Public Gardens as Sustainable Community Development Partners

Abstract

Local governments are increasingly forging creative alliances to solve community problems and provide local services. The literature recognizes cultural institutions as partners for local community development, yet these alliances remain underutilized. This article identifies the contributions that local government partnerships with cultural institutions—specifically public gardens—make to community development through their services, presence, and location in urban America. Using data from a national survey and 96 expert interviews of public garden and government officials, we explain why these alliances are forming, document their potential to improve communities, and suggest steps that local governments might take to benefit from this vital partner. Results expand our understanding of how nontraditional community development partners can provide resources to local governments to address urban challenges.

Process Evaluation of a Community Garden at an Urban Outpatient Clinic

“…Similarly, others have reported that community gardens are associated with increases in environmental stewardship and have been used as a tool to facilitate environmental literacy [26-27]. Community gardens are known to promote community building, civic engagement, social capital, and social well-being [14, 17-19, 25-26]. Community garden volunteers in this study reported similar values.…”

“…Garden volunteers in this study also reported caring more about the environment as a result of working in the garden. Similarly, others have reported that community gardens are associated with increases in environmental stewardship and have been used as a tool to facilitate environmental literacy [26-27]. Community gardens are known to promote community building, civic engagement, social capital, and social well-being [14, 17-19, 25-26].…”

Placemaking in Action: Factors That Support or Obstruct the Development of Urban Community Gardens

“…Nine papers highlighted the importance of connections to local or social networks, including shared experience through (established) local collaborative partnerships [77,93,105,126,128] or umbrella organisations [98]. This was also addressed by twelve of our interviewees, including monthly meetings of gardeners belonging to various CGs (EX16), consultancy for weed control (EX4), or using existing networks for exchange and support (CG7).…”

“…Disseminating and sharing of knowledge and skills through teaching, training, and tutoring was the most commonly mentioned enabler in the literature, mentioned in 24 papers, including teaching community members how to garden [26,40,51,53,56,72,80,81,120] including ecological processes and organic gardening [68,94]; building up technical, organisational, and managerial capacities [54,67,93,120,126]; sharing skills [36,58,109,126] including those coming from other cultures [31,64]; multi-lingual training [120]; education for schools and kindergartens [75,86] and cooking classes [68]. The relevance of disseminating skills and knowledge related to a garden was confirmed in our cases by eleven gardeners and four external experts: "[ .…”

Research Articles: Community Clean Energy Programs: Proficiencies and Practices

“…A useful way to examine organizational capabilities is to look at the functions performed by the community organiza-tions~for example, see Gough et al, 2011!. These are the functions or roles most consistently and fully discussed by the respondents: For community organizations to be an agent of change, they must have the institutional capability to deliver large quantities of energy savings or encourage numerous consumers to adopt clean energy resources.…”