84 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
BRSão Paulo, Brazil
A Brazilian NGO founded in 2004 by Hans Dieter Temp, creating organic gardens on unused land in São Paulo's periphery to generate jobs, improve nutrition, and advance social inclusion.
cidadessemfome.org+1
USDetroit, United States
A Detroit non-profit supporting over 2,000 gardens, working toward a food-sovereign city where residents grow much of the produce they consume by activating vacant lots.
visitdetroit.com+1
JPKyoto, Japan
Founded in 2007 by Kazuma Nishitsuji, MyFarm rehabilitates abandoned farmland across Japan into accessible experience farms for city dwellers, under the philosophy of a 'grow-your-own, eat-your-own society'.
myfarm.co.jp+1
CUHavana, Cuba
Born of the food and fuel crisis after the Soviet collapse, Havana's organopónicos are organic urban gardens that residents started on vacant lots and old parking sites in the early 1990s, spreading from the grassroots and, with state support, growing to supply much of the city's fresh produce.
en.wikipedia.org+1
ESSeville, Spain
A permaculture garden on about 5,000 m2 of vacant land in Seville's historic centre, occupied by residents in 2004 for communal use. Grounded in recycling and self-management, it remains a rare green space and site of environmental education downtown.
una.city+1
USSan Diego, United States
The IRC turned a 2.3-acre vacant lot in San Diego's City Heights into an urban farm for refugees and immigrants. Opened in 2009, around 70 families grow foods from their homelands while putting down roots in a new country.
sandiego.gov+1
USChicago, United States
Growing Home runs USDA-certified organic urban farms on vacant Chicago lots and offers a 14-week paid job-training program to people with barriers to employment, using agriculture as a vehicle for personal and community renewal.
growinghomeinc.org+1
USBrooklyn, New York, United States
A fossil-fuel-free, bike-powered community-compost enterprise founded in Bushwick, Brooklyn, that collects and composts food scraps while creating good jobs for youth and green space, countering environmental racism and gentrification.
bkrot.org+2
JPKobe, Japan
The farmers market at the heart of EAT LOCAL KOBE, the local-food platform Kobe City launched in 2015. Held in the public space of Higashi Yuenchi park south of City Hall, it began as an experiment to build a small local food cycle that brings producers and eaters closer, and has since grown into a permanent FARMSTAND shop and the wider Gastropolis Kobe vision.
city.kobe.lg.jp+1
JPKobe, Japan
An allotment garden opened in August 2022 on temporarily used development land on Port Island (Phase 2). On a man-made island known for advanced medical facilities, it offers beginner plots, level-up plots and welfare plots where people can grow vegetables empty-handed, barbecue and join harvest events.
city.kobe.lg.jp+1
JPYokohama, Kanagawa, Japan
A flagship of UR's 'Future of Danchi' project at Yokodai Chuo Danchi in Isogo Ward, Yokohama. Directed by architect Kengo Kuma and creative director Kashiwa Sato, it renewed facades, plazas, small parks and the meeting hall, regenerating outdoor space and daily life through resident workshops (the Kamome Project), a community cafe and planting and markets.
ur-net.go.jp+2
JPSakai, Osaka, Japan
At the public-corporation rental complex Chayamadai Danchi in Senboku New Town, Sakai, Osaka, the Osaka Prefectural Housing Supply Corporation runs the 'Hibikiau Danchi Life' regeneration project. In an aging complex with rising vacancies, it revives residents' lives and community through a DIY workshop, library, deli, mobile vegetable sales and lemon cultivation in vacant spaces.
danchi-renovation.com+2
JPMunakata, Fukuoka, Japan
The 'Satozukuri 48' community-cocreation project regenerated the former Block 48 of Hinosato Danchi (1971, once Kyushu's largest) in Munakata, Fukuoka, into the mixed hub 'Hinosato 48' with a nursery, DIY workshop and an on-site brewery in 2021; the on-site 'Hinosato Farm' lets multiple generations interact through farming and food.
