Research & reports

N. Bertrand, Nicole Rousier · HAL (Le Centre pour la Communication Scientifique Directe) · France (Grenoble)

In the Grenoble urban region, agriculture holds relatively minor economic importance despite the region's strong technological development. However, the region's 2000 master plan assigned an essential role to farming. Peri-urban agriculture is a key issue in planning policies, engaging local officials, planners, and farming community representatives, but its economic weight remains low.

Neville Flavell · Agricultural history review · United Kingdom

This paper argues that Sheffield was the first town to experience workers' gardens en masse in the late eighteenth century, with many acres of horticultural land used as allotment gardens. While other provincial town histories of the period, except Birmingham, make little mention of similar phenomena, a cautious calculation suggests 1500-1800 allotments were available for rent in Sheffield in the 1780s.

Philip J. Baker, RACHEL J. ANSELL, PHILLIPPA A. A. DODDS, CLAIRE E. WEBBER, Stephen Harris · Mammal Review · United Kingdom (Bristol)

This study investigated small mammal distribution across five urban habitats in north-west Bristol, including residential and allotment gardens. It found that wood mouse abundance in residential gardens was negatively related to cat abundance and distance to natural vegetation. The results suggest urban small mammal populations may be limited by predation and habitat fragmentation.

Nathalie Bertrand, Nicole Rousier · Revue de géographie alpine · France (Grenoble)

This study analyzed the economic role of agriculture in the Grenoble urban region, France. From an economic perspective, agriculture was considered an activity of relatively minor importance in this region, known for its strong technological development. However, in the regional master plan approved in 2000, farming occupies an essential position. The study aimed to understand the role of peri-urban agriculture in the preparation of the urban region's development plan by specifying its assigned functions and analyzing how agriculture has been considered in regional plans.

Joe Howe · Journal of Environmental Policy & Planning · United Kingdom

This article explores the neglect of research concerning food grown within urban areas and its land-use policy implications. It details findings from a UK study on land-use policy and urban agriculture, investigating land-use officials' attitudes and knowledge of urban food production and the regulatory framework used. The article concludes that despite extensive urban agriculture practice, its urban land-use policy implications require more attention from both land-use officials and researchers than previously given.

L.M. Boukharaeva, Marcel Marloie, Mission Sociologie. Département d'Economie Et de Sociologie Ruralesivry · HAL (Le Centre pour la Communication Scientifique Directe) · Europe

A work on urban agriculture examining the case of collective gardens in Russia. The available abstract consists only of distribution information from INRA's Department of Rural Economics and Sociology (Ivry, France); it contains no description of study content or findings.

Jean-Noël Consalès · Rives méditerranéennes/Rives méditerranéennes · Europe

This study examines allotment gardens in Marseille, Genoa, and Barcelona and finds that, although urban agriculture is potentially at stake in these cities, allotments struggle to establish themselves within complex urban contexts. Their actual function appears limited: their social role is often overestimated, while their environmental and landscape significance remains largely neglected.

Mark Laird · Studies in the History of Gardens & Designed Landscapes · United Kingdom

A book review of Todd Longstaffe-Gowan's The London Town Garden discusses the volume's treatment of small metropolitan gardens in London between 1700 and 1840 as physical, convivial, and symbolic spaces. The reviewer notes the author's claim that the town garden was a personal, idiosyncratic mode of expression rather than a display of fashionable taste, evolving slowly and independently well behind landscape improvements in the English countryside, while pointing out that questions of taste in relation to class and consumption are only partly addressed in the book.

Wolschke-Bulmahn J., Gröning G. · In R. A. Etlin (ed.), Art, Culture, and Media under the Third Reich, University of Chicago Press, pp. 73–97 · Germany

Book chapter interpreting the Nazi garden and landscape ideal through the concept of 'Bodenständigkeit' (rootedness in the soil), showing how small-scale, landscape-adapted gardens using native plants and materials embodied Blood and Soil ideology.

Jonathan Rutherford · The Review of Education Pedagogy & Cultural Studies · United Kingdom (London)

This record describes demonstrations in Parliament Square, London, on May Day 2000. Reclaim the Streets organized a Guerrilla Gardening spectacle, digging up the lawn in the center of the Square and planting in protest against capitalism.

· Wikipédia (français) · France

This French Wikipedia article on shared/community gardens (jardin partagé) notes that Paris's first jardin partagé appeared in 2002, after which the City of Paris institutionalized the "Main Verte" (Green Hand) program, networking and supporting charter-signing garden associations under a unified framework. It also cites that, as of 2018, the national federation (FNJFC) united over 200 associations and 20,000 gardening families.

Haney D. H. · Journal of Architectural Education, 54(3), 149-157 · Germany

Examines Migge's designs for Weimar-era Siedlungen of small flats and row houses with adjacent garden plots, arguing that landscape was central to competing visions of interwar modernity and that productive gardens were integral to modern housing.

G. F. Backhaus, H. Balder · Federal Research Centre for Cultivated Plants (Julius Kühn-Institut) · Germany

The International Symposium on Plant Health in Urban Horticulture, held in Braunschweig, Germany, from May 22 to 25, 2000, served as a platform to discuss deficits in the care and development of urban greenery and propose integrated concepts. Urban horticulture comprises diverse elements characterizing urban life, but many stress factors damage these components, and integrated concepts for maintaining and preserving urban green areas are lacking. The symposium aimed to jointly prepare future needs for action for the health preservation of urban green at an international level.

