Productive urban landscape: Exploring urban agriculture multi-functionality practices to approach genuine quality of life in gated communities in Greater Cairo Region

Abstract

Despite having roots through history, gated communities have emerged as a new urban phenomenon facing the effects of urbanization. They became a dominant typology for achieving better quality of life (QOL), especially in Greater Cairo Region (GCR). This typology of urban development has become the target of many Egyptian families. Thus, capitalism emerges at the node where urbanization crisis, QOL and gated communities meet. This appears in the marketing of gated communities that tackles landscapes as one of its commodities as a response to the demand for better QOL. This aim will be attained via theoretical and practical methods. Theoretically, correlating the concepts of QOL, urban agriculture, and local gated communities landscape architecture practices was carried out. Then, two models of questionnaires were pursued targeting gated communities’ residents and practitioners, in addition to field visits and observation. The study ended by recommendations to enhance the QOL domains via following all productive urban landscape.

Keywords

• Urbanization
• Multifunctional landscape architecture
• Urban agriculture
• Productive urban landscape
• Gated communities