The volume addresses the significance of agricultural production areas for the city, particularly in agglomeration regions such as the Ruhr area, the Rhine-Main region, or the Stuttgart metropolitan area, where they are integral to the urban landscape and serve especially as local recreational spaces with diverse service offerings in the leisure sector for the urban population. For agriculture, soil is the crucial, non-renewable, and indispensable production factor. At the same time, forms of urban agriculture are developing that no longer require soil as a fundamental prerequisite for the production of agricultural products, as is already practiced in greenhouses and experimentally in vertical farming. The question of the future of urban agriculture cannot be separated from the discussion about cities and metropolitan areas as places of sustainable development.