Kirsten, The time planners really learn when a community needs a community garden, is when gardeners show up to create one. Creating a community garden and then inviting folks in to garden there, i.e., top down community gardening, is risky business at best. I've found that unlike the "Field of Dreams," sometimes if you build a community garden top down, without community gardeners in place, they do not come. The chicken and egg here is gardeners first, then the gardens they create, the paradigm being, "If the gardeners build it, they are already there, and others will come." Lenny Librizzi's definition of a community garden(as I remember it) is that ," A community garden is a space created by some community members for the whole community." On creating sustainable community gardens. A careful reading of Jane Jacobs's work on city planning would reveal that Parks and other public spaces require the active engagement and patronage of the citizenry - when it comes to community gardens, this is when the people whom these gardens are supposed to serve create them in the first place. Then, once there are real gardens, created by gardeners, then the real work is to get elected officials and local planners, who are their paid myrmidons, to classify those community gardens as a legitimate LAND USE under the zoning resolution of that community. The suggested land use classification might easiest come under Parks, unless there are "greens," in the target community who can be persuaded, by all means necessary ;), to classify community gardens as sites for urban agriculture. Best wishes, Adam Honigman -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: community_garden at list.communitygarden.org Sent: Thu, 19 Apr 2007 12:35 PM Subject: [Community_garden] Study or research info needed
Hello y'all, I'm working with my county to get language supportive of community gardens into city and county comprehensive plans. One thing we were bouncing around is helping planners understand WHEN a community garden is needed for a community (i.e. a top-down establishment of a community garden), and I wondered if we could say that there should be enough plots for XX% of households within a housing complex (for instance). Does anyone know of a study or research that would help substantiate what percentage of households to use? I'm just looking for a general number or a number for a specific population group (i.e. seniors) - just need something to hang my hat on. Thank you, Kirsten Kirsten Saylor GardenWorks, Program Manager The Green Institute 2801 21st Avenue South, Suite 110 Minneapolis, MN 55407 612-278-7123 ksaylor at greeninstitute.org www.gardenworksMN.org Promoting and Preserving Community Gardening Across the Twin Cities -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://list.communitygarden.org/pipermail/community_garden_list.communitygarden.org/attachments/20070419/27cc168d/attachment.html _______________________________________________ The American Community Gardening Association listserve is only one of ACGA's services to community gardeners. To learn more about the ACGA and to find out how to join, please go to http://www.communitygarden.org To post an e-mail to the list: community_garden at list.communitygarden.org To subscribe, unsubscribe or change your subscription: http://list.communitygarden.org/mailman/listinfo/community_garden_list.communitygarden.org ________________________________________________________________________ AOL now offers free email to everyone. Find out more about what's free from AOL at AOL.com. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://list.communitygarden.org/pipermail/community_garden_list.communitygarden.org/attachments/20070422/3db7c8b5/attachment.html
