Urban Agriculture for Growing City Regions
Casablanca is a city of superlatives: it is the largest Moroccan city, the most dynamic economic hub of the country, it hosts its largest commercial port and 60% of its industrial units, though it is also its densest, most populated, most congested, and most problematic city. In less than a century, Casablanca has witnessed radical transformations both in its urban and social configuration; what used to be a small harbor city became one of the most dynamic and fastest growing regions in North Africa.
As it is the trend in many metropolises, the concentration of industry and businesses attracted a huge number of migrants, both from the rural areas and other cities of the country, leading to a rising demand on resources, housing, infrastructure, and services. In the case of Casablanca, neither the pace nor the scale of these mass transformations have allowed city managers and urban planners to tackle the urban issues comprehensively. This has resulted in three main urban trends: the first is the emergence and then the proliferation of slums and informal housing. The second is an increasing densification of the urban core at the expense of open/green spaces, and the third is the fragmentation of the urban periphery, which is now the refuge of low-income population and new rural migrants. These urban trends, coupled with the increasingly tangible impacts of climate change in the region raise relevant questions on the future of Casablanca, especially that the city is expected to grow larger, while its resources in water and land are dramatically shrinking.
In the current context of resource scarcity, as well as serious environmental, spatial and social challenges, the business as usual scenario in which urban issues are managed within a pure sectoral approach is no longer an option. The complexity of these issues requires both an urgent and innovative response to the challenges of rapid urbanization, and policies that transcend the sectoral planning approaches to offer integrative and cross-scale solutions and achieve a sustainable and resilient urban development.
Against this background, this round table will be an opportunity to present the results of the "Urban Agriculture Casablanca" (UAC) project, and demonstrate how urban agriculture can play a determining role in establishing a collaborative optimization of urban resources, namely water, food, and energy. The spatial, social, economic and environmental dimensions of urban agriculture will be discussed to determine its contributions towards a resource and climate-optimized urban development as one of the main challenges of the current urbanization processes in the global south.
About Urban Agriculture Casablanca
Urban Agriculture Casablanca is a German-Moroccan research project funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) within the megacity research programme "Research for the Sustainable Development of Megacities of Tomorrow. Focus: Energy- and climate-efficient structures in urban growth centres". (2008-2014)
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Yassine Moustanijdi, Architect and Urban Planner, Klaus Müller GMBH, he is a Berlin-based urban planner and architect. He holds a master’s degree in urban design from the Technical University of Berlin, a master’s degree in architecture from Tongji University, Shanghai, and a diploma in architecture from Ecole Nationale D’architecture, Rabat. Moustanjidi is a practitioner and researcher on the issues of urban sustainability and mega-urbanization. He has worked intensively on urbanization challenges within the Middle East and North Africa region, China, and Europe, and has actively participated in a variety of international conferences, competitions, and workshops on the topic. He also took part in regional leadership programs, including the U.S.-Middle East Partnership Initiative in Washington, DC and Young Arab Leaders in Kuala Lumpur.