Research & reports

Elena Domene Gómez, Francesc Coll, Marta Garcia-Sierra · Dialnet (Universidad de la Rioja) · Spain (Barcelona)

Informal vegetable gardens have proliferated in Barcelona's urban periphery since the 1980s, serving as leisure spaces and food sources, and are a relevant form of agriculture. However, these "unregulated" spaces are not considered in urban and peri-urban agriculture promotion policies. A GIS methodology mapped these gardens in the Barcelona metropolitan area for 2009 and 2015, showing an increase in occupied surface during the recent economic crisis. The study evaluates contradictions leading municipal managers to eliminate or regulate these informal spaces, attributing them partly to the subjectivity of the urban and peri-urban agriculture concept and its supposed multifunctionality.

Fabienne Charraire · · France (Paris)

Shared gardens are a form of small, collective gardens, often urban, inherited from workers' gardens. Their purpose extends beyond mere gardening, serving as places of social life, often with educational and festive aims, open to all. These gardens are typically managed by an association on temporarily or permanently occupied land.

Ana Espinosa Seguí, Barbara Maćkiewicz, Marit Rosol · ACME: An International Journal for Critical Geographies · Spain

This article, based on a study of allotment gardens in Alicante province, Spain, explains their specific histories which differ from North American and Northern European contexts. It shows how urban allotments provide insight into economic, land-use, and urban-rural changes during crises. Initially for leisure and greening, these projects shifted after the 2009 economic recession to target people at risk of poverty, focusing on productive, therapeutic, and educational functions, though land speculation remains a concern.

Kaduna‐Ève Demailly · Géographie et cultures · France

This article examines shared gardens in the Île-de-France region of France as territories of environmental transition. Based on a study of 48 shared gardens in the Parisian metropolitan area, the analysis of user and political actor discourses and practices highlights their role in improving living environments and raising awareness of environmentally friendly practices that promote urban biodiversity.

Isabel Miralles, Domenico Dentoni, Stefano Pascucci · Agriculture and Human Values · Spain (Valencia)

This study investigated the organization of sharing economy initiatives in agri-food systems by conducting a comparative case study across 18 alternative food networks (AFNs) in Valencia. It compared AFN organization in terms of leadership, bureaucracy, shared resources, and participants’ engagement, identifying five sharing economy models: consumer groups, commercial community gardens, and network-based, privately owned, and publicly owned self-consumption community gardens. These models displayed notable differences in their origins, participants’ goals, and constraints.

Lesley Acton · Archives The Journal of the British Records Association · United Kingdom

This paper documents how archives were used to write a history of the twentieth-century urban allotment movement in England. Beginning with a case study of allotments in Ilford (now London Borough of Redbridge), 100 years of council minutes were used as a foundation. A demographic profile of plot holders in Ilford/Redbridge showed that, contrary to established narratives, they were not necessarily from poor and working classes but reflected their communities.

Susan C. Haedicke · Renewable Agriculture and Food Systems · France (Paris)

Aroma-Home, an artist-initiated community garden in Villetaneuse, France, transformed a bleak construction site into an urban agricultural commons starting in 2013. Local inhabitants and an artist reclaimed public spaces, creating a community garden that wove together food-growing, storytelling, and place-making through cultural practices around growing, preparing, and sharing food among multi-ethnic participants.

Nerea Morán Alonso, Ícaro Obeso Muñiz, Agustín Hernández Aja, Felipe Fernández García · Moravian Geographical Reports · Spain

This paper analyzed the evolution of peri-urban agriculture in Spain's Madrid and Oviedo metropolitan areas to identify revitalization opportunities. Using aerial images and cartographic bases, the study found that peri-urban agriculture has suffered from urban occupation and internal changes in crops and agricultural uses, experiencing a process of decline. Innovative initiatives are explored as potential revitalization opportunities.

Claire Lp · · France

This abstract describes the initiation of writing for an "Atlas des communs" (Atlas of Commons) in the Brest region, starting on October 21, 2017, during the Brest en communs festival. It invites feedback for improvement.

