74 results
DEBerlin, Germany
A mobile community garden reviving a vacant lot in Berlin-Kreuzberg. Its DIY container growing and composting made it a flagship example of reusing idle urban land through citizen participation.
prinzessinnengarten.net+2
JPTokyo, Japan
A project turning a 1,500㎡ plot of national land in Harajuku into a citizen-built organic community garden for under a year (opened April 2025) — a flagship case of interim use before redevelopment.
project.nikkeibp.co.jp+1
JPOsaka, Japan
A flagship case of turning a vacant lot in Suminoe, Osaka into a community farm as interim pre-development use (opened 2012), linking a landowner's idle property to creative placemaking.
greenz.jp+4
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JPTokyo, Japan
A temple parking lot in Sumida, Tokyo turned into a community farm by citizens through the priest's free loan (completed 2020) — a pattern of interim citizen greening of idle temple land.
note.com+1
JPKawasaki, Japan
A Kawasaki planned-road site (~640㎡) used by the community as interim greenery/growing space until the road project advances — a pattern of citizens temporarily using a government project site.
mlit.go.jp+2
JPYokohama, Japan
An under-used Yokohama city soil-storage site turned into an interim community garden by a local group — a pattern of citizens temporarily using government under-used land.
mlit.go.jp+2
JPRikuzentakata, Japan
Gardens opened near temporary housing in Rikuzentakata after the 2011 disaster, with a prefectural hospital borrowing idle land free (since 2012) — using interim disaster-area land for elderly health and interaction.
reconstruction.go.jp+1
JPIshinomaki, Japan
In tsunami-hit Ogatsu (Ishinomaki), citizens turned disaster- and relocation-vacated land into a flower garden (opened 2012, relocated/reopened 2018) — a model of interim land use and community recovery.
gardenstory.jp+1
GBGlasgow, United Kingdom
A Glasgow program (since 2011) putting stalled development sites to interim use as citizen gardens, with the city enabling temporary use via short-term leases and grants — a leading overseas example.
glasgow.gov.uk
ATVienna, Austria
A Vienna program (since 2015) that funds citizens to temporarily turn public space into gardens, growing spaces and parklets — an overseas model of government funding citizen interim use.
planetizen.com
FRParis, France
Paris's 2015 citizen greening permit and Parisculteurs calls open public space and rooftops to citizen/operator urban farming via temporary occupation permits — a leading institution-based interim-use example.
parisculteurs.paris
USDetroit, United States
In Detroit, the land bank cheaply leased 35 acres of vacant city land for urban farming that also supports people in recovery (since 2015) — a pattern of interim leasing of vacant land with a buy option.
crainsdetroit.com
NLRotterdam, Netherlands
A Rotterdam rail-yard site provided by the city as interim use before redevelopment and turned into a city farm (2012–2018) — a leading overseas 'meanwhile farm'.
urbangreenbluegrids.com
RUSaint Petersburg, Russia
A resident-led urban gardening community on the Karpovka River embankment on St Petersburg's Apothecary Island. It links the island's 18th-century history of medicinal-herb gardens with contemporary urban gardening practice.
city-farmer.ru+1
PELima, Peru
An urban agriculture project running since 2004 in Villa María del Triunfo, southern Lima, using vacant land under high-voltage power lines for women-led ecological gardens that build food security and community resilience.
corresponsables.com+1
CAVancouver, Canada
A social enterprise that transforms vacant urban lots into portable container farms, providing 'good food and good jobs' to socially marginalised residents. It was founded in 2008 by Michael Ableman and Seann Dory.
solefoodfarms.com+2
CAHalifax, Canada
A community garden and productive green space that began in 2012 as interim use of downtown Halifax hospital land. With around 240 plots, it is a place where residents grow food and connect.
commonrootsurbanfarm.ca+1
ZASoweto, South Africa
A food garden started around 2021 by youth in Orlando West, Soweto. They transformed a dumping site into a plot growing cabbage and spinach to support the area's elderly residents.
foodformzansi.co.za+1
GHAccra, Ghana
Widespread urban and peri-urban vegetable farming in Ghana's capital, Accra. Farmers within the city produce about 90% of the vegetables consumed there, using vacant land and water-channel margins to feed the city.
