relationship between places of production and consumption is a critical node in food policy, it is essential to strengthen this link within a more globalized and interconnected economy. This essay investigates two different strategies: on the one hand, agri-cities and communities as an experimental social-business model that places the production once again at the center of housing design, and on the other floating potential for food production in delta and coastal cities, as a zero-land footprint strategy. In both approaches, cities and the way they work must be reimagined with a view to making them locally productive and globally connected