Helle Schulz Bildsøe, Ulla Rahbek · The Journal of Commonwealth Literature · France (Paris)

This article analyzes Rana Dasgupta’s short story “The Changeling” from Tokyo Cancelled. It explores the juxtaposition of systemic and organic networks as a central trope, arguing that the story presents a symbolic transformation of Paris from a national capital to a global city, shifting from a national to a planetary perspective. The story features a systemic network of control in Montparnasse graveyard and an organic network out of control in a community garden, which converge into the metropolis, hinting at worldwide connectivity through local storytelling.

Jennifer Jackson · Renewable Agriculture and Food Systems · United Kingdom (Lincoln)

This qualitative case study examined Green Synergy's community garden initiatives in Lincoln's Abbey Ward, UK, using observation, interviews, a focus group, and a workshop. It explored the social element of community gardening in building connections between social and natural capital. The study found that collaborative creation of green spaces fosters bonding and bridging social capital within communities and challenges narratives of individual and community capacity.

Sertaç Güngör · Journal of Agricultural Faculty of Gaziosmanpasa University · Turkey (Konya)

This study investigated the current state of gardens in 7 nursery schools in Selçuklu district, Konya city, Turkey, regarding landscape design and space usage. The findings revealed that the nursery school gardens were not used effectively, lacked sufficient green space in their landscape design, and were not properly designed to contribute to children's mental and physical development.

Ana Cristina Torres, Sophie Nadot, Anne‐Caroline Prévot · Ecology and Society · France

This study used participant observation and semi-structured interviews to explore motivations, practices, and processes in French community gardens, relating them to environmental stewardship. It found that environmental, social, and self-motivations drive gardener participation, fulfilling needs through processes like nature contemplation, environmental education, and renewing social-ecological relationships. French community gardens provide new experiences of nature and foster environmental stewardship by cultivating relational values, offering opportunities for creative conservation.

Ju Eun Kim · International Journal of Urban Sciences · United Kingdom (London)

This empirical research evaluated the role of London's community gardens in promoting participants' environmentally friendly food consumption patterns, thereby lowering London's foodprint. An online survey was circulated to 95 community gardens in London, with 48 gardeners responding, complemented by semi-structured interviews. The study confirmed that the timespan of community garden participation is not an absolute indicator of low-carbon food consumption choices, while identifying experiential and social learning as key aspects promoting gardeners' behavioral change.

Delgado, Cecília · Portuguese National Funding Agency for Science, Research and Technology (RCAAP Project by FCT) · Europe

This study analyzed a set of gardens in Vienna and Lisbon, plus 29 relevant experiences in Portugal, to verify the argument that women are protagonists in urban agriculture. The results demonstrate a favorable evolution towards a greater presence of women in gardens, women's hegemony as process managers and facilitators, and their emergence in social entrepreneurship projects.

Matthew Reed, Daniel Keech · Renewable Agriculture and Food Systems · United Kingdom (Bristol)

This study investigated how urban food activists related to the media, represented themselves, and how others represented their agenda during 2015 when Bristol was the European Green Capital. The research found that mass media primarily focused on topics other than food, and urban food was not a salient issue in their coverage. The self-representation of urban food networks revealed a narrow focus of interest, which may have contributed to a lack of connection between potential allies within the city, indicating limited connections of urban food networks to circuits of power and influence.

Norbert Becker, Stefanie Schön, Alexandra‐Maria Klein, Ina Ferstl, Ali Kizgin, Egbert Tannich, Carola Kuhn, Björn Pluskota, Artur Jöst · Parasitology Research · Germany

The first mass development of Aedes albopictus, likely introduced by trucks from Italy, was confirmed in an allotment garden area in Freiburg, Southwest Germany, in 2015. Surveillance confirmed a high infestation, with the container index exceeding 30% in August 2015. Control measures, including citizen awareness, environmental management, and Bacillus thuringiensis israelensis (Bti) tablets, successfully reduced the Aedes albopictus population, with the number of gardens without containers increasing from 17% to 35% by September 2015.

