Research & reports

Fabio Amato, Lucia Simonetti · Journal of urban regeneration and renewal · Italy (Naples)

This paper focuses on the social urban garden in the Ponticelli neighborhood on the eastern outskirts of Naples, Italy, an area facing significant social and cultural problems including high unemployment and crime rates. The urban garden demonstrates how social cohesion can be built through urban agriculture and contribute to sustainability. However, the initiative risks remaining isolated and providing limited benefit to regional environmental sustainability efforts if not framed within an overall metropolitan strategy.

Arthur Feinberg, Elena Hooijschuur, Nicole Rogge, Amineh Ghorbani, Paulien Herder · Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation · Europe

This paper presents an agent-based model to explore conditions for sustained participation in urban community gardening projects in Europe, validated with data from Germany and the Netherlands. The study found that not all of Ostrom's Design Principles for collective action lead to higher participation; instead, participation depends on specific combinations of these principles. It also highlights that sanctioning mechanisms are not always beneficial and can be counter-productive in certain contexts for volunteer participation.

Sabina Rossini Oliva, Rafael López Núñez · Agronomy · Spain

This study investigated potential toxic element contamination in food and soils from urban and rural gardens in Seville, Spain, including urban gardens in a mining area. Soils from mining gardens were the most contaminated. While arsenic, cadmium, and lead concentrations in studied vegetables did not exceed legal maximum levels, high levels of barium (up to 42 mg kg−1) and zinc (up to 123 mg kg−1) were found in leafy green vegetables like chard and lettuce, indicating a need for further study on associated human health risks.

Marta Crispo, Miriam C. Dobson, Roscoe S. Blevins, William Meredith, Janice A. Lake, Jill L. Edmondson · Environmental Pollution · United Kingdom

Heavy metal (HM) and metalloid concentrations were assessed in 200 urban horticultural soils across ten UK cities. HM were found to be widespread, with most concentrations below UK soil screening values (C4SLs). However, 83% of lead (Pb) concentrations exceeded C4SLs, which is a significant concern. Bioavailable HM concentrations represented a small fraction (0.01–1.8%) of total concentrations, and black carbon (BC) and organic carbon (OC) were suggested to contribute to HM immobilization.

Iwona Makuch-Pietraś, A. Wójcikowska-Kapusta · Land · Poland

This research investigated the distribution, bioavailability, and total forms of zinc (Zn) in soils from domestic and family allotment gardens across six cities in south-eastern Poland. It found that horticultural treatments had a greater impact on sandy soils, and higher Zn contents were present in humus horizons. High values of concentration and Igeo indices indicated significant Zn pollution in these soils, with bioavailable zinc forms being notably high.

Magdalena Szczepańska, Ewa Kacprzak, Barbara Maćkiewicz, Lidia Poniży · Moravian Geographical Reports · Germany; Poland

A comparative study analyzed the use and development of allotment gardens (AGs) in Westphalia and Lippe (Germany) and Wielkopolska (Poland). AGs in Westphalia and Lippe are accessible and harmoniously integrated into the landscape, while AGs in Wielkopolska are less accessible, prioritize internal users, and do not always blend with their surroundings. The considerable freedom enjoyed by Polish plot-holders leads to a gradual marginalization of edible-plant growing.

Cecilia Herbón, María Teresa Barral, Remigio Paradelo · Applied Sciences · Spain (Santiago de Compostela)

The concentrations of trace elements Cu, Pb, Zn, Ni, Cr, and As were investigated in 55 urban soils in Santiago de Compostela, northwestern Spain. While most soils showed higher trace element concentrations than regional backgrounds, they were not classified as contaminated according to Spanish regulations. However, geoaccumulation index values indicated low to moderate pollution levels in most soils, with Cu, Pb, and Zn highest in city center green areas, and Cr and Ni linked to parent material lithology.

Damian Maye, Paul Swagemakers, J.S.C. Wiskerke, Heidrun Moschitz, James Kirwan, Ingrid Jahrl · European Urban and Regional Studies · Europe

This study utilized the 'sustainable innovation journeys' concept to trace urban food initiatives in Rotterdam (Netherlands), Vigo (Spain), and Zurich (Switzerland) over a six-year period from 2013 to 2018. While micro-level innovation practices can induce sustainability shifts, particularly when aligned with policy interests, the study also observed potentially negative impacts due to a lack of alignment at the initiative or city-region levels.

Sam Ramsden · Local Environment · United Kingdom (England)

This article analyzes a charity-led community gardening project in a disadvantaged northern English community, which operated for three years with external funding. While it successfully engaged marginalized people, leading to increased skills, confidence, reduced isolation, and improved wellbeing, the project faced significant challenges requiring professional management. Crucially, after the funding ended, the community garden's future was fragile, and the long-term sustainability of outcomes for marginalized participants was vulnerable due to economic viability issues.

