ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the group that produces community gardens: its formation, its boundaries, and most importantly the social visions and goals that the group develops, adopts, and adheres to. It discusses the contributors and challenges that are present in the processes whereby a collective takes shape and place. These are processes and forces that are integral to the formation of the collective as a group, solidified by shared identity and goals. The chapter examines the structure of collective and its three structural units-garden groups, neighborhood coalitions, and New York City gardeners. It steps beyond the level of individual's interaction with space to explain the formation of gardeners as a group and its collective action over space. The neighborhood coalitions provide a platform for the organization of struggle to save the gardens. The emphasis on the size of the collective is not irrelevant; it is an important aspect in the community gardens world, since numbers translate into money and power.
