Urban foodscapes and greenspace design: Integrating grazing landscapes within multi-use urban parks

Abstract

As the world’s population grows rapidly, and urbanisation intensifies at unprecedented rates, the planning for, and design of food landscapes that are integrated within every zone along the rural-urban transect is now being seen as not only desirable but necessary to the long-term sustainability of many urban zones globally. The social, economic and environmental opportunities associated with the development of integrated urban and peri-urban agriculture projects highlights the multi-beneficial nature of urban foodscapes. Now commonly recognised as a critical urban form component, the study of, and engagement with food landscapes is seen as a vital factor in urban resilience and community health and wellbeing. Plant-based urban farms and community gardens have experienced significant growth within the West in recent years, however how we integrate grazing lands for animals within the urban zones has been largely left out of the literature. Animal agriculture is still considered primarily a ‘rural issue’, therefore this research asks, ‘how do we design multi-use, multi-beneficial urban parks that integrate grazing lands within our towns and cities?’. It will specifically investigate how we can successfully integrate urban grazing within city greenspace design, and will examine the opportunities and constraints associated with spatial design models from an urban design perspective. Auckland, New Zealand’s largest urban centre and most populous region provides a unique opportunity in which to consider how grazing lands can be integrated along the full extent of the rural-urban transect. Auckland Council is the region’s biggest urban farmer with 1500ha of greenspaces as farms across regional and urban parks. Through the theoretical position of Agricultural Urbanism, this paper will present a case study-based methodology analysing the design and integration of grazing lands within the Auckland City regional and urban farm parks, providing valuable discussion on the design and integration of future urban foodscapes that include grazing landscapes for animals.