Spanish Journal of Rural Development, Vol. V (Special 1): 1-6, 2014 Copyright © 2014 Ignacio J. Díaz-Maroto Hidalgo DOI: 10.5261/2014.ESP1.01 1 Urban green infrastructures in Europe: new architectural orientations for finding a way out of the dead-end road of industrialized modernity Swagemakers, P. 1 *, Jongerden, J. 2 , Wiskerke, J.S.C. 2 1 Grupo de Investigación de Economía Ecolóxica e Agroecoloxía (GIEEA, Research Group in Ecological Economics and Agroecology), Department of Applied Economics, Faculty of Economic and Business Sciences, University of Vigo, Lagoas-Marcosende, 36210, Vigo, Spain 2 Rural Sociology Group, Department of Social Sciences, Wageningen University, Hollandseweg 1, 6706 KN Wageningen, the Netherlands *Corresponding author: paul.swagemakers@uvigo.es Received: 25 June 2014 Accepted: 02 July 2014 Abstract Short title: Urban green infrastructures Historically cities and urban green infrastructures showed a diverse and dynamic character. The rise of urban agriculture is increasingly embedded in urban practices that aim to fashion a more sustainable and healthy city-region and food provisioning food system. This invites to rethink city-spaces and analyze grassroots dynamics as the spatial interweaving of densely populated urban centres and green open space, which represent actively, socially constructed functionalities and multi-spatial connectivity. Developing and implementing integrated policies to support these new practices is a major challenge. Keywords: Urban agriculture, policy challenges, spatial design strategies, sustainability 1. Introduction The modernization and industrialization of agricultural food production has safeguarded food supply at low direct payment for food products by consumers (Tracy, 1989; Brouwer and Lowe, 1998). However, it has resulted in the undeniable degradation of natural resources that are crucial to agricultural production (Altieri, 2002; Toledo, 1990; 2002). Furthermore a series of agricultural crises such as mad cow disease, food and mouth, avian influenza, swine fever and blue tongue disease has significantly increased societal concerns about the industrial nature of current livestock production systems (van der Ploeg, 2006). These indicate that the contemporary globalized food system is in a major environmental and socio-cultural crisis. Theoretical frames that draw upon literature from outside the agro-food system but that are intended to contribute to its restructuring are characterized by “an inadequate architecture for analyses of change in agro-food production structures and rural socio-spatial organization” (Goodman, 1997), especially since these frames often do not take into account the complexity of the agro-food system. Globalizing food chains, next to being criticized for lacking socially and ecologically inclusiveness cause vulnerability of city-regions in terms of food security. Since total security is difficult to reach, the improvement of resilience of city-regions to food scarcities increasingly wins interests. This is, for instance, symbolized by the 2013 Bonn Declaration of Mayors at the 4 th Global Forum on Urban Resilience and Adaptation: “We invite local governments to develop and implement a holistic ecosystems-based approach for developing city-region food systems that ensure food security, contribute to urban poverty eradication, protect and enhance local biodiversity and that are integrated in development plans that strengthen urban resilience and adaptation”. Hence, sustainable food systems not only include the provision of food security but also landscapes, farm-land biodiversity, soil life and stability, the availability of water, water and air quality, resilience to fire, and rural vitality (Cooper et al., 2009). Wiskerke (2009) distinguishes two competing paradigms in meeting sustainability goals: the