Research & reports

Özge Yalçıner Ercoşkun · · Turkey

Building on the observation that rapid urban transformation in Turkish cities has neglected and damaged local values in recent years, this paper examines traditional Turkish cities across different bio-regions under sustainable planning and design principles within an eco-cultural logic framework. Key themes are land use, accessibility, open and green space, production, water management, social cohesion, and traditional architecture, and the paper lists compact urban layout, mixed land use, pedestrian-prioritized street patterns, climate-friendly design, water and stormwater management, open-green space systems, and urban agriculture as sustainable urban planning and design principles.

Luca Salvati · · Europe

Land-use change in southern Europe was assessed through a case study of the Athens metropolitan region, Greece, analyzing the spatial distribution of built-up areas, cropland and forests together with demographic and socioeconomic indicators across alternating expansion waves over the past 50 years. Per-capita built-up area was higher during the "dispersed" urbanization wave than the "compact" one, but cropland was the land-use class most vulnerable to urbanization, with a high rate of conversion from forest to cropland — later abandoned and finally developed — observed since the early 1990s. This process was linked to land fragmentation and soil degradation driven by illegal housing and real estate speculation.

Elisabeth Meyer-Renschhausen · ˜L' œHomme · Europe

An essay arguing that, against the recent hype around the term "urban gardening," the term "urban agriculture" (Agrarkultur) better captures its significance for a subsistence economy. It frames community gardening as a women-led social movement that brings previously hidden housework into public view, tracing a history in which the 1806–1813 Stein-Hardenberg reforms suppressed peasants' rights to the commons, causing widows who lost their means of subsistence farming to move into cities; Max Weber's late-19th-century account of farmhands' wives running an autonomous subsistence economy; the 1919 Imperial Allotment Garden Regulation, which established a right to allotments for people in need; and the Second World War, when women were required to supply fresh vegetables from home gardens, allotments and "victory gardens." The essay also notes that today, urban gardening helps voiceless immigrants and refugees settle in unfamiliar surroundings.

Silke Ötsch · DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) · Europe

Working from the premise that the "static-hedonic" economic ideal type — historically cast in a negative light against Joseph Schumpeter's ideal of the entrepreneur — is being positively reframed within the degrowth-critical movement and in writing on urban gardening, an essay examines the conceptions of life and economic activity held by people involved in the degrowth-oriented Transition movement, based on qualitative, problem-centered interviews. It poses the question of whether the figure of the gardener (Gärtner/Gärtnerin) embodies a new guiding model (Leitbild) of economic activity that could replace the entrepreneur.

Efrat Eizenberg, Simone Tappert, Nicola Thomas, Andis Zīlāns, Kristine Abolina, Theodosia Anthopoulou, Jevgenijs Duboks · · Europe

A book chapter examines the changes and challenges facing allotment gardens in European cities from the perspective of urban political economy, reading these new urban configurations within the macro-framework of capitalism and governability. It traces past and current processes of urban change through the economic, political and spatial lens of the "entrepreneurial city," discusses the impact of urban restructuring on allotment gardens' structure, operation and meaning, and states that political and spatial restructuring in the entrepreneurial city has been accompanied by a sharpening of social and economic inequalities within cities.

Alice Pozzati · PORTO Publications Open Repository TOrino (Politecnico di Torino) · Italy

A case study of Turin, Italy's agricultural history examines the now-vanished farmstead "La Grangia" as a way to recover the city's largely forgotten agricultural past, distinct from its better-known industrial image. More than six centuries after its construction, the site's agricultural past has been revived through the activity of the "Movimento per la Decrescita Felice" (Happy Degrowth Movement), which obtained management of part of the Giardino Morbillo — built on the former farmstead's grounds — from the Turin municipality, for a shared urban garden project. The piece notes that such remaining traces of the past are often not recognized as historic-architectural heritage worth preserving.

Irma Stopka, Heike Molitor · 0028-0615 · Europe

The abstract, which cuts off mid-sentence, states that as society changes, demands on urban open spaces also change, and that new open-space formats such as urban gardening reflect a need for participation and appropriation of space. The available text ends there, with no further content provided.

Duncan Stephen · · United Kingdom

A short report describes students studying Garden Design at Scotland's Rural College (SRUC) visiting a North Edinburgh Community Garden, as part of preparation for Gardening Scotland, to better understand how green spaces can positively influence health and wellbeing.

Krista Harper, Ana Isabel Afonso · Anthropology in Action · Europe

This study used a Photovoice methodology with an association of urban gardeners in Lisbon, Portugal, to examine their attempt to transform informal or clandestine garden spaces into an "urban agricultural park." Presenting initial findings, it describes how a coalition of gardeners from diverse socioeconomic and ethnic backgrounds used a participatory design process to reclaim land and create a shared space, and how residents conceptualized their use of urban space, built civic identities through gardening, and made political claims to access and control vacant land.

Carlos Santiago Martín Fernández, Víctor O. Martín Martín · Boletín de la Asociación de Geógrafos Españoles · Spain

This paper examines how the economic crisis and job losses in the construction sector and related services in the Canary Islands, Spain, prompted workers' return to primary-sector activity. This return has taken place largely outside the official regulatory system, becoming an irregular practice that sustains many Canarian households; the administration has responded with measures such as land banks and urban gardens (huertos urbanos), but these are described as only a partial solution to the poor state of family economies.

