Urban Regions : Ecology and Planning Beyond the City

Food in urban regions 151

Ban*

Bam+

Cut•

Nai+

Nan•

Phi+

Ula•

Por•

San*

Sto+

Ott+

Sap+

Seo*

Eas•

Mex*

Mos*

Iqu•

Bar+

Bra+

Ber+

Kua+ Te gKag••

Edm•

Atl•

Number of agricultural landscapes in urban region

Number of types of agricultural landscape

01

1

2

3

4

5

357911

Sdt+Te h*

Bei*

Lon*

Cai*

Chi+

Rom+

Buc+

Erz•

Can•

Abe•

Sam•

Rah•

(13)

Figure 6.8Number of types of agricultural landscape relative to number of

agricultural landscapes. Landscapes are >100 km^2 and compact in shape. Agricultural

includes cropland and pastureland. See Figure 6.2 caption for city information.

Communities that became cities often started where good soil and a water
body come together. Spreading farmland sends sediment and agricultural chem-
icals into water bodies. The frequency of cropland around cities offers a sig-
nificant opportunity to recognize the values of urban agriculture, from farm
communities and economies to food products for the city at low transport cost
(Chapter3).
Today prime agricultural soil near cities often sprouts buildings. The spread of
buildings in future urbanization should generally be concentrated along or near
theboundary between landscape types, such as agriculture and built land or
agriculture and natural land. As illustrated in the aggregate-with-outliers model
(Forman1995,FormanandCollinge1996), these locations minimize degradation
toeither agricultural or natural landscapes.

[F2]Three or more types of cropland landscape are present in a third of the regions, in
contrast to a single type of cropland landscape in a quarter of the cases(Figure6.8).

More landscape types suggest a diversity of food products available, plus flex-
ibility for the future. It also indicates a high diversity of farmland species, plus