Developing “community” in community gardens

Firth, Chris; Maye, Damian; Pearson, David

doi:10.1080/13549839.2011.586025

Cited by 267 publications

(251 citation statements)

References 22 publications

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“…While the importance of urban gardening is recognized as a driver for community building and social cohesion, the ways in which it happens may not always be immediate and direct (Rodrigues et al in review). In the early stages of development, such benefits do not necessarily lengthen beyond the site and the people involved to the realms of the neighborhood or the city (Veen 2015;Firth et al 2011). Moreover, the integration of community gardens within existing social structures and in bringing together people from different socio economic backgrounds may face some challenges (Veen 2015).…”

Section: Urban Gardens As Drivers For Social Cohesionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…According to Barthel and Isendahl (2013), they have the capacity to respond to needs of socio-ecological resilience. Firth et al (2011) have shown that the social benefits associated with community gardens are broad and include increasing social cohesion and the ability of sharing common values, aims and behaviors, social support, and social connections developed through social bonds and networks. There are many examples of collective action (Adger 2003) around the creation of community gardens to increase resilience in communities.…”

Section: Urban Gardens As Drivers For Social Cohesionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Urban Gardens as Multifunctional Nature-Based Solutions for Societal Goals in a Changing Climate

Cabral

Costa

Weiland

et al. 2017

Theory and Practice of Urban Sustainability Transitions

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Urban gardens can contribute to climate mitigation and adaptation through a range of provisioning, regulating, and cultural ecosystem services as multifunctional nature-based solutions in a city. Besides providing food, urban gardens contribute to water regulation through unsealed soils, to improved air circulation and cooling through plant transpiration and shading, offering microclimate oases to many users, such as gardeners, visitors, and immediate neighbors. In combination with other green and blue infrastructures, urban gardens can thereby help to mitigate and adapt to the urban heat island effect. They also provide important habitat for

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Section: Urban Gardens As Drivers For Social Cohesionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Urban Gardens As Drivers For Social Cohesionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Urban Gardens as Multifunctional Nature-Based Solutions for Societal Goals in a Changing Climate

Cabral

Costa

Weiland

et al. 2017

Theory and Practice of Urban Sustainability Transitions

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…They thus contribute to generating social capital (Alaimo et al 2010;Firth et al 2011) and can be a decisive success factor for a project itself (Buttery et al 2008;Corrigan 2011;Meenar and Hoover 2012). As well as this, they can be an effective approach to solving land-use conflicts (Barthel et al 2010).…”

Section: Network Structuresmentioning

confidence: 99%

Contributing to food security in urban areas: differences between urban agriculture and peri-urban agriculture in the Global North

et al. 2015

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Food security is becoming an increasingly relevant topic in the Global North, especially in urban areas. Because such areas do not always have good access to nutritionally adequate food, the question of how to supply them is an urgent priority in order to maintain a healthy population. Urban and peri-urban agriculture, as sources of local fresh food, could play an important role. Whereas some scholars do not differentiate between peri-urban and urban agriculture, seeing them as a single entity, our hypothesis is that they are distinct, and that this has important consequences for food security and other issues. This has knock-on effects for food system planning and has not yet been appropriately analysed. The objectives of this study are to provide a systematic understanding of urban and peri-urban agriculture in the Global North, showing their similarities and differences, and to analyse their impact on urban food security. To this end, an extensive literature review was conducted, resulting in the identification and comparison of their spatial, ecological and socio-economic characteristics. The findings are discussed in terms of their impact on food security in relation to the four levels of the food system: food production, processing, distribution and consumption. The results show that urban and peri-urban agriculture in the Global North indeed differ in most of their characteristics and consequently also in their ability to meet the food needs of urban inhabitants. While urban agriculture still meets food needs mainly at the household level, peri-urban agriculture can provide larger quantities and has broader distribution pathways, giving it a separate status in terms of food security. Nevertheless, both possess (unused) potential, making them valuable for urban food planning, and both face similar threats regarding urbanisation pressures, necessitating adequate planning measures.

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“…It is common for papers on urban and Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) to extol the virtues of the community aspects of CSA (see, for example, Wells and Gradwell 2001;Watts et al 2005;Firth et al 2011;Flora and Bregendahl 2012;Obach and Tobin 2014), in many cases arguing that they are as least as important as the food that is produced (Amsden and McEntee 2011;McIver and Hale 2015). For others, including Shi et al (2011) and Wittman (2009), new forms of agrarian or ecological citizenship have the therapeutic potential to address the ills of agribusiness (Schneider 2015), promote care of the self (Jarosz 2011;Ravenscroft et al 2013) and heal what Wittman (2009) characterises as the metabolic rift that has opened between society and nature.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The spaces and times of community farming

Liu

Gilchrist

Taylor³

et al. 2016

Agric Hum Values

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This paper uses a multiple case study approach to researching people's everyday lives and experiences of six community farms and gardens in diverse settings in China and England. We argue that collective understandings of community are bound up in everyday action in particular spaces and times. Successful community farms and gardens are those that are able to provide suitable spaces and times for these actions so that their members can enjoy multiple benefit streams. These benefits are largely universal: in very different situations in both England and China, CSA members make strong connections with the land, the farmers and other members, even in cases where they rarely visit the farms and gardens. This suggests that community farming and gardening initiatives possess multi-dimensional transformational potential. Not only do they offer a buffer against industrialised and remote food systems, but they also represent therapeutic landscapes valued by those who have experienced time spent at or in connection with them. Our findings indicate that-regardless of location or cultural context-these benefits are durable, so that people who have been engaged in multiple activities at a community farm or garden continue to enjoy these benefits long after most of their engagement has ceased.

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Developing “community” in community gardens

Cited by 267 publications

References 22 publications

Urban Gardens as Multifunctional Nature-Based Solutions for Societal Goals in a Changing Climate

Urban Gardens as Multifunctional Nature-Based Solutions for Societal Goals in a Changing Climate

Contributing to food security in urban areas: differences between urban agriculture and peri-urban agriculture in the Global North

The spaces and times of community farming

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