Javier Pérez-Lara, Antonio J. Matas, Miguel Angel Quesada-Felice · LA Referencia (Red Federada de Repositorios Institucionales de Publicaciones Científicas) · Spain

Set within the growth of urban horticulture across Andalusia, Spain, over the past decade, this study characterizes the current state of urban gardens in Málaga and describes their strengths and weaknesses. In Málaga, especially over the last five years, the initiative grew from a convergence of factors—an opportunity for urban land reuse following the real estate bubble collapse, municipal need to maintain vacant lots combined with available economic resources through institutional support (the PROTEJA plan), and pressure from citizen groups linked to the 15M movement (such as the "Huerto del Caminito")—producing a diversity of garden types and management modes ranging from more institutional to more communal and self-managed, which led to the establishment of the Málaga Urban Gardens Network (RHUMA).

· Wikipédia (français) · France

This French Wikipedia article on urban agriculture (agriculture urbaine) describes the Parisculteurs program, launched by the City of Paris in 2016, which inventories greenable spaces (walls, basements, rooftops, flat land) and runs annual project calls (appels à projets) to accelerate urban farming installations. The article does not give detailed statistics such as budget figures or the number of selected projects.

Ville de Paris · Ville de Paris (Parisculteurs) · France

This official overview page for Paris's Parisculteurs urban-agriculture program states it launched in 2016 with a charter targeting 100 hectares of urban farming; the program has since realized nearly 36 hectares across more than 70 projects (with a similar number in development). A 2013 study by APUR (the Paris urban planning agency) confirmed rooftop agriculture potential, and by 2014 about 11 hectares were already used for urban agriculture, only 0.3 of which were on building structures. Around thirty public and private partners and 14 local authorities currently participate.

Resilient Cities Network · Resilient Cities Network · France

Article from the Resilient Cities Network describing Parisculteurs, the urban-agriculture support programme launched by the City of Paris in 2016. The '100 Hectares' charter has 82 partner organizations, and more than 50 projects have been realized with an equal number under development. Goals cited include shortening food supply chains, strengthening community cohesion, promoting healthy eating, food security, and ecosystem services.

République française · Légifrance (République française) · France

This is the official text of France's food waste law, promulgated on 11 February 2016. It establishes a priority order for combating food waste: prevention first, then donation or transformation of consumable unsold food, followed by use as animal feed, then composting or energy recovery. Food retailers above a certain size are prohibited from deliberately rendering consumable unsold food unfit for consumption and must offer donation agreements to accredited charities, with a €3,750 fine for deliberate destruction of consumable unsold food.

Katie Boswell, Anne Kazimirski · New Philanthropy Capital (NPC) · United Kingdom

A January 2016 briefing from the UK think tank NPC, summarising a seminar for small charities held on 9 July 2015. It starts from the reality that, unlike larger charities with dedicated evaluation staff and budgets, small organisations tend to share measurement duties among staff or leave them on a chief executive's long to-do list. It argues that good impact measurement helps concentrate limited resources on activities that work and helps attract funding, but must be kept in proportion to the scale of the work, and sets out NPC's four-pillar approach beginning with mapping a theory of change.

Sanyé-Mengual E., Oliver-Solà J., Montero J. I., Rieradevall J. · The International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment 20:350-366 · Spain

Applies life cycle assessment and life cycle costing to rooftop greenhouse implementation in Barcelona, analyzing from greenhouse structure to final product and comparing with conventional industrial greenhouses to evaluate this new form of urban agriculture.

Scheromm P. · Développement durable et territoires · France (Montpellier)

Based on 40 semi-structured interviews, this study examines the agricultural motivations and practices of urban dwellers participating in collective gardens in Montpellier, revealing how city residents reconstruct an agricultural identity through gardening.

Clausen M. · Cities and the Environment (CATE) · Germany (Berlin)

Case study of Berlin's Prinzessinnengarten, examining how a volunteer-run garden on a vacant Kreuzberg lot became a multifunctional semi-public space and how its community mobilized against privatization of the land.

· Sustainability · Germany (Berlin)

Analyzes benefits and challenges of Zero-Acreage Farming (building-integrated agriculture such as rooftop gardens and greenhouses) in Berlin from an aggregated multi-stakeholder perspective, identifying rooftop greenhouses as the most promising model.

· Agriculture and Human Values · Germany (Berlin)

A qualitative study from Berlin examining public perception and acceptance of agricultural production in and on urban buildings (ZFarming).

Matthew Thompson · Antipode · United Kingdom (Liverpool)

This paper explores the community land trust (CLT) model as an institutional solution to urban decline, focusing on a case study in Granby, Liverpool, England. The Granby CLT campaign aims to collectively acquire empty homes, with guerrilla gardening playing a role in gaining political trust and financial support. The study discusses the CLT model's potential for democratic stewardship and the contradictions that may undermine its political legitimacy.

Maja Lorbek, Milena Martinsen · Urbani izziv · Europe

This paper examines the evolution of allotments and allotment dwellings in Germany and Austria by comparing gardeners' actual practices with the development and changes in the legal framework. It found that legislation and zoning regulations, often established retrospectively, reveal an ongoing negotiation process between informal practices and planning authorities. Allotment gardens, which emerged in the late 19th century, originally served a subsistence economy, providing food and emergency accommodation.

Laure‐Elise Ruoso, R. Plant, Pierre Maurel, C. Dupaquier, Philip Roche, Muriel Bonin · Ecology and Society · France (Thau Lagoon)

This record is a citation for a study on reading ecosystem services at the local scale through a territorial approach, focusing on peri-urban agriculture in the Thau Lagoon, Southern France. The abstract provides only the citation information and no further details about the study's methods or findings.

Jo Webber, Joe Hinds, Paul M. Camic · Ecopsychology · United Kingdom

A mixed-methods study surveyed 171 allotment gardeners in the United Kingdom to investigate the relationships between allotment gardening, feeling connected to nature, and well-being. Allotment gardeners' eudaimonic well-being and quality of life in the environmental domain were significantly higher than population means reported in the literature. However, the study found no association with subjective well-being.