The ‘Covid-trigger’: New light on urban agriculture and systemic approach to urbanism to co-create a sustainable Lisbon

Simon, Sandrine

Abstract

In 2018, Lisbon won the title of Green capital of Europe 2020. It was described by the Expert Panel as an inspirational city which had started its journey towards sustainability during a period of economic crisis. A year later, Covid-19 had become a global pandemic. Imposed confinements highlighted the extent to which globalisation has spread the virus, as well as the particular fragility of places like cities where people, living together, were asked to not physically interact anymore. Exploring further that very particular global crisis can help to identify the faults in our economic systems and to ask why Lisbon was neither resilient nor sustainable in the face of that adversity. In addition to highlighting how weak our health is, Covid-19 has exacerbated vulnerabilities in Lisbon such as job losses (especially in the touristic sector), food supply (Portugal imports 70% of its food) and food waste. This paper explores how the activity which, ‘par excellence’, meets the most basic of our needs (food), through the example of Urban Agriculture (UA), could contribute to discussions on what makes a city sustainable. A literature review on UA in Lisbon highlights its various benefits, complemented by a broader literature review which converges to showing how UA can help to address the vulnerabilities generated or exacerbated by Covid. Having shown its potential contribution to addressing crises, this article then suggests to examine how systems approaches could help to incorporate UA further in a new type of more participatory urbanism aimed at creating sustainable cities.

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Mar 28, 2022
• Online Publication Date: Apr 20, 2022
• Publication Date: Feb 28, 2023
• Deposit Date: May 1, 2025
• Publicly Available Date: May 2, 2025
• Journal: Systemic Practice and Action Research
• Print ISSN: 1094-429X
• Electronic ISSN: 1573-9295
• Publisher: Springer
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 36
• Issue: 1
• Pages: 87-109
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11213-022-09598-9
• Keywords: Urban agriculture · Resilient sustainable Lisbon · Food networks · Social urbanism · Systems approaches to urbanism
• Public URL: https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/14353735
• Additional Information: Accepted: 28 March 2022; First Online: 20 April 2022; : ; : The authors have no competing interests to declare that are relevant to the content of this article.; Free to read: This content has been made available to all.