ur-net.go.jp+2
DEアンダーナッハ / Andernach, Germany
A unique German city-led project that replaced ornamental flowerbeds with edible crops in public space, free for citizens to harvest. Spanning ~8,000 sqm in the city center plus 13 ha in the suburbs, it is internationally known as multifunctional productive green infrastructure delivering food supply, biodiversity, social cohesion and education at once.
use.metropolis.org+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+1
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
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
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
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
USChicago, United States
A Chicago land trust (founded 1996) that secures citizens' otherwise-temporary community gardens permanently by taking title and leasing back at a nominal fee — the 'permanent-protection' end of interim use.
neighbor-space.org
TRIstanbul, Turkey
Historic market gardens (bostans) surviving along Istanbul's Theodosian Walls since Byzantine and Ottoman times. While preserving organic urban agriculture and heirloom seeds, gardeners, citizens and activists have joined forces to resist redevelopment plans. The Yedikule marul (lettuce) has become a symbol of their struggle.
anfenglish.com+4
ARRosario, Argentina
Rosario's municipal urban agriculture program, launched in 2002 in response to the economic crisis. A 2004 ordinance institutionalized the 'Parque Huerta' (garden park), turning vacant land into public spaces for agroecological food production.
agriurbanarosario.com.ar+2
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
CAToronto, Canada
An 8-acre urban farm in Toronto's vulnerable Jane-Finch neighbourhood dedicated to food justice, education and sustainability. It was founded in 2013 with Everdale Environmental Learning Centre and the TRCA as founding partners.
blackcreekfarm.ca+1
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
INKolkata, India
The world's largest sewage-fed wetland and a Ramsar site where Kolkata's peri-urban community produces food and treats sewage through collective practices. Spanning ~12,500 hectares, it performs the threefold functions of food production, sewage treatment and drainage.
indiawaterportal.org+2
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+1
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+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+2
JPOsaka, Japan
A Minna no Uen farm opened in July 2026 on a roughly 3,000 sqm former housing-complex site along the Yamato River in Higashisumiyoshi-ku, Osaka. Designed for beginners with paved paths so people can grow without stepping into the soil, limited to organic pesticide-free cultivation, and combining a community farm with a 'HIROBA' community space and an event area.
minnanouen.jp
JPToyonaka, Osaka, Japan
A Minna no Uen rental farm on vacant land in a quiet residential area of old townhouses in Shonai-sakaemachi, Toyonaka, Osaka. Known for its soft soil built up over half a year, plots start at 2 sqm and the site provides tools, rest facilities, water and parking.
minnanouen.jp
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
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+2
TWNew Taipei, Taiwan
New Taipei's citizen farms give urban dwellers a place to experience farming. Set up by subsidising farmers' associations in five districts-Yingge, Shulin, Xindian, Tucheng and Tamsui-they have been well received.
agriculture.ntpc.gov.tw+1
TWKaohsiung, Taiwan
Responding to an ageing society, the city's Social Affairs Bureau established this senior citizen farm in the Xincaoya settlement. Elders grow vegetables organically, reconnecting with nature to maintain body and mind and deepen social interaction-a welfare-oriented urban farm.
socbu.kcg.gov.tw+2
TWTainan, Taiwan
A food-and-farming education effort started by returning youth in Houbi, Tainan. They grow diverse rice and vegetables in an experimental field as teaching material and founded the Taiwan Pu-yu Cultural and Educational Development Association to support young people in toxin-free farming.
sstainan.com
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
JPSendai, Miyagi, Japan
The Sendai Furusato-no-Mori project is a collaborative effort to rebuild eastern coastal Sendai's seaside forest, lost to the tsunami, with citizens' own hands. After planting that began in 2011 it has raised some 27,000 seedlings, shifting since 2021 to tree-nurturing and coastal nature learning.
sendai-furumori.org+1
JPIwaki, Fukushima, Japan
The Fukushima Organic Cotton Project grows native brown cotton organically on abandoned farmland in Iwaki, hit by post-nuclear-accident reputational harm, as a reconstruction effort. Over 5,000 volunteers and companies have taken part, aiming to give farmers new income and revive the area.
