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\nBattersby, Jane  \nDepartment of Environmental and Geographical Science and African Centre for Cities, University of Cape Town  \n[Jane.battersby.lennard@gmail.com](Jane.battersby.lennard@gmail.com) (Corresponding author) and  \nMarshak, Maya  \nDepartment of Environmental and Geographical Science, University of Cape Town  \nAbstract  \nThere has been growing interest in the use of urban agriculture to address food insecurity and poverty in Cape Town. This reflects debates on urban agriculture in the global south. In the North, growing food in cities has been tended to be framed in terms of its social benefits. This paper investigates the perceived benefits of urban agriculture in projects in Seawinds and Vrygrond in Cape Town. Using the concept of metabolic rift is argues for connections between Northern and Southern constructions of urban agriculture. This approach enables connections to be seen between the practice in seemingly different areas without losing the local context. The paper argues that by using this integrated approach, projects may be more sustainable and ultimately provide both clearer social and economic benefits.  \nKey words  \nUrban agriculture, Cape Town, economic development, social development  \nGrowing Communities: Integrating the social and economic benefits of urban agriculture in Cape Town  \nIntroduction  \nThe City of Cape Town faces a myriad of social and economic challenges. While these challenges have often been addressed in policy silos, the connections between these challenges are increasingly recognised by policy makers and NGOs – as it evidenced by the rebranding of the Department of Housing to the Department of Human Settlements. Urban spaces are far more than physical built environments, they are the landscapes in which people’s lives are played out and in which identities are constructed and negotiated. As Gruenewald notes,“space is alive, pulsing with beliefs, thoughts and actions that shape who we are as people” (Gruenewald 2003, 628) . Appreciation of this demands different responses to the perceived challenges. As Cape Town undergoes social, political and economic transformation there is a need to address not only address economic and political imbalances entrenched by apartheid and its resultant segregation, but also the societal fractures. This paper considers the potential of urban agriculture as a means to address both economic and social challenges in an integrated manner.  \nIn recent decades, urban agriculture (UA) has been powerfully advocated as a solution to particular types of urban challenges in the global South. As will be discussed later, this form of urban agriculture research focuses on tangible challenges such food security, poverty and urban waste management (Mougeot 2005) . This interpretation of the benefits is reflected in the City of Cape Town’s Urban Agriculture Policy (City of Cape Town 2007) which drives and justifies much of the food security advocacy work in the city.  \nIn the global North the growing of food in cities has been advocated to address a different set of urban challenges. While recognising the food security and other quantifiable benefits of Southern configured urban agriculture studies, these focus more directly on social and community benefits. This work argues that the creation of green and growing spaces in cities can encourage ‘upliftment’, ‘cohesion’and ‘community development’ (e.g. Jamison 1985, Glover 2004) Within these framings the practice of growing food in cities is terms ‘community greening’,‘community gardening’ or ‘civic agriculture’.  \nUntil recently these two strands of research on growing food in cities-Southern urban agriculture and Northern community greening/gardening – have existed largely independently of each other. The Southern research has been informed by development studies and the Northern research by critical urban studies a","cbCaig8vA5aIXyLN","https://ap.wps.com/l/cbCaig8vA5aIXyLN","pdf",923234,16,"English","# Introduction\n## Urban agriculture in the global South\n## Community greening and gardening in the global North\n## Toward an integrated conceptual framework (metabolic rift)","[{\"question\":\"What problem does the paper link to urban agriculture in Cape Town?\",\"answer\":\"It links urban agriculture to addressing food insecurity and poverty, alongside broader social and economic challenges facing the city.\"},{\"question\":\"Which Cape Town projects are used to investigate perceived benefits?\",\"answer\":\"The paper investigates projects in Seawinds and Vrygrond to examine how benefits are perceived in practice.\"},{\"question\":\"How does the paper use the concept of metabolic rift?\",\"answer\":\"It uses metabolic rift to connect Northern and Southern constructions of urban agriculture, allowing comparison across contexts without losing local specificity.\"}]","Growing Communities - Integrating the social and economic benefits of urban agriculture in Cape Town | PDF"]