Rethinking “non planned” urban areas: The role of urban agriculture in migrant communities

The presentation follows an on going phd research about urban allotment gardens in the Lisbon Metropolitan region which are cultivated by cape verdean communities – one of the most emblematic Portuguese case of non legal urbanization sprawl. It intends to focus on two main points: (1) clarifying the existing conflicts among a wide diversity of urban rationalities related to forms and opportunities of access to resources like water, seeds, land, knowledge and infrastructures; (2) reviewing the social and political context related to the regulation drafting process on urban land use and occupation.  The issue of urban agriculture has grown in differente social contexts. It has grow in Lisbon region too, despite the marginal role of public policies in assessing and fostering its development. Today, only in the city of Lisbon there are almost 78 hectares which have been cultivated in public and private vacant land, by different social groups, for at least 40 years. The majority of those who have promoted this re-use of vacant land belong to (im)migrant communities from Cape Verde, or came from rural areas of Portugal, and they are cultivating urban areas out of the rules provided by official urban planning. In recent years, the phenomenon started to be monitored by the Public Administrations: initially as part of a misapplication of planning and building guidelines and regulations, later on as an opportunity to renovate the same development policies.The recent emergency of urban gardens policies set by local governments mainly tried to answer to an existing informal phenomenon. Considering this context, the aim is to rethink the acess to the city through these spaces that goes beyond the paradigm of the informal.