Assessing the sustainability of urban agriculture: the case of Çankaya municipality

2022-1-14
Doğan, Şeyma Başak
Agriculture, as the basic economic activity carried out inside the city, has had both economic and social meaning for people since ancient times. However, industrialization caused an increase in the priority of non-agricultural activities in cities. As a result, agricultural activities had lost their importance inside cities, and were becoming mostly related to a rural context. Although agriculture is generally associated with a rural context, the economic, social, and environmental problems originated by rapid urbanization, rural migration to cities, high level of unemployment, and urban poverty caused a rise in agricultural activities in the urban context. This new trend is called “Urban Agriculture”. Urban agriculture is developing rapidly worldwide because of its positive impacts in economic, social, and environmental areas. It is claimed that urban agriculture undoubtedly plays an important role in the future of the developing and developed cities and their sustainability. Therefore, it has started to be used as a sustainable development strategy in many countries. In that regard, understanding the relationship between urban agriculture and sustainability, and assessing the contributions of urban agriculture on sustainability have gained importance. Although various authors have claimed that there is a strong positive relationship between urban agriculture and sustainability, more analytical framework is required to construct a better understanding of the relationship between urban agriculture and sustainability. Therefore, the aim of the thesis is to present an assessment framework to define the relationship between urban agriculture and sustainability. This relationship has been examined with various themes and indicators in the literature in terms of the economic, social, and environmental dimensions of sustainability. Then urban agriculture activities of Çankaya Municipality in Ankara were assessed in light of these themes and indicators.

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Citation Formats
Ş. B. Doğan, “Assessing the sustainability of urban agriculture: the case of Çankaya municipality,” M.S. - Master of Science, Middle East Technical University, 2022.