Agro-urbanism: a new professional approach to rebuilding the relationship between the city and agriculture

Large cities situated in the heart of agricultural plains, such as Paris, have inevitably expanded at the expense of the fertile land surrounding them, and they continue to do so today. Whilst this land take is, in principle, inevitable, it could be carried out in a far more economical manner if urban sprawl were guided by planning schemes that take into account the specific characteristics of the spatial organisation of agricultural areas. At the same time, better landscape enhancement of the open spaces represented by arable farming would help to positively support the densification of urban fringes, which could usefully replace the scattered suburban housing that currently dominates them. This different approach to conceiving the interface between the city and agriculture cannot fall within the remit of town planners alone, nor that of agronomists. It requires the creation of a new, interdisciplinary professional role, which we propose to call the ‘agri-urbanist’. The Collective for Teaching and Research in Agri-Urbanism and Territorial Planning (CERAPT), formed through a partnership between a landscape architecture school (ENSP), a school of architecture (ENSAV) and a school of agronomy (AgroParisTech). This article reports on this educational innovation, which has been in place since 2007.