Urban Perennials: How Diversification has Created a Sustainable Community Garden Movement in The United States

Our research seeks to understand how the contemporary community garden movement in the United States differs from its predecessors and whether its new foundation increases the political and financial sustainability of today's gardens. To this end, this article reviews historical and contemporary literature, and surveys participants in three distinctive community gardens, to answer several related research questions. First, what is the current state of the US community garden movement, and how have its historical roots shaped its response to current policy concerns? Second, which populations comprise today's community gardeners, and what motivates them to participate? After considering the findings from our three study gardens, and from a review of secondary and “gray” literature, we conclude by positing that a greater diversity of gardeners and gardening motivations, accompanied by changing leading views on urban land uses, will lead to such urban gardens remaining a more lasting feature of city neighborhood landscapes.     

TENDING CULTURAL LANDSCAPES AND FOOD CITIZENSHIP IN TORONTO'S COMMUNITY GARDENS*

ABSTRACT. Scattered throughout the city of Toronto are more than no community gardens, sites of place‐based politics connected to the community food‐security movement. The gardens, spaces where passions for plants and food are shared, reflect the city's shifting cultural landscape and represent an everyday activity that is imbued with multiple meanings. Toronto's community food‐security movement uses gardens as one strategy to regenerate the local food system and provide access to healthy, affordable food. Three garden case studies expand on the complexities of “food citizenship,” illustrating the importance of that concept to notions of food security. The gardens reveal the role gardeners play in transforming urban spaces, the complex network of organizations working cooperatively and in partnership to implement these projects, and the way in which social and cultural pluralism are shaping the urban landscape.     

Human–Nature Relations in Suburban Gardens

Gardens have been considered predominately in terms of a nature–culture binary, with nature positioned as a passive object of human control. Placing the human at the centre of the garden, these perspectives understand this space in terms of human cultures, needs and understandings. This paper critiques these perspectives, questioning whether gardens are ever simply human constructions. Actor–network theory (ANT) provides a framework for this research, which examines human–nature relations through a focus on the material processes of gardening. Drawing on interviews with suburban gardeners in northern Sydney and the analysis of two popular gardening magazines, the research shows that gardening entails an embodied engagement between active human and non-human actors. Involving processes of collaboration, negotiation, challenge and competition, gardening is a dynamic process. Describing human relations with the plants of the garden, this research argues for gardens to be understood as hybrid achievements.     

KITCHENSPACE,FIESTAS, AND CULTURAL REPRODUCTION IN MEXICAN HOUSE‐LOT GARDENS*

ABSTRACT. The house‐lot garden in central Mexico is gendered space where changing cultural identities are negotiated, re‐created, and celebrated as “tradition” is continually redefined. No clear boundary separates the kitchen from the house‐lot garden or the private space of the household from the semipublic space of the community. During collective food preparation for religious fiestas, gendered reciprocity networks strengthen community relations and foster alliances between traditional neighborhoods and between communities in the region. At the intersection of everyday life and fiestas, food‐preparation spaces, or kitchenspaces, in the house‐lot garden are fertile areas in which to explore the cultural reproduction of nature‐society relations. They are vital to understanding gender, place, and culture in this region and represent people's symbolic connection with the land in increasingly urban contexts. This article analyzes the sense of place that Mexican women derive from their house‐lot gardens.     

从文化地理的角度透视中西古典园林艺术特征

文章从文化地理的视角,在园林类型、园林规模、造园艺术、园林与建筑的关系、美学风格、艺术渊源、审美情趣方面对中西方古典园林的艺术特征进行了比较,对中西方古典园林艺术特征差异形成的原因进行了分析．指出东西方园林艺术融合对中国城市绿化具有借鉴意义。     

Food gardens as important elements of urban agriculture: Spatio-developmental trends and future prospects for urban gardening in Czechia

The main research goals of the article are to explain the historical context of urban food gardens in Czechia, to describe the current spatial pattern of allotment gardens, and to introduce and analyse recent trends in urban gardening. The main method for achieving the first goal was a literature study. For the second goal, geographical mapping and analysis of data relating to the spatial distribution of allotment gardens were used. For the third goal, mapping together with analysis of semi-structured interviews carried out in community gardens in Prague were used. The analysis showed a strong tradition of urban agriculture and urban food gardening activities in Czechia. Both allotment gardens and newly emerged community gardens were concentrated mainly in the biggest cities and in areas with a rich industrial and mining tradition. This finding supports the significance of gardening as an important element of urban agriculture. However, uncertainty regarding land tenure and long-term sustainability were among the greatest obstacles for the future of allotment and community gardens. The authors’ main recommendations are that urban agriculture should be included as primary land use in sustainable planning and there should be broader community involvement in planning and decision-making processes.     