Julia Dahlvik, Yvonne Franz, Myrte Hoekstra, Josef Kohlbacher · ISR-Forschungsberichte · Europe

A record of practitioner reflections from a final discussion event held in Vienna in May 2017 by the ICEC research project. It presents quotes from Nathalie Binder, co-initiator of the "Matznergarten" community garden in the 14th district, Florian Brand of the Urban Renewal Office for districts 7/8/16, and Markus Rumelhart, district mayor of the 6th district, on their neighbourhood-level practices and effects. The reflections describe the community garden as built around a "growing together" motto that fostered relationships among members and neighbours, the provision of "neutral ground" space as a key tool of the Urban Renewal Office's work, and local politicians' aim of helping resident initiatives become self-sustaining.

María Hernández Hernández · Dialnet (Universidad de la Rioja) · Spain

A book chapter on Spain examines the historical shift in city-countryside relations, analyzing the factors behind the paradigm change since the late 20th century and the strategies (agri-food policy, local development, governance, land stewardship) and tools (agrarian parks, social agriculture, urban gardens) used to sustain farming in peri-urban areas, based on a literature review of scientific publications, regulatory frameworks, and initiatives. It concludes that quality, authentic local farm production represents an opportunity for peri-urban territories and historic agricultural landscapes.

Barış Kara, KAHRAMAN, Delal, AYDOGAN, Gungor Yasin · DergiPark (Istanbul University) · Turkey

A 2017 paper documents the design process of a school garden in Yenipazar district, Aydın province, Turkey, created through collaboration between teachers and students. It argues that a school garden should be simply designed and meet users' needs, guiding children's play, fun, and learning while building creativity and teamwork, and that design should be a collective product of designers and users rather than the designer alone. It presents the full design process, including detailed design, perspective drawings, and an animated film.

Salvatore Pinna · Kobra (Universitätsbibliothek Kassel) · Spain

This study examines a municipal rural park in the Madrid region, Spain, established to promote local and seasonal produce, and analyzes its role in agricultural landscape enhancement using in-depth interviews and website analysis. Drawing on the European Landscape Convention's definition of landscape, it shows how spatial, ecological, and social outputs of farmer-led multifunctional and peri-urban agriculture interact with the park's management framework. The results are discussed in relation to Spanish environmental and landscape law, particularly regarding the connection between food, territory, and traditional landscape.

Maria Frangos, Thomas D. Garvey, Irena Knežević · The Design Journal · Europe

This case study used participatory mapping, group interviews and document analysis to examine two urban gardening projects in Europe, exploring how participants engage in place-making as part of a broader shift toward peer-to-peer, digitally mediated participatory spatial practices and the commons. It found that citizens play an important role in creating, designing and maintaining the commons, and shows how individuals and community groups working outside a professional urban-design context expand placemaking into a vehicle for social change.

David Arredondo Garrido · ZARCH · Spain

This study analyses initiatives developed over the past decade in the centres of four Spanish cities with significant historical heritage -- Seville, Barcelona, Madrid and Zaragoza -- as responses to the growing homogenisation of the urban landscape that leaves little room for uniqueness, unregulated activity or public participation. These projects use urban agriculture and gardening to escape prevailing banality and create spaces for culture, social relations and imagination, but the study notes that their management faces difficulties and their impact remains minor.

Esther Gramsbergen · Repository hosted by TU Delft Library (TU Delft) · Europe (Netherlands)

A historical study of the Plantage, created in the northeastern corner of Amsterdam in 1682, examining it as a public project rather than simply an early allotment garden complex. It focuses on the public function of the botanical garden that formed part of the site, the unusual location within the city walls, and the detailed design by municipal engineer Jacob Bosch. The study traces how the "Hortus Medicus," an educational garden for apprentice apothecaries, was transferred to the Plantage and transformed into the "Hortus Botanicus," a botanical garden open to the general public, showing that the city council invested not only in a knowledge institute for public health but also in a cultural institution for the "education and delight" of Amsterdam's citizens.

Brian J. Shaw · Cambridge University Press eBooks · Europe

An entry on ØsterGRO, a rooftop farm located in the center of Copenhagen that operates as a form of Community Supported Agriculture (CSA).