Urban Agriculture in the future Mediterranean Megacities: the case of Grand Casablanca

Casablanca is a rapidly growing North African port city whose population is changing substantially since the beginning of XX century. Today’s urban research into urban conurbations, such as Grand Casablanca metropolitan area, has to investigate different mechanisms of spatial production such as informality as one of the big challenges. In particular the research focus on which role the existing urban agriculture practice can play into sustainable, climate-optimised urban development, transforming itself from a classic rural land use category into a multifunctional green infrastructure. the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) established ten transdisciplinary research projects on Future Megacities, in order to promote sustainable developent in industrialising and less developed countries, such as South Mediterranean countries. One of these projects is located in Casablanca: Urban Agriculture as an Integrative Factor of Urban Development.