Viktoria Shchurova · Current problems of architecture and urban planning · Ukraine (Kiev)

This article highlights the problems of the negative impact of the agricultural sector integrated into the central and middle zones of large cities. A critical view was formulated on the practical implementation of scientific and legislative documents, using the example of the city of Kiev, and strategies for reorganization, restrictions, or a complete ban on estate development in urban environments were analyzed. Specific plots of estate development in Kiev were identified as requiring reconstruction or complete renovation in accordance with the city's strategic development concept.

Susana Toboso‐Chavero, Cristina Madrid‐López, Xavier Gabarrell, Gara Villalba · Environmental Research Communications · Spain (Barcelona)

Implementation strategies for food-energy-water production systems on urban rooftops were evaluated in a typical housing estate in the Metropolitan Area of Barcelona, comprising 201 buildings and 13,466 inhabitants. Residents tended to choose strategies providing energy and water over the food production potential of rooftops. However, environmental assessment indicated that vegetable production alternatives were the least impactful, meeting 42-56% of residents' fresh produce demand and reducing environmental impacts by 24-37 kg CO2 eq m-2 per rooftop per year. This suggests residents were primarily concerned with energy expenses rather than food insecurity or social cohesion.

Paul D. Jensen, Caroline Orfila · Food Security · United Kingdom

This case study used publicly available data to spatially analyze the urban food system of Leeds, UK, assessing its food security and resilience. The study found that while Leeds has a significant food production and provision system, it is not food secure in terms of providing sufficient energy or macronutrients, nor does it function equitably for all residents. Improving the system, including through urban farming, would require high investment, multi-sector cooperation, and strong governance.

Elisabeth Ziss, Wolfgang Friesl‐Hanl, Sophia Götzinger, Christoph Noller, Markus Puschenreiter, Andrea Watzinger, Rebecca Hood‐Nowotny · Sustainability · Europe

In the "Heavy Metal City-Zen" citizen science project, community members in urban gardens in Vienna, Austria collaborated on collecting soil and plant samples to assess heavy metal contamination risk. Trace metal concentrations were generally below guideline thresholds, but at a few garden sites soil concentrations of lead, cadmium and zinc exceeded Austrian recommended limits, and at two sites plant trace metal concentrations exceeded European food standard limits; the project proposes expanding the citizen-led sampling to all of Vienna so new gardens can assess local soil risk before planting.

Perla Zambrano-Prado, Francesco Orsini, Joan Rieradevall, Alejandro Josa, Xavier Gabarrell · Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems · Europe

A study developing a framework and overview of key factors, policies, and barriers associated with rooftop urban agriculture (RUA) integration, based on stakeholder perspectives in four European cities—Barcelona, Berlin, Bologna, and Paris—via a two-phase workshop and stakeholder survey. While education, environmental, research, technological innovation, food production, and social factors were found to play an important role in implementing RUA, the cost of water and pollution emerged as major contextual factors constraining it. Policies related to food trade and urban planning were the most limiting to RUA development, and major architectural and technical barriers were identified around building height limits, historical buildings, lack of specific building codes, and roof accessibility, with high infrastructure costs and policies prohibiting RUA product sales acting as economic constraints. The cities differed significantly in the perceived effect of urban policy on RUA diffusion and the perceived relevance of economic and pollution factors, and the study concludes that wider dissemination of RUA information and new or revised regulations and building codes are needed.

Ágnes Gagyi, Csaba Jelinek, Zsuzsanna Pósfai, András Vígvári · · Europe

This chapter examines the 2000s housing financialization wave in Hungary, analysing financial over-inclusion and exclusion -- alternating dynamics of reaping gains and externalizing costs. It shows that "intermediate" rural-urban transitional zones are prime areas for high-risk mortgage lending while also containing spaces excluded from institutionalized housing finance, using as its case study an allotment garden where households combine formal jobs and mortgage repayment with informal dwelling to reduce housing costs, arguing that such informal reproductive solutions function as a resource for capital accumulation through inclusion and exclusion.

Elia Apostolopoulou · · Europe (Greece)

Focusing on the two largest Greek cities, Athens and Thessaloniki, this study examines why urban community gardening surged after the 2008 financial crash, drawing on urban political ecology, radical social and urban geography, and qualitative social research. Greece is treated as a distinctive case: it saw this post-2008 increase in community gardening without having a prior long history of the practice, unlike parts of the Global South. The author concludes that the creation of community gardens is tied to rising inequality in European cities in the aftermath of the 2008 crisis, functioning both as an act of disobedience against the grabbing of public land and as a demand for reclaiming the urban commons.