B. Jankiewicz, B. Ptaszyński, Michael Wieczorek · Polish Journal of Environmental Studies · Poland (Lodz)

This study presents the results of lead determination in the soils of six allotment gardens located in various parts of Lodz. Lead was measured spectrophotometrically in the form of pink lead(II) dithizonate.

J.J. Tolron · HAL (Le Centre pour la Communication Scientifique Directe) · Europe

This article examines peri-urban agriculture, which is subject to land constraints imposed by nearby cities. Two case studies in the Mediterranean region illustrate that adaptations to the peri-urban context trigger radical changes in agricultural systems' functioning rationale, leading to sometimes paradoxical operations. The study emphasizes the diversifying effect on systems and the challenges linked to land management.

Candan Kuş · · Turkey (Ankara)

A study in Yenimahalle District, Ankara, evaluating multiple schools including 80 primary schools, assessed the importance of school gardens and their place within the urban open-green space system. The findings revealed that many school gardens were unsuitable for use by teachers and students, being narrow, containing only ceremonial areas and a few plants, and lacking sufficient furnishing elements. It was also observed that additional buildings further narrowed school gardens, and insufficient attention was given to recreation areas, sports areas, and green spaces.

Rie Oba, Reiji Obase · Journal of The Japanese Institute of Landscape Architecture · United Kingdom

This study examines Britain's allotment gardens, which have a long history and are frequently cited in Japan as a model for citizen farms (shimin nōen). Focusing on the late 19th to early 20th century, when urban allotments began spreading in the UK, the study systematically traces the transformation of allotments in relation to the social conditions of the time, and empirically analyzes the administrative decision-making behind establishing and abolishing allotments. The findings show that the functions allotments served differed according to social conditions, and that changes in those functions strongly influenced whether allotments still exist today; local authorities deciding on abolition were also found to weigh the relationship between an allotment's area and the location of open space.

Stadt Leipzig, Amt für Stadterneuerung und Wohnungsbauförderung · Stadt Leipzig · Germany

The fifth booklet in a series published by the City of Leipzig's 'Careful Urban Renewal' pilot project, addressing vacant lots (Baulücken) created by wartime destruction and East German-era demolitions. It explains how a 'Gestattungsvereinbarung' (usage-permission agreement) between the city and private landowners enables temporary conversion of vacant lots into green space, play areas, or parking without affecting the underlying building rights.

Carmen Egea Jiménez, Ana Fernández Zamora · Arqueología y Territorio Medieval · Spain (Granada)

This article re-evaluates the significance of Protection Catalogues in urban planning, highlighting their role not only as protection instruments but also in influencing urban decisions during the planning process. The "Catalogue of Urban Gardens of the Municipality of El Valle (Granada)" in Spain is used as a case study to illustrate this approach.

B. Jankiewicz, B. Ptaszyński, Michael Wieczorek · Polish Journal of Environmental Studies · Poland (Łódź)

This study determined cadmium in the soil of six allotment gardens in Łódź, located in areas with different traffic patterns (city center and suburbs). Cadmium was detected in the form of cadmium (II) dithizonate using the extraction-spectrophotometric method. This research indicates the presence of cadmium contamination in urban allotment garden soils.

Isabel Boussard · OpenEdition (OpenEdition) · Europe

This book, published in 1999, defines "urban agricultures" as agricultural activities aimed at land development within urban or peri-urban sites. It explores the subject beyond traditional French worker or family gardens, considering the diversity of garden types and the broad geographical scope across Europe.

Jean-Noël Consalès · Méditerranée · France

In Marseille, France, family gardens (jardins familiaux) have established themselves over a century as privileged witnesses to the different phases of urbanization (2000). From a necessary peripheral phenomenon during 1900–1945, to a land reserve during the postwar boom years, these collective vegetable-garden groupings stand today as symbols of urban society's renewed enthusiasm for peripheral agriculture. Marseille's family gardens have effectively become veritable territorial laboratories of urban agriculture in the Mediterranean.

M.J. Zwankhuizen, Francine Govers, J.C. Zadoks · Phytopathology · Netherlands

A study in Southern Flevoland, Netherlands, from 1994 to 1996, assessed inoculum sources of potato late blight. It found that 74% of early disease foci in commercial potato fields were linked to nearby infested refuse piles. Infected seed tubers, volunteer plants, and infested allotment gardens appeared to be of minor importance for late blight development in potato fields. However, in August 1994, infested organic potato fields became major mid-season infection sources, spreading the disease to adjacent conventional fields.

Hammer K., Knüpffer H., Xhuveli L., Perrino P. · Genetic Resources and Crop Evolution 43:329-336 · Mediterranean

A classic study comparing collecting missions decades apart in Albania and South Italy, quantifying genetic erosion of landraces at 72.4% and 72.8% respectively.

Rollins W. H. · Annals of the Association of American Geographers, Vol. 85, No. 3, pp. 494–520 · Germany

Analyzes how Seifert and his team applied aesthetic and ecological principles, grounded in climax-vegetation theory, to the Autobahn, probing the entangled relationship of technology, fascism, and environmentalism under National Socialism.