DIFFERENTIATING MULTIPLE MEANINGS OF GARDEN AND COMMUNITY

Community gardens are widely recognized as an effective grassroots response to urban disinvestment and decay. There has been remarkably little attention paid, however, to the differences among community gardens as physical and social spaces. This paper suggests that variations among gardens reflect and reproduce differing interpretations of the meaning of both community and garden in the city. A comparative discussion of three community gardens in Minneapolis, Minnesota, highlights the concept that at the intersection of notions of community and garden are the issues of enclosure, inclusion and exclusion. Decisions about whether and how to enclose community gardens shape the role that community gardens play in urban neighborhoods. [Key words: community gardens, neighborhood revitalization, urban activism.]     

Malaysia's Three Major Ethnic Group Preferences in Creating a Malaysian Garden Identity

Malaysia has a complex multiracial population, predominantly defined by three major ethnic groups: Malay, Chinese and Indian races, with diverse cultural backgrounds. Despite this, the country has a vision to be the most beautiful garden nation, and its National Landscape Policy (NLP) puts emphasis on creating a unique landscape and garden identity. Because of ethnic and cultural differences, there are differences between preferences for developing a garden identity for Malaysia. Hence, this study focused on the visual quality of gardens. Representative images of four well-established gardens of the world including Persian-Islamic, English, Japanese and Chinese gardens were presented to the study's respondents through preference photo surveys. Respondents from the three major ethnic groups in Malaysia were asked to rate their preferred garden types, elements and scenes that they would like to see in Malaysian gardens. The results pinpointed expectations of the visual quality of gardens. These highlighted some similarities and differences between the three major ethnic groups in their preferences for the scenes and elements that they sought in gardens. Diverse factors must be considered when creating Malaysian gardens that will be accepted by Malaysians of different ethnic groups. Garden development reveals preferences attached to visual qualities and emphasises cultural differences between garden users.     

REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT: MORE THAN EVER,THE BUSINESS OF AMERICA

Community-produced spaces such as community gardens are attracting widespread scholarly interest for the potential of not only food production, but also for social, environmental, and educational benefits. Yet community gardens have also been scrutinized as sites of governmentality that produce neoliberal subjects. In this article, six case studies are analyzed as representative of three ways to organize and manage gardens—grassroots, externally-organized, and active nonprofit management. I use performativity theory to examine how definitions and enactments of community can be used to include, exclude, or bridge difference. The analysis highlights some of the specific moments in garden organizing and management that influence participation or resistance to community-oriented urban food production.     

GARDENS AND DWELLING: PEOPLE IN VERNACULAR GARDENS*

ABSTRACT. Investigations of dooryard gardens, kitchen gardens, home gardens, and houselot gardens fall unequally into one of three groupings. The first are those that treat the plants in the gardens as biological entities and define a space considered a culturally controlled biological community or habitat. The second are those that consider plants cultural traits and the space defined by their positions a setting for household activities. The third conceives of plants as design elements within a garden or a landscape that frames a house or provides a setting for formal human performances. Recent decades have witnessed a broadening focus in the study of gardens, from spatial characteristics and biological content to social and cultural concerns such as reciprocity networks, contested spaces, and the concept of “dwelling.”     

Remapping heritage and the garden suburb: Haberfield's civic ecologies

ABSTRACT

Gardens in Australia are considered an important site of heritage maintenance and negotiation for their capacity to materialise transformations in everyday life, design, lifestyles, demographics, environment, as well as social and cultural practices. In the case of conservation areas, gardens tend to be valued in terms of their closeness and potential to preserve specific historical elements. Plants in these gardens are cultivated to evoke period designs, such as Federation (c.1890–1915) and cottage gardens. In this article we turn to gardens and gardening to make sense of entanglements between cultural, historical and environmental elements, and we ask: what role do plants play in shaping our understanding of suburban heritage? To answer this question, we draw on oral histories, archival research and ethnography in Haberfield, the first model garden suburb in Australia. We show how plants channel and mediate multiple concerns that contest and extend ideas of heritage circulating in public discourse. Foregrounding the centrality of plants, this article contributes a dynamic definition of heritage that includes the entanglement of environmental stewardship and individual and collective heritage.     