Paola Branduini, Elena Colli · Landscape Research · Italy

A qualitative sociological analysis examined a policy tool used by public landowners in peri-urban Milan, Italy, who introduced new lease agreements transferring the maintenance costs of built rural heritage to tenants, aiming to avoid degradation and add value to unused buildings. Analyzing the tool through the lens of social justice and its impact on quality of life, the study found that the same policy tool produces very different outcomes for landscape preservation and quality of life depending on the implementation strategy used, and on the elements of social justice considered along with contextual and individual characteristics.

Yuliia V. Medvedeva, Анатолій Кучер, Joanna Lipsa, Maria Hełdak · International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health · Europe

A study assessed the safety of apples sampled across different functional zones of Kharkiv, Ukraine — from industrial areas to school gardens — for consumption. Heavy metal levels exceeded maximum allowable limits in apple samples from all sampling sites, with lead 11.47 to 38.86 times and cadmium 1.76 to 5.68 times the FAO/EU norms; the most contaminated samples came from residential areas, partly due to significant land pollution from various waste types. Hazard index (HI) values varied by age group: 24.37-70.11 for children aged 1-6, 10.28-29.59 for children aged 7-16, and 0.88-2.53 for adults aged 18-65. Non-carcinogenic risks were linked to disorders of the immune, blood, urinary, and nervous systems and to liver and kidney function, and the total carcinogenic risk from eating the apples exceeded the permissible level.

Panagiota Kotsila, Isabelle Anguelovski, Francesc Baró, Johannes Langemeyer, Filka Sekulova, James J. Connolly · Environment and Planning E Nature and Space · Spain (Barcelona)

This paper analyzes nature-based solutions (NBS) as discursive tools that create an inviting space for nature's neoliberalization processes, examining two city-initiated projects in Barcelona, Spain: the Passeig de Sant Joan green corridor and the Espai Germanetes community garden. The study found that urban nature can serve elite economic players at the expense of widespread socio-ecological benefits. It also noted that outcomes regarding neoliberalism and its contestation were very distinct between the two projects due to different forms of governance.

Dávid Korányi, Róbert Gallé, Bettina Donkó, Dan Chamberlain, Péter Batáry · Urban Ecosystems · Germany (Göttingen)

This study in Göttingen, Germany, investigated the effects of green space (GS) types and surrounding urbanization on bird communities. Bird observations were conducted using the point-count method in allotments and parks, with urbanization levels measured by the percentage of impervious surfaces. Increasing levels of urbanization around green spaces had no effect on bird species richness, functional traits, or community composition.

Paola Clerino, Agnès Fargue‐Lelièvre · Sustainability · France

This study used a participatory approach with French urban agriculture stakeholders to identify sustainability objectives and 21 criteria for professional intra-urban farms. Six objectives were established, and agro-environmental and socio-territorial criteria were deemed more important than economic ones, with food production not being mentioned. A critical finding was that decision-makers focused more on projects' external sustainability and urban farmers' agricultural background, suggesting a reliance on farmers for internal sustainability rather than direct assessment.

Mosen Farhangi, Margherita Turvani, Arnold van der Valk, G.J. Carsjens · Sustainability · Netherlands (Amsterdam)

An ethnographic study in Amsterdam, Netherlands, analyzed barriers to the integration of high-tech urban agriculture (HTUA) into urban planning processes. The research revealed a lacking connection between planning actors and HTUA technology developers.

Sara Giovansana, Giacomo Zanolin · Geography Notebooks · Germany (Berlin)

This study examines urban creativity in Berlin, focusing on urban gardens at Tempelhofer Feld and Prinzessinnengärten. Based on field research, it reflects on the potential of creative class initiatives in relation to gentrification. The work aims to outline the Berlin green experience as a sign of urban change.

Ulrich Häpke · sub\urban zeitschrift für kritische stadtforschung · Germany (Ruhrgebiet)

While statistical data demonstrates the significance of urban agriculture in German cities and metropolitan areas, urban agriculture faces the problem of constant land loss despite its proximity to consumers. The example of the Ruhrgebiet highlights challenges such as land loss and high proportions of leased land, indicating governance issues faced by urban agriculture.

Carrie Ann Benjamin · Sociální studia / Social Studies · France (Paris)

This study examines community gardening and participatory urbanism in Paris, focusing on the Goutte Verte, a temporary nomadic community garden. The continued existence of the Goutte Verte is in opposition to the city's much-needed housing, with gardeners caught between a desire for green space and a demand for comfortable housing. Community gardens are shown to act as a material alternative to urban planning and governance that often fail to account for a "place to breathe" in the city.