ABSTRACT
This paper is a general presentation on the benefits of community gardens in urban environments. The presentation will identify research needs and at the same time support the thesis that community gardens are a positive attribute in urban communities. Specific examples of successes will be presented from ten years of work in the New York City community gardening movement. Most importanly, work from the last three years in the Bronx will be highlighted and used as a backdrop to identify research needs. Some of these areas of research to be identified include the relationship between property values and community gardens, the frequency of crime in neighborhoods with community gardens and the patterns of demographic change in neighborhoods with community gardens. With many accomplishments over a ten year period working throughout New York City, there are also challenges … to growth and how to meet the different needs of communities in a state of profound change. Those of us in the field have a mandate to support the people in the communities, not to provide agencies with facts and figures. Our needs are different and therefore we need to reconcile data collection with hands-on support.
