ABSTRACT
This chapter aims to draw out the essential ideas as to how urban allotment gardens are or could be embedded in spatial development visions and concepts. After 1989 and the transformation of Europe which followed, issues surrounding the social aims and means of spatial and urban planning intensified and allotment gardens as a land-use category started to attract increasing attention. The history of allotment gardening in Poland dates back to the end of nineteenth century. Allotment gardens or ‘garden colonies’ as they are called in Slovakia – are a particular characteristic of cities and urban environments. Since the late 1990s the municipality of Basel has been experiencing an increase in population so that new housing had to be constructed within the already dense city borders. In the contemporary European landscape, the planning of allotment gardens faces a somewhat contradictory situation. Sketching out future scenarios for allotment gardens in Europe is mostly the responsibility of urban development planning.