fukushima.organic+1
JPMatsue, Shimane, Japan
A project in Matsue's Oba/Sorayama district where the NPO Machizukuri Network Shimane and Shimane Prefecture jointly regenerate degraded farmland. Residents grow 'edible' fruiting trees and vegetables together, cutting CO2 and renewing local interest in farming and food while the restored land is used as citizen farms.
pref.shimane.lg.jp
JPNagasaki, Nagasaki, Japan
A group of municipal citizens' farms run by Nagasaki City to reuse abandoned farmland and deepen urban residents' understanding of agriculture. At the Hirayama, Mie and Takashima farms and Kinkai-Akamizu Fureai Farm, residents experience planting and harvesting, opened since fiscal 2000 under a family-garden method.
city.nagasaki.lg.jp+1
JPKanazawa, Ishikawa, Japan
An NPO started by resident volunteers in Kanazawa's Shijima district that regenerates abandoned farmland and bamboo groves, opening 'Minna no Hatake' in March 2017. It fosters cross-generational exchange, a morning market, and bamboo-resource recycling.
minnanohatake.com+1
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
JPTokyo (Edogawa), Japan
In Tokyo's Edogawa Ward, said to be the birthplace of komatsuna greens, urban farmers grow the heritage crop on plots dotted through residential neighborhoods and deliver directly to 92 schools, passing local food culture and urban agriculture to children via synchronized school lunches and harvest events.
ja-tokyosmile.or.jp+1
KENairobi, Kenya
City Shamba is an NGO promoting urban agriculture and food security in Nairobi's informal settlements including Kibera. Recognized in 2025 for transformative impact on farming groups. Plans to establish 3 additional resource centers and mega aeroponic/aquaponic farms in Nairobi over the next 5 years.
cityshamba.org+1
CUHavana, Cuba
Popular gardens movement in Havana starting in 1991. Community groups and individuals cultivate state-owned land. Emerged as a grassroots food security response when Soviet Union collapse in 1989 led to oil shortage and economic crisis. Government provides support via composting facilities, veterinary clinics, and subsidized agricultural supplies. About 300 community organopónicos use 8% of Havana's land (35,000 acres), producing organic food that supplies each citizen with ~280g of fruits and vegetables daily.
unesco.org+2
USDetroit, United States
A $240,000 grant program launched by Eastern Market Partnership and City of Detroit Office of Sustainability in February 2026. Prioritizes Black- and Indigenous-led farms, youth-led projects, and initiatives in historically disinvested neighborhoods. Recipients (including Grow Moore Produce, Brightmoor Artisans Collectives, Chang Hill Tribe, and Leilu Gardens) advance food access, climate education, and sustainable agricultural practices through December 2026.
michiganmamanews.com+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
MXMexico City, Mexico
A citizen-run urban garden in Mexico City's Roma district that turned an earthquake-scarred vacant lot into a laboratory for permaculture and the solidarity economy. Styling itself a 'biosocial lab', it works as a community centre spanning farming, environment, culture and health.
huertoromaverde.org+2
MXMexico City, Mexico
A 1,650 m² urban farm on an earthquake-cleared site in Mexico City's Tlatelolco district. Growing by agroecological principles, with an edible forest and seed bank at its heart, it delivers food education as a model of agrarian urbanism.
cultivaciudad.org+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
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
CUHavana, Cuba
A flagship organoponico from Cuba's post-Soviet food-crisis urban farming drive; a large-scale organic urban farm in a Havana suburb
en.wikipedia.org+1
USSan Francisco, United States
A temporary-use urban farm that turned freeway ruins into a food forest.
sfexaminer.com+1
CASaskatoon, Canada
The first Saskatoon brownfield lot turned into a community garden, then ordered to vacate.
ctvnews.ca+1
USDetroit, Michigan, United States
A city-run urban gardening program launched by Detroit under Mayor Coleman Young in the 1975 recession, turning vacant lots into gardens to help residents grow food. When city funding dried up, the program was dissolved.
