The significance and praxis of community‐based sustainability projects: Community gardens in western Australia

Abstract

Sustainability projects initiated by community groups can be significant in their contribution to the overall process of Local Agenda 21 planning and in their substantive contribution to sustainable communities. Community gardens differ from public gardens in that they are managed by community members rather than by local governments, although they may be located on council land. Community gardens vary in type from collections of individual plots to large‐scale collaborative projects for the benefit of the wider community. Their roles include the production of fresh organic food; the creation of community places; and the use and dissemination of community science and innovative technologies. This paper reviews the types and roles of community gardens, and provides a case study of a community garden in Western Australia. It analyses the lessons learned from this particular case and the potential contribution of community gardens to Local Agenda 21 planning and to physical, ecological, sociocultural and economic sustainability.     

“Community in Bloom”: local participation of community gardens in urban Singapore

Community gardens offer a space that allows facilitation of leisure activities, encourages interaction within different factions in a community and helps forge a sense of belonging towards the overall community. Using the case study of “Community in Bloom” (CIB) programme initiated by the National Parks Board of Singapore, this article highlights how such community gardens are also viewed by some as exclusionary spaces due to their close links with government apparatus. More broadly, it argues that a constrained civic activism not only affects the extent to which these gardens can forge communal bonds, but they also challenge their integral spirit. Despite promising signs of politically opening up in the early 2000s, the soft authoritarianism of the Singaporean state continues to be wary of non-governmental sanctioned community projects and civic activism. This attitude may prove to be resilient in the foreseeable future, thereby preventing the “CIB” programme from truly blossoming.     

Can home gardens scale up into movements for social change? The role of home gardens in providing food security and community change in San Jose,California

Urban policymakers and sustainable food activists have identified urban agriculture as an important strategy for confronting a host of urban problems, including food insecurity, health disparities, access to urban green space and community economic revitalisation. Much recent work on urban agriculture has examined community and school gardens, but little research has been undertaken on home gardens as a solution to urban problems. This article examines a home-gardening programme in San Jose, California, La Mesa Verde, asking whether some of the benefits found in community gardens can be found in home gardens. Specifically, we look at financial, health and community benefits, examining the potential of home gardens to become forces for broader social change. We ask whether gardens can become agents of cultural preservation, self-determination, particularly for recent immigrants who use these spaces to build identities and work towards collective action and self-determination.     

The green dividend of urban biking? Evidence of improved community and sustainable development

As the cost of car ownership has skyrocketed, urban biking has experienced the largest share increase of any transportation mode, rising by 40% between the years 2000 and 2014. Growing attention is being paid to the potential local economic development impacts of urban neighbourhoods becoming more bike-friendly. It is now a green economic development strategy in cities as diverse as Chicago, New York City, Portland, and San Francisco to increase bicycling as a transportation mode. This paper reports the results of a survey of 2032 responses from faculty, staff, and students of a car-dependent, downtown university. We use a mixed methods approach, including data from the American Community Survey, to support our arguments and to inform potential savings and economic benefit calculations that can be achieved from bicycle infrastructure investments and anticipated redistributed spending patterns. We argue that urban biking results in a green dividend that promotes local community development and more importantly results in zero carbon emissions.     

Co-Creating community gardens on untapped terrain – lessons from a transdisciplinary planning and participation process in the context of municipal housing in Vienna

ABSTRACT

Urban gardening in Vienna, Austria, has gained a new significance over the last ten years. However, although demand is constantly rising and urban gardening is being marketed in many ways, a vast majority of the urban population still has no access to gardening and its various benefits. While community gardening projects in Europe are usually viewed as temporary, self-organised bottom-up initiatives on public or abandoned private land, this case study of the Roda-Roda pilot project shows that community gardening can develop and persist even when favourable conditions for grassroots community gardens are lacking. The vast green spaces separating residential blocks (Abstandsgrün) commonly found in Vienna’s municipal housing (Wiener Gemeindebau) have a huge spatial potential for gardening, along with a forgotten tradition of self-organisation. Using an action research approach, this paper describes two principles for a successful implementation strategy under difficult conditions. Starting with a top-down approach, an interdisciplinary project team implemented a spatial and socio-economic framework that offered a stable basis for participatory community-building. As they “climbed” the ladder of participation stepwise – from exclusion to decision-making and true self-organisation – gardeners gained knowledge, skills and the self-confidence required to run a garden and create a well-working local community. At a more general level, the paper brings a co-creative planning perspective to the scientific discussion on community gardening in Europe and offers a practical approach to making local gardening opportunities available to suitable target groups by tapping into unused spatial potential.     

Local governments in the driving seat? A comparative analysis of public and private responsibilities for adaptation to climate change in European and North-American cities

The division of responsibilities between public and private actors has become a key governance issue for adaptation to climate change in urban areas. This paper offers a systematic, comparative analysis of three empirical studies which analysed how and why responsibilities were divided between public and private actors for the governance of local urban climate adaptation. For 20 governance arrangements in European and North-American cities, the divisions of responsibilities and the underlying rationales of actors for those divisions were analysed and compared. Data were gathered through content analysis of over 100 policy documents, 97 in-depth interviews and 2 multi-stakeholder workshops. The comparative analysis reveals that local public authorities are the key actors, as they bear the majority of responsibilities for climate proofing their cities. In this stage of policy emergence, local authorities are clearly in the driving seat. It is envisaged that local public authorities need to more actively engage the different private actors such as citizens, civil society and businesses through governance networks along with the maturation of the policy field and the expected acceleration of climate impacts in the coming decades.     

“Perceived neighbourhood” and tolerance relations: the case of Arabs and Jews in Jaffa,Israel

This paper examines the complex social reality of mixed ethnic residential areas, as reflected in drawn perceived neighbourhoods of Jews and Arabs living in homogenous and mixed neighbourhoods in Jaffa, Tel Aviv. Through in-depth interviews conducted among 89 Jaffa's residents, it illustrates how different perceptions about the residential area and its residents (including attitudes, emotions, feeling of fear/safety, collective identity and tolerant relations) are reflected in the form, size and consensus area of residents' perceived neighbourhoods. The study finds a clear association between tolerant attitudes and the size and consensus area of the perceived neighbourhoods. Arabs perceive their neighbourhood as significantly larger than Jews do and are characterised by a larger consensus area. These findings are explained by the Arab's strong social cohesion, common national identity, rootedness in Jaffa, as well as by tolerant attitudes towards Jaffa's Jewish population. The study demonstrates the interrelation between the spatial, social and perceptual dimensions associated with the mixed residential area, and illustrates how these dimensions are reflected in drawn perceived neighbourhoods.     

Equity in neighbourhood walkability? A comparative analysis of three large U.S. cities

This study examines the spatial and statistical relationships between social vulnerability (SV) and neighbourhood walkability across three large U.S. cities with different urban typologies and development patterns: Charlotte, NC (a low-density, fast-growing “Sunbelt” city); Pittsburgh, PA (a moderate density, shrinking “Rust Belt” city); and Portland, OR (a progressive West Coast city known for its sprawl-containment policies). Binary logistic regression, independent-samples t-tests, and mapping techniques are employed to determine whether neighbourhoods with high SV (i.e. older populations, higher poverty rates, more service occupations, lower educational attainment, and a higher proportion of minorities) are as likely as those with low SV to exhibit a high degree of walkability. The publically available Walk Score® metric, based on proximity to amenities, street network connectivity, and density, was used as a proxy for neighbourhood walkability. The results indicate significant variability among cities, with Charlotte exhibiting the greatest potential for inequitable access to walkable urban environments and the most prominent concentration of “walk-vulnerable” block groups (BGs) with high SV and low walkability. Both Portland and Pittsburgh exhibited more equitable access when comparing BGs with high and low SV; however, they each presented unique spatial patterns, visualised using a series of maps.     

Gathering “wild” food in the city: rethinking the role of foraging in urban ecosystem planning and management

Recent “green” planning initiatives envision food production, including urban agriculture and livestock production, as desirable elements of sustainable cities. We use an integrated urban political ecology and human–plant geographies framework to explore how foraging for “wild” foods in cities, a subversive practice that challenges prevailing views about the roles of humans in urban green spaces, has potential to also support sustainability goals. Drawing on research from Baltimore, New York City, Philadelphia, and Seattle, we show that foraging is a vibrant and ongoing practice among diverse urban residents in the USA. At the same time, as reflected in regulations, planning practices, and attitudes of conservation practitioners, it is conceptualised as out of place in urban landscapes and an activity to be discouraged. We discuss how paying attention to urban foraging spaces and practices can strengthen green space planning and summarise opportunities for and challