Domestic urban open spaces

Urban Farm DB summary

A book chapter on domestic urban open spaces—those physically closest to home—covering spaces integral to housing areas, private gardens, community gardens, and allotments. Community gardens are physically shared but their use is not necessarily a shared experience; they nonetheless offer opportunities for small groups to gather. Allotments are framed as an extension of, or replacement for, a private garden, where individuals or families grow vegetables, fruit, and flowers; despite physical distance from home, they carry a practical and emotional tie to it, and children can learn cultivation there much as they would in a private garden. The author argues that, despite the shared nature of community gardens and the physical separation of allotments from the home, both count as domestic urban open spaces because their predominant use is domestic in scale, while acknowledging they also verge toward a neighborhood-group character—with allotments having potential to develop into an alternative neighborhood community, alliances, and rivalries included. The chapter is a conceptual discussion without empirical data.