acsess.onlinelibrary.wiley.com+1
IDJakarta, Indonesia
Originated as 'Jakarta Berkebun' from an October 2010 Twitter call by architect Ridwan Kamil and collaborators. The first planting on 20 February 2011 drew about 150 people, and the movement spread to 14 cities within six months, becoming a national urban-farming community network.
id.wikipedia.org+1
JPOsaka, Japan
The second Kitakagaya Minna no Uen site (2013), turning a former bathhouse and cultural housing of about 500 sqm into a larger community farm with ~33 plots and a kitchen studio.
minnanouen.jp+3
JPNeyagawa, Osaka, Japan
A roughly 300 sqm community farm on a former residence in Neyagawa, Osaka, with 30 individual 6 sqm plots and a kitchen salon in a renovated old house.
minnanouen.jp+2
JPKadoma, Osaka, Japan
A small community farm in a residential area facing Kadoma Shrine in Kadoma, Osaka, with toilets, a tool shed, and a shared herb garden free to harvest.
minnanouen.jp+1
JPKobe, Hyogo, Japan
A social-experiment site (opened 2022) on about 1,540 sqm of idle UR land in Minatogawa, Hyogo-ku, Kobe, regenerated as a rental farm plus open park space, with about one third as farm and the rest as park.
minnanouen.jp+4
JPKobe, Hyogo, Japan
A co-creation farm on leased Kobe city land with a view of the Akashi-Kaikyo Bridge in Ougiden, Tarumi-ku, Kobe. Themed on 'play', it runs on three pillars—an organic rental farm, hands-on permaculture workshops, and a shared farming place—emphasizing organic-matter cycling and composting, jointly operated by Minna no Uen, Sorabatake and Hoshi no Aima.
minnanouen.jp+1
JPOsaka, Japan
A community farm in a residential neighborhood of Uesumiyoshi, Sumiyoshi-ku, Osaka, within walking distance of Sumiyoshi Taisha. It features a renovated row house, a well, and raised large-frame plots for comfortable cultivation.
minnanouen.jp+1
JPKobe, Japan
A community garden that revived a vacant lot along the passageway of Kobe's roughly century-old Nada Central Market using handmade planters and lighting, turning land left derelict for over 20 years into organic rental plots and a lively market space.
ichiba-kobe.gr.jp+3
TWTaipei, Taiwan
Taipei's citywide urban-farming policy launched in 2015 under Mayor Ko Wen-je. Through four garden types-community, school, rooftop and allotment-it converts scattered vacant spaces across the city into edible green infrastructure.
doed.gov.taipei+2
TWTaipei, Taiwan
In Nangang's Jiuzhuang, residents transformed a neglected, dumping-prone plaza into a community garden. It is the subject of an academic case study (Sustainability journal) on how community gardens support urban health and well-being.
mdpi.com
MYKuala Lumpur, Malaysia
An approximately 8-acre urban farm regenerating neglected land in central Kuala Lumpur. Addressing the climate crisis, lack of open space and food insecurity, its harvest is donated to soup kitchens and the underprivileged. In 2022 DBKL recognised it as a model community garden under LA21KL.
kebunkebunbangsar.org+2
THChiang Mai, Thailand
During COVID-19, a 'Promoter' group led by local architecture firm Jaibaan Studio worked with residents and civic groups to turn state-owned idle land into an inclusive public space and food-producing site, aiming to improve food security, nutrition and self-sufficiency for vulnerable residents.
link.springer.com+2
NLAmsterdam, Netherlands
An urban-farming project in Amsterdam-Noord. Built around an organic self-harvest garden, it links farming, food, welfare and enterprise, with local residents involved in running it.
iamsterdam.com+1
ITRome, Italy
A pioneering platform that maps and links Rome's shared community gardens; since its launch, the number of such gardens in the city has grown from 40 to more than 200.
cooperativecity.org+1
BEWatermael-Boitsfort, Brussels, Belgium
An urban, participatory and ecologically-minded farm in Brussels' Watermael-Boitsfort district, where citizens and professionals farm together, using food to build local connection and protect the environment.
chantdescailles.be+2
GRThessaloniki, Greece
A self-managed peri-urban cultivation project begun by citizens reclaiming an abandoned former military camp in post-crisis Thessaloniki. Regarded as one of Greece's most active citizen-led urban-farming initiatives, it demonstrates community agency against the privatisation of land.
