Beyond the urban domain : Cairo urban agriculture. Urban agriculture between ideology and practice

Ten thousand years ago, humans were hunter-gatherers who moved with their food sources. With the discovery of agriculture came permanent settlements and, in time, the imperial cities of the ancient world were found. Since then, "Urban Areas" which could be identified as areas of: "higher population density and vast human features in comparison to areas surrounding it. Urban areas may be cites, towns or conurbations, but the term is not commonly extended to rural settlements such as villages and hamlets". These areas are continuously being built and developed by the process of "Urbanization". According to the UN-HABITAT data (www.unhabitat.org), in 2008 the "Urban Age" has started; which means that the percentage of people who live in the Urban Areas has outnumbered the one of those living in rural areas. And according to other resources the global proportion of urban population rose from 13% (220 million) in 1900, to 29% (732 million) in 1950, and to 49% (3.2 billion) in 2005. By 2050 over 6 billion people, two thirds of humanity, will be living in towns and cities worldwide. The rising of the "Urban Age" leads us to assume that less and less people will make themselves responsible for sustaining (providing food, for example) more and more people living in the city. Urbanization thus presents a global challenge of human development and human rights. The shift in where we live brings to the fore the question of how we live—the challenge of "Sustainable Development". For decades now, many critical situations related to different aspects of our "Urban Age" indicate the difficulties that face us and our environment. Because of this rapid "Urbanization" process which surpasses our limited global resources, many sustainable and ecological design strategies have appeared calling for "Sustainable development". Most of these strategies were mainly concerned with specific issues which are limited to the architectural project and not with the wider issues of our cities and its infrastructure. "The urban, as the site of complex relations (economic, political, social, and cultural) requires an equally complex range of perspectives and responses that can address both current conditions and future possibilities". "Masdar City" which is said to be the first "Zero Carbon City" and considered one of the pioneer projects addressing the challenge of "Urban Sustainability". Yet, if our nowadays cities are having a negative mechanism of consumption, the question stays: is it enough to have a zero carbon city managed with renewable energy resources? As mentioned in the quotation above, the "urban" with its complexity is in need for, not only a normative "urban ideal" but a multiple yet a highly focused strategy to resolve the relation between our natural environment and the built one. The research hypothesis is to reconsider the integration of "Agriculture" within the "Urban Areas" as an ecological mechanism for compact cities. This integration would be considered as a multiple sustainable tool not only in terms of decreasing the impact of our urbanized cities ecologically, but also in terms of cities productivity. The case study chosen is Cairo according specific criterion that should be mentioned clarifying; why Cairo and Urban Agriculture