From boundary to regeneration : Reimagining Green Belts as platforms for metabolic repair in Melbourne’s urban fringe
Abstract
Green Belts have historically functioned as instruments to limit urban sprawl. Their potential to serve as dynamic platforms for socio-ecological regeneration, however, remains underutilised. This paper examines the integration of community-based urban agriculture as a regenerative practice within Green Belts, repositioning them from static containment boundaries to dynamic spaces of metabolic repair. Drawing on Karl Marx’s theory of the metabolic rift, this study explores grassroots agricultural practices in Melbourne, Australia’s ‘Green Wedges’. These practices provide a regenerative alternative to the strict separation of towns and cities implied by conventional Green Belts planning. Grounded in a qualitative case study and ethnographic methods, the research investigates how a community agriculture initiative facilitates closed-loop systems and negotiates land-use restrictions through adaptive governance strategies. Findings reveal that community gardening in the Green Wedge repairs metabolic flows through composting, soil care and waste recycling. The analysis also illustrates how grassroots initiatives overcome institutional constraints through collaborative networks. Beyond food production, the case reveals how community agriculture fosters care, cultural, ecological and social functions, thereby expanding the interpretations of Green Belts’ multifunctionality. The paper argues that these grassroots initiatives demonstrate Green Belts’ regenerative potential, suggesting a need to reconceptualise Green Belt policy to support multifunctional and locally embedded regenerative practices. This research presents an alternative vision for Green Belts’ futures, rooted in local action, multifunctionality and the restoration of urban metabolic relations. This article is also included in The Business & Management Collection which can be accessed at https://hstalks.com/business/.
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Author's Biography
Zeyu Li is a PhD candidate at the Centre for Urban Research, School of Global, Urban and Social Studies, RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia. Her interdisciplinary research delves into urban agriculture, regenerative theory, and the urban metabolic rift. The data in this paper is taken from her PhD dissertation.
Marco Amati is a Professor of Planning with a long-standing interest in the intersection of cities and the environment. He completed his PhD in 2005 at the University of Tsukuba, Japan on the history and future direction of the London Green Belt. He is the editor of Urban Green Belts in the Twenty-First Century (Ashgate, 2008), a collection of chapters on the direction of Green Belts internationally.
Andrew Butt is a Professor in Urban Planning and a planning educator and researcher with a focus on rural and urban fringe planning issues. He has a background in planning practice, and his current research and supervision is in the area of land use change and planning policy associated with regional Australia, food systems and peri-urban development.
Dr Kelly Donati is a Vice-Chancellor’s Research Fellow in the School of Health and Biomedical Sciences at RMIT University, Melbourne, where her research investigates the role of community food infrastructure in enabling practices of social and ecological care. She holds a PhD in human geography from the University of Melbourne (2017) and was a 2019–20 Rachel Carson Fellow at Ludwig Maximilian University, Munich, Germany. Kelly has published widely on food systems, urban agriculture and regenerative food and farming practices. Alongside her academic work, she is co-founder and director of Sustain: The Australian Food Network, providing a pathway for her research to inform food systems policy and practice.