glass.hfcc.edu+1
USLos Angeles, United States
One of the largest urban farms in the US (~14 acres), active from the 1990s to 2006. A vacant lot seized for an incinerator that was never built became a self-organized garden where immigrant residents grew traditional crops as a hub of food and culture.
en.wikipedia.org+1
PTPorto, Portugal
After 2008 economic crisis, Porto residents cultivated empty land near social housing without ownership. Demonstrates grassroots food security and community resilience.
futurearchitectureplatform.org
BRSão Paulo, Brazil
São Paulo supports 2,600+ mapped agricultural sites, including 1,000+ school gardens. Provides bio-inputs, machinery, training, and investment support.
unep.org+1
BRCuritiba, Brazil
Curitiba's urban gardens program produces ~1,600 tons of fresh fruit and vegetables annually. Technology transfer through demonstration gardens and training hubs. Third urban farm demonstration plot opening by end of 2025.
unep.org
THChiang Mai, タイ
Initiated in 2020 during COVID-19 by Jaibaan Studio, a community architecture organization. Addresses food insecurity among urban poor communities by converting public land into community vegetable gardens.
icleiseas.org
ECQuito, Ecuador
Municipality-supported participatory urban agriculture with community-managed orchards, organic production, and food processing
quito.gob.ec
NLAlmere, Netherlands
Peri-urban agriculture in Almere integrating community and farmer practices with comprehensive land-use planning and social engagement
sciencedirect.com
DEBerlin, Germany
6,000 m² ecological and social garden on Moritzplatz, transformed from vacant land. Designed as an inclusion and community garden for the neighborhood, with growing, processing, and cooking workshops.
eea.europa.eu+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
CUHavana, Cuba
An organic urban farm in Havana started in 1997 by five cooperative members against the food crisis of the post-Soviet 'Special Period'. Around 150 members collectively manage about 11 ha, and it is regarded as one of Cuba's most successful examples of urban agriculture (organopónico).
en.wikipedia.org+1
MXMexico City, Mexico
Created in 2013 by the NGO Cultiva Ciudad as a citizen initiative on the ~1,650 sqm site of a demolished, earthquake-damaged housing tower, Huerto Tlatelolco is one of Mexico City's largest community urban gardens. It hosts 120+ plant varieties and runs a community composting program with 40 local families, functioning as a hub for agroecological education and citizen participation.
cultivaciudad.org+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
ESBarcelona, Spain
A self-managed community garden born from the 2011 15-M (Indignados) movement by reclaiming a vacant lot — seen as a symbol of resistance to speculative development and the 'right to the city'.
hortindignat2poblenou.wordpress.com+1
GBLondon, United Kingdom
Started in 1977 as Jubilee City Farm by a group of architects squatting at St Oswald's Place, in a Vauxhall neighbourhood cleared by demolitions between 1972 and 1976. Now in the London Borough of Lambeth, it keeps alpacas, sheep, goats, pigs, donkeys and ponies and works across education, youth work, animal care and horticulture.
en.wikipedia.org
GBLondon, United Kingdom
A 13-hectare (32-acre) urban farm and park in Cubitt Town on the Isle of Dogs, Tower Hamlets, east London. The site had been a dumping ground for dock excavation spoil since the 1860s; when the Port of London Authority moved to transfer it for housing in the early 1970s, the Association of Island Communities ran a successful campaign to keep it as public open space, and the farm was established in 1977.
en.wikipedia.org
GBLondon, United Kingdom
A 1.3-acre city farm in Tower Hamlets, east London, close to Brick Lane. It started in 1978 as an allotment site on the wasteland left by a former railway goods depot, later added animals to become a city farm, and achieved charity status in 1980.
en.wikipedia.org
GBLondon, United Kingdom
A city farm of about 4.2 acres in Stepney, east London, founded in 1979 by Lynne Bennett as 'Stepping Stones' on the wasteland left after the Stepney Congregational Church was destroyed by bombing in 1941. It combines livestock, a community garden, a farmers' market and traditional craft workshops.
en.wikipedia.org
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+1