If the future is dystopian, we imagine climbing plants that climb the buildings and pass through the asphalt cracks. But, if it is prosperous, technology is found in a “clinical environment” and intuid by nature. «It is a nonsense; The future of cities cannot be futuristic, redundancy is worth. Nor will the fantasy one in science fiction films or the one devised by the great technological corporations. Inevitably, that future will go to assume the Ecourbanism agenda ».
The reflection the firm José Luis Casadevante ‘Kois’a historic of the neighborhood movements in Madrid (there was, while the first orchards in the capital), sociologist and international expert in urban agriculture were sown. Now, he is also the author of Garden Ecourbanism, Social Cooperation and Agriculture (Captain Swing, 2025), the most complete book on urban crops in Spain.
His thesis is that Urban agriculture – Community hours, cultivation areas in schools, in prisons, in the gardens of hospitals, on roofs …– emerges as a crucial change tool to make cities sustainable. Something that “politicians still question, but that we really understood a few years ago, in the pandemic, and that will happen again in the coming years as a result of the crises that will accelerate global warming.”
“It is not a heroic act, but taking care of a garden is a way to assume tangible commitments with a place, to take responsibility for a fragment of the world.”
“What do you want to be” garden “?
—It had to collect the best examples that I know of urban agriculture in Western cities and try to offer a panoramic view of this phenomenon since many times it is ridiculed to “hippies growing.” Hence the complex approach towards renaturalization, transformation of food systems or social vertebration among others.
“Where can an urban garden be useful at the social level?”
—They are successful when offering certain services at the multifunctional level, from orchards in neighborhoods to health centers, through prisons, refugee fields, war conflict zones, addiction centers … horticultural therapy, still not very developed It is also interesting. For reasons like these I wanted to get this phenomenon from the reductionist gaze that sometimes you have from it.
– Do you consider that the concept of urban agriculture is attracting profiles beyond leftist activism?
—It has years in the neighborhood movement and I can ensure that the orchards are one of the most cozy associative experiences that exist. You don’t have to knock on a door, you don’t have to go to a place, where you don’t know that you will find yourself on the other side of the threshold. In an urban garden, you look through the fence, you see people and see what is happening. If you are interested, they invite you to pass. It is something to promote because it is an intergenerational and inclusive activity where all kinds of profiles participate. Stereotypes are being ending since they offer benefits transversally to the entire population.
“There are people who think there is no space in cities for orchards …
– Physical space is more than it seems. When you change the look you have on the city, many potential locations appear to place orchards. This is the case of Madrid, for example: it is on its way to having 100 community orchards and, when we started, this was something practically unlikely; Everyone saw it very difficult. Today, it is a very consolidated public policy and one of the flags that the Madrid City Council in the National Environment Congress waves. The objective of “HuertoPías” is to get spaces for urban orchards in the hearts of cities, to be able to understand and enjoy them differently.
—When we imagine a dystopia, we see a city taken by plants, but when we imagine a prosperous future, it appears absent from nature. Are Utopian Futurism and Nature at odds?
—In the book I propose that there is a tension between the idea of collapse (nature surpasses civilization) and technological solutionism. When we believe that technology will solve all our problems, we forget the human factor, how we are going to organize or how we are going to live together. I believe that technology can contribute to the ecosocial transition, but it is not a sufficient condition by itself. Given that reality, urban agriculture introduces important debates, for example, on how we understand the food system.
—What practical strategies do you propose to cities to favor urban agriculture?
—We must understand that it is necessary to undertake a renaturalization process and that some cities are doing it serious. I think about the example of Paris, where they are disappointed streets, eliminating roundabouts, planting small urban forests, a green roof plan … in Paris they know that within 20 years they will have the climate of Seville. That is, the recommendations that eco -urbanism have been taking a long time ago are being anticipated and taking seriously. It is normal to be afraid of change, but our life can greatly improve with him. It also scared to pedestrianize the retirement or Fuencarral street, when now nobody would want to let cars through these places.
“What a good example?”
—Madrid progresses a lot in terms of urban agriculture: it has a 200 orchard school network, it is attached to a pioneer project of productive orchards and is a city that presents advances. As an example of integral actions, we have to go to New York, where they have been trajectory for decades and there is directly a council for urban agriculture that coordinates the entire action: professional, commercial, vertical, school, school, roofs … a look that enhances the possibilities of each type of garden from a strategic point of view.
“A advice for 2025?”
“I wish we can sow seed of a certain reconciliation, we run away from the polarization climates in which we are planted and thus have common strategies to address the ecosocial crisis.