agri-madre.net+1
FRGennevilliers, France
The flagship example of the R-Urban strategy, turning vacant suburban land near Paris into citizen-run agro-cultural hubs. AgroCité, combining urban agriculture, recycling and low-energy building, was born in Colombes, dismantled in 2017 to make way for a car park, and rebuilt in Gennevilliers after a residents' campaign. It is internationally known as a model of the urban commons.
urbantactics.org+2
DKCopenhagen, Denmark
A vacant plot in Copenhagen's former industrial district of Refshaleøen transformed into one of Scandinavia's largest urban farms. Integrating fields, bees and chickens with a restaurant, it models regenerative agriculture and food experiences in the city, carrying forward the ØsterGro legacy of connecting people and nature through farming and food.
oenshave.dk+2
IEDublin, Ireland
A collective garden in inner-city Dublin bearing the name of the old 'Mud Island' area mentioned in James Joyce's Ulysses. Residents transformed a derelict site that had cost the city thousands to clear each year into a green community hub, notable for fully collective cultivation with shared harvests. It has won multiple awards as a leading Dublin community garden.
mudisland.ie+1
HUBudapest, Hungary
A pioneering example of interim use of vacant infill plots in central Budapest. Despite having to relocate four times as development advanced, the garden has kept going and now refreshes the 8th district from its current site on Magdolna Street. It is emblematic of Hungary's urban community-garden movement.
kozossegikertek.hu+2
TZDar es Salaam, Tanzania
In Dar es Salaam, Tanzania's largest city, vegetable growing on open urban land is a visible part of the cityscape. Since the Sustainable Cities Programme of the 1990s, integrating agriculture into city planning has been debated, and the practice has drawn international research attention for both its insecure tenure and its importance to livelihoods.
researchgate.net+2
KENairobi, ケニア
A community-driven garden-in-a-sack program initiated in response to post-election violence and food insecurity in 2008. Expanded across slum areas of Nairobi (Mathare, Kiambiu, Mukuru, Kibera) directly benefiting 22,000 households and over 110,000 people.
afas.africa
NGLagos, Nigeria
Lagos State government initiative encouraging urban farming to increase local food production from 20-24% to 40-50% by 2025. Citizens are adopting household gardening to address food security, reduce market dependence, and lower costs.
climateaction.africa+1
BRSão Paulo, Brazil
Urban horticulturists network promoting food autonomy and agroecology. São Paulo's 2020 survey identified 735 agricultural units, 104 urban gardens, and 170 institutional gardens. Gardens on public and private land strengthen community participation and land stewardship.
news.mongabay.com+1
THBangkok / Jakarta, Thailand & Indonesia
Comparative study of sustainable urban farming practices in Thailand and Indonesia. Community-driven agriculture addressing loss of agricultural land due to rapid urbanization. Both countries' municipalities providing space, funding, and awareness programs.
journal-iasssf.com+1
ZACape Town, South Africa
Cape Town city government conducted multi-criteria decision analysis for urban agriculture site suitability. Implemented citizen-led agriculture projects at identified sites, integrating vacant land utilization with food security.
tandfonline.com
ZAJohannesburg, South Africa
Small-scale farmers in Johannesburg practice urban agriculture through direct-to-community short food value chains. Reduces middlemen, improving farmer incomes while enhancing community food access. Represents an 'invisible' but significant local food economy.
link.springer.com+1
KENairobi, Kenya
Sack gardening that spread in Nairobi's Kibera slum after the 2008 post-election violence, providing food security and livelihoods where there is no land
fao.org+4
KENairobi, Kenya
Sack farming method in Kibera: filling sacks with soil and organic waste, then vertically stacking them on rooftops, balconies, and fences to grow leafy vegetables. Over 1,000 residents have adopted this approach with NGO and government support, serving as a grassroots food security solution.
frontiersin.org+1
KENairobi, Kenya
Nairobi County pilots rooftop gardens on public buildings. NGOs and youth groups experiment with greenhouse farming in peri-urban zones. Primary focus in Njiru, Kasarani, and Dagoretti sub-counties.
