Urban Farm DB
Research catalogue
Database research record2014·Switzerland (Geneva)

Community Gardens Versus Family Gardens? Urban Reform and Controversies Around the Beautiful Garden and its Legitimate

Arnaud Frauenfelder, Christophe Delay, Laure Scalambrin

Espaces et sociétés

Urban Farm DB summary

This article examines a contemporary urban reform in Geneva concerning family gardens, whose status is now in competition with new forms of community gardens. While the reform is presented as necessary, spokespersons for family allotment associations welcome it with some reservation. Social actors' positions for or against the reform implicitly refer to different socially situated modes of gardening and lifestyles, revealing that "urban agriculture" masks heterogeneous social meanings behind a visible consensus.