Actually Existing Commons

Urban Farm DB summary

This chapter discusses the broad, self-generated relations between the institution of community gardens and opportunities both to engage in political practices and to take part in the process of producing space. The self-generative power of this assemblage is described as having a life of its own, continuously producing new participants and sustaining the institution over the long run. The development of political consciousness remakes participants as a different kind of urban resident; paraphrasing Gramsci, the author terms this process the production of "organic residents" — people who may not be defined as citadins but can nonetheless be seen as a step toward utopian urban political subjects. Multiple opportunities for political development are embedded across many levels of the production of space, with the actual space of the gardens serving as the blueprint for a political strategy, and the institution linking vision to space.