static.tu.berlin+2
NGLagos, Nigeria
Community gardens in Yaba district of Lagos respond to food inflation and supply disruptions. Residents manage shared farming spaces and experiment with innovative methods including hydroponics, aquaponics, and container gardening to address food insecurity and economic hardship.
guardian.ng
THBangkok, タイ
Community garden project launched in Bangkok. By 2022, 165 farms established across Bangkok. Expanded nationally through 'Thai City Farm' initiative to five additional cities. Integrates food production, livelihoods, and social connection.
una.city+1
PLWarsaw, Poland
Warsaw-based community farm cooperative offering food education, eco-workshops and skill training for underprivileged communities. Joined AMPLE Warsaw program in 2025.
botany.one+1
GRThessaloniki, Greece
PER.KA (peri-urban cultivators), a self-managed urban farming collective born in 2011 in Thessaloniki against the backdrop of Greece's economic crisis. Citizens occupied an abandoned ex-military camp and cultivate organically across 7 gardens and over 130 plots, a leading Greek case of urban commons.
journals.sagepub.com+1
FIHelsinki, Finland
Dodo's urban-farming centre on a former railway turntable in Helsinki's Pasila yard — an open hub with a greenhouse, café and gardens that has helped lead Finland's citizen-driven urban gardening movement.
kaantopoyta.fi+2
CZPrague, Czechia
A Prague social enterprise turning unused urban land into community gardens and composting hubs, spreading composting and gardening among citizens, businesses and government while offering work and inclusion to people with mental illness.
inherit.eu+2
IEDublin, Ireland
A citizen-led community garden created by residents in 2005 on a corner plot in Stoneybatter, Dublin 7. Doubling as a composting demonstration site, it has won several Dublin City Council awards for waste management and environmental design.
desireland.ie+1
HUBudapest, Hungary
A flagship model garden of Budapest's community-garden movement led by the Contemporary Architecture Centre (KÉK). An empty building site in District 8 was divided into 95 plots tended together by citizens of all ages. Closed in 2018 when construction began, it helped spread Hungary's community-gardening movement.
una.city+1
SEStockholm, Sweden
A mobile community garden on a disused Stockholm railway track, started in 2012 and inspired by Berlin's Prinzessinnengärten and New York's High Line, where citizens farm collectively and create a hub for food and culture.
axfoundation.se+2
LBAkkar / Tripoli / Bekaa, Lebanon
An FAO project run from 15 September 2015 to 15 June 2016 under the constraint that the Lebanese government does not permit Syrian refugees to cultivate land. It deployed micro-gardens on the walls of dwellings for landless vulnerable households, with the stated objective of promoting diversified, quality food. The 170 direct beneficiaries across Akkar, Tripoli and the Bekaa comprised 76 vulnerable Lebanese and 94 displaced Syrians.
reliefweb.int+1
JPKobe (兵庫区・長田区), Japan
A come-empty-handed rental garden run at two sites in Kobe — Kanda-cho in Hyogo Ward and Komagabayashi-cho in Nagata Ward — by Akisuke Nagata, a group that turns vacant houses and lots into neighbourhood assets. Its distinguishing feature is that vegetable waste and prunings are recycled into compost with a local type-B employment support workshop rather than incinerated, with the goal of getting people to use fully matured "craft compost", made entirely from local plant material and inputs, as a matter of course.
compost.smartkobe-portal.com+4
JPNagasaki, Nagasaki, Japan
A civic project by Nagasaki Urban Landscape Institute / null turning vacant lots on Nagasaki’s sloping streets into allotment gardens. Since Base opened in 2020 it has grown to five sites by 2025, including Japan’s Kyushu first civic entrustment of idle national land (The View). It eases owners’ vacant-lot upkeep while drawing younger residents, schools and welfare partners into the hillside neighbourhood.
nagasaki-null.design+6
JPShimonoseki, Yamaguchi, Japan
ARCH turns national land on Shimonoseki’s sloping dense streets into a share farm—cutting state upkeep on hard-to-sell plots while creating food-education and exchange near the station. A regional spread of Sakanoen-style national-land interim gardening.
