Student Corner: Community Gardens: Documenting Ordinances in Major US Urban Areas

The People’s Garden, Philadelphia, PA. Photo: Ben Lasley, 2020. As cities look to create inclusive spaces for community and economic development, urban farming is an inventive potential for green growth. These green spaces promote regeneration within neighborhoods, produce fresh produce in food deserts, and provide a community for historically disenfranchised communities. Throughout the last decade, North Carolina cities have created innovative solutions to increasing concerns over the lack of opportunity for urban agriculture. Community gardens often arose as marginalized populations immigrated to urban areas and were denied access to conventional food sources. Vietlead is a group that organizes southeast Asian communities to understand historical ties to the land and to organize for greater community control over green spaces in south Philadelphia. In Charlotte, a Black-owned and operated urban farm is seeking to expand urban farming opportunities, as only five percent of farmers in the United States are Black. As communities advocate for greater grassroots control of community space, municipal governments that wish to take on an expanded role in supporting urban agriculture can do so through municipal ordinances, zoning rules, and public-private partnerships. However, community gardens in urban areas often are not owned by the people who cultivate them, which puts these green spaces at risk of being lost to development and gentrification. Urban community gardens might farm on condemned property owned by developers and not have legal ownership themselves. In addition to the dangers of development, the soil in urban spaces may be contaminated with toxic heavy metals that impair human health. [...]

Read full blog post...