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The fringes between urban areas and their surrounding territory usually concentrate strains of transformation and urban growth. Equally, planning strategies that promote the adaptation of urban development to the identity of territory contribute to the resilience of these urban fringes. This paper aims to illustrate this idea through the analysis of three of Spain's inland medium-sized cities during the period of intense urban growth that started in the eighties and concluded in 2008. The cases of Vitoria, Zaragoza, and Valladolid clearly show the negative consequences of an expansive urban model in their urban fringes, but also the alternatives that slowly emerged over this period. While the main urban planning tools enabled an unsustainable urban expansion, other planning proposals introduced an alternative approach that mitigated the effects of the real estate boom and have paved the way towards a better future: Vitoria with its green infrastructure, Zaragoza with its integrated development effort that took advantage of an International Exhibition and Valladolid with its coordinated planning. These different tools have a key feature in common: a deep comprehension of their territories as the strongest foundation for conducting urban development in more sustainable ways. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Urban agriculture has long been endorsed as a means to promote food security and economic wellbeing in African cities. However, the South African context presents mixed results. In order to establish the contributions of urban agriculture to sustainable livelihoods, the sustainable livelihoods framework is applied to a case study on cultivators from Cape Town's Cape Flats. This study contributes to the empirical literature on urban agriculture by providing a deeper understanding of the benefits cultivators themselves attribute to urban agriculture. The key finding is that cultivators use urban agriculture in highly complex ways to build sustainable livelihoods. NGOs are central to this process. Distrust, crime and a lack of resources are, however, limiting factors. The paper concludes with policy recommendations to support pro-poor urban agriculture in African urban centres. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]