arch-shimonoseki.com+3
ESBarcelona, Spain
A squatted collective home and social centre with terraced vegetable gardens on the Collserola hillside beside Barcelona's Nou Barris district. The building is a 17th-century masia standing on a Roman site, later a nunnery and then a leper hospital, shuttered and abandoned in 1948. After roughly 53 years empty it was occupied by international activists in December 2001. In April 2002 police tried to remove eleven squatters; the residents locked themselves to precarious perches, seesaws and suspended frames outside the building for three days, and as public support grew a judge ordered the police to withdraw, ruling that human rights took precedence over property rights.
en.wikipedia.org
JPKobe (灘区), Japan
A smart rental farm on the HAT Kobe Nadanohama multi-storey car-park roof, turning municipal housing infrastructure into urban growing space.
city.kobe.lg.jp+2
JPKobe (垂水区), Japan
Residents jointly steward a former municipal housing site in Shioya, Tarumi—not private allotments but club-style growing of veg, herbs and grapes with shared harvests and picnics.
city.kobe.lg.jp
JPShinagawa, Tokyo, Japan
Opened April 2026 on a former condo lot in Togoshi, Shinagawa. About 330㎡ split into farm and plaza uses Plantio grow’s shared cultivation and IoT support as a neighbourhood courtyard. Membership filled quickly; the project is building shop-street ties and a local gathering place.
greenpark.grow-agritainment.com+3
JPNagoya, Aichi, Japan
Started April 2023 on vacant land at Nagoya’s Higashi Betsuin. Regenerative edible gardening aims to make Nagoya an edible city; about fifty people drop in between work and childcare, practising urban carbon sequestration.
greenjourney.net+2
JPJoto, Osaka, Japan
Citizen allotments opened in 2019 in Osaka’s Gamoyon (Gamo 4-chome) on lots cleared after typhoon-damaged vacant houses. Run by the Gamoyon revitalisation project, all 29 plots stay full as an everyday farming and neighbour hub.
city.osaka.lg.jp+3
BEWoluwe-Saint-Pierre, Brussels, Belgium
A Brussels example of "meanwhile" use: 2.5 hectares awaiting housing development are opened for a few years as a site for urban agriculture, biodiversity and community activity. Meadows, orchards, wetland, woodland and aromatic gardens on the site are used as they are, layering farming, nature observation and education on one plot.
citydev.brussels+1
LVRiga, Latvia
A citizens' initiative that in 2020 turned a privately owned vacant lot — left derelict after the demolition of a Soviet-era sports palace/ice arena — into a garden held under temporary use. It opened to the public in spring 2021 and combines 150 planting-box plots with wildflower meadow and picnic/rest zones. It doubles as a venue for cultural and educational events and draws over 4,000 visitors a summer.
commonities.org+2
SILjubljana (Resljeva cesta, Tabor), Slovenia
A landmark 'meanwhile use' project: from 2010 to 2022 an unbuilt, municipally owned construction site on Resljeva cesta in central Ljubljana served as a community garden. Some 40 plots on 650 m² supported not only growing but public talks, cultural events and ecological learning. It wound up in 2022 when the city began building non-profit housing on the site.
interlace-hub.com+2
SKBratislava (Rača, Krasňany), Slovakia
Opened on 22 May 2013, this was the first citizen-run community garden in Bratislava. What set it apart is where it is: not in the old town but inside Krasňany, a socialist-era housing estate, on an unused strip behind the local health centre. It showed that people living in prefab flats could have a plot of their own, and became the starting point for the many community gardens that have since spread across Bratislava's districts.
bratislavskykraj.sk+3
SKBratislava, Slovakia
Mobile community gardens on Bratislava's idle plots, started in 2013 by residents inspired by a community garden in Amsterdam. The first garden on Sasinkova Street ran 2013–2015 on a private plot leased for three years; in spring 2015 the group opened a garden on Pionierska Street on an abandoned vineyard in cooperation with the city (90 wooden boxes, 100–110 participants), and in spring 2016 a garden in a school courtyard on Karpatská Street (50 boxes, ten of them for the school).
spectator.sme.sk+1
JMKingston (Jones Town), Jamaica
A church-led urban farming project launched on 28 January 2010 in Jones Town, an inner-city area of Kingston. An abandoned, derelict housing-development lot was turned into cultivated ground, returning idle city land to green use, with the church taking on job creation in the neighbourhood as part of the work.
cityfarmer.info