Nurturing Relationships: the gardens of Greek and Vietnamese migrants in Marrickville,Sydney

First- and second-generation migrants represent about 40 per cent of the Australian population. With such a large and also diverse immigrant population, urban landscapes are significantly shaped by the gardens created by migrants. Two groups of Vietnamese and Greek migrants, in the inner suburb of Marrickville South in Sydney, were interviewed to examine the relationship between migration history and garden-making practices. Garden composition was influenced by migrants’ relationship with their homeland, in terms of length of time since migration, previous garden ownership, reason for migration and desire for cultural continuity, and by the size of the garden. Gardens also varied according to country of migration. The actual garden produce and type of environment created by the garden helped to emphasise and maintain cultural relationships, provide a space of nostalgia, and give a sense of ownership and control.     

Seeds for Change? Attaining the benefits of community gardens through council policies in Sydney,Australia

Modern industrial systems of food production cause a wide range of detrimental impacts to the environment, human health and society. Integrating community gardens into local food systems is one way to counteract some of those impacts. This research looks at the elements that community garden policies should contain in order to best promote community gardens and attain their benefits. Focusing on Sydney, the research evaluates and compares the quality of the community garden policies with the distribution of community gardens in local councils and across broader geographic regions. Councils or regions that might benefit from greater access to community gardens are identified and ways in which councils, and the Sydney Region as a whole, might improve their community garden policies are discussed.     

ISTANBUL'S BOSTANS: A MILLENNIUM OF MARKET GARDENS*

ABSTRACT. For centuries, a network of market gardens throughout Istanbul provisioned the city with fresh vegetables. These bostans and their gardeners held a respected place in Istanbul life, contributing to the city's food and employment needs. Today, only fragments remain. Massive urban development, intense competition for metropolitan space, modernization, changing institutions and laws, and the global industrialization of food have threatened this tradition with extinction. But in spite of the overwhelming forces behind their demise, some of Istanbul's bostans persist. Efforts to support and promote the gardens, and to draw from the expertise and experience of their gardeners, are emerging. From a historical perspective, this article examines Istanbul's bostans to understand their meaning and contribution to the city's people and landscape.     

“村改居”后中小城市居民与迁入移民地方认同差异及其影响因素

村委会改为居委会或社区委员会（即“村改居”）给当地居民生活方式带来诸多变化,特别是迁入移民与本地居民的混合居住对当地居民的地方认同产生了重要影响,这两类居民在不断互动与融合中重新形成地方认同并成为乡村社会可持续发展的关键。文章以灵宝市Y社区为例,运用统计检验、因子分析法、质性研究方法探讨本地居民和迁入移民在地方认同方面的差异及其影响因素。研究发现：1）本地居民的地方认同水平高于移民居民,其差异主要体现在功能性的社区参与、情感性的社区意义以及决策性的去留意向方面;2）本地居民更加重视社区参与,移民居民虽然关心社区生活环境,但社区参与行为明显缺乏;本地居民和移民居民的情感认同分异显著,前者形成自我建构联结型情感认同,而后者产生他者凝视依附型的情感认同;去留意向表现出户籍-年龄异质性,本地居民比移民居民的去留意向更为明确,年轻居民搬离社区的意愿更强烈;3）地方认同差异是人地相互作用过程中,社区管理制度、地方自然、文化环境以及居民身份差异形成的结果。     

文化身份视角下移民城市的城中村更新模式探讨——基于新加坡与深圳的实证研究

选取新加坡和深圳的3个城中村作为实证研究对象,从文化身份的理论视角切入,剖析移民城市的城中村更新的文化塑造过程;指出要理解文化身份的内涵与本质,需要理解地方蕴含的全球性与在地性、过去与现在这两组关系。在解读宏观文化政策的内在政治和经济推动力的基础上,基于参与式观察和半结构化访谈资料,运用质性分析方法,比较探讨典型移民城市城中村的更新模式、政策机制及社会影响。结果发现,2座城市在对待文化身份尤其是移民文化的态度不同,产生了不同的更新效果。新加坡案例以实际生活在此的移民群体的生活方式为出发点塑造地方特色,并提供公屋政策支持,因而能够在发展展示经济的同时保有社区的延续性。深圳案例则是人为选择和指定某个历史时期的建筑风格作为特色加以强调,发展文化旅游经济,这种方式塑造的文化身份与原有社区和住民的关系不大,最终导致地区的高档化,使得大部分移民群体被驱逐、社会关系网络断裂。研究认为,文化身份的选定本质上是对文化资本的使用,代表的是城中村更新主导方的价值取向。而身份认同在文化语境中的话语权,代表了群体对城市空间的社会权利。因此,文化导向的城中村更新应从当地社区居民的角度出发,关注其长期积淀的社会关系和特定人群需求,而非物质空间的表面意向,才能实现更为公正、包容且可持续的城市复兴。     

空间认同:城市空间研究转向中的知识前沿、趋势与启发

中国城市化进程的快速发展,促使人们不断解构、调整和重构对城市空间的认同,这是城市化发展中不容忽视的新问题。以Web of Science（WoS）为数据源,对国外城市空间认同研究进行了分析和知识再现。研究发现：① 城市空间认同是人们对城市发展中社会经济认同、文化认同、集体认同、身份认同与情感认同的集合。作为重要的国民意识,城市空间认同主题是国外学者关注的重要领域,对该领域研究的本质上是对城市空间实践中人文主义空间诉求的知识表征;② 在2008~2017年的国外城市空间认同研究中,美国、英国、澳大利亚等国家具有明显优势,国际合作研究网络主要在美洲-欧洲、欧洲-澳洲,以及澳洲-欧美之间;国外城市空间认同研究高被引文献注重对“空间多中心性”“地方与连续性”“城市社区”“城市公民身份”“空间绅士化”“地方主义”等方面的讨论。③ 未来研究更加倾向在“认同”“空间”“城市”“地理”“政治”“地方”,以及“社区”等新主题方面。相比较而言,国内对城市空间认同的研究较为欠缺,随着中国城市空间实践不断推向纵深阶段,需要强化城市空间认同研究的“理论自觉”。     

Soil Characteristics and Nutrients in Different Tea Garden Types in Fujian Province,China

Anxi is the largest producing area of Tie Guanyin tea in China. "The cultural system of Tie Guanyin tea in Anxi" was selected as "Nationally Important Agricultural Heritage Systems" (China-NIAHS) in 2014. Tea gardens in this region are organic, ecological or non-ecological. After sampling the soil in these three kinds of tea gardens, we compared soil properties and nutrient content at different soil depths using physical and chemical analyses. Our aim was to provide a scientific basis for the management of tea plantations. We measured and analyzed soil in two organic, three ecological and one non-ecological tea gardens at depths of 0-10 cm and 10-20 cm in Anxi County. According to Duncan multiple comparisons and t tests, soil nutrients differed between organic and ecological or non-ecological tea gardens at 0-10 cm. Organic matter and total nitrogen differed between organic and nonecological tea garden soils at 10-20 cm. In organic tea gardens, soil bulk density, porosity, relative water content, soil organic matter, total nitrogen and total phosphorus were advantageous for tea tree growth. In ecological tea gardens, the indicators were appropriate and relatively advantageous for tea tree growth at a soil depth of 0-10 cm. For non-ecological tea garden, the nutrients were at a compact level and negatively affect tea growth. These results show that soil properties and nutrient content in organic and ecological tea gardens are superior to non-ecological tea garden. The development of organic tea gardens is the most suitable strategy for the growth of tea trees.     

徽州古村落的景观特征及机理研究

富接江南、文风昌盛和秀丽山水是明清时期徽州地理环境的主要内涵,创造了灿烂的徽州文化。古村落是历史上徽州人生产生活的中心之一,是徽州文化的主要载体。聚族而居、宛如城廓的村落以及村落中众多高大的祠堂、牌坊形成直观可视的文化景观,极大地渲染了古时徽州的宗法观念和宗法制度。文风犹存的书香村落拥有大量的书院、私塾等文化建筑,淡雅明快的居民等建筑大多饰以典雅工丽、寓意深刻的雕刻和楹联,体现了浓厚的文化氛围。园林化是徽州古村落人居环境的主要特征之一,园林化村落拥有的水口园林、书院园林和宅院园林等多种园林烘托了徽州古村落的园林情调。     

城市空间变迁背景下的地方感知与身份认同研究——以广州小洲村为例

身份认同是文化和社会研究中一个重要的概念,是指个人在特定的社会文化语境中逐步确定自己在这一社会文化秩序中的个体角色,从而形成完整的自我认知与自我定义。而地方认同则是对某个地方作为社会角色自我感知的一部分的认知,通过地方的意义来形成对个人或社会群体文化与身份的认同。以地方与身份认同作为主要的研究维度,将广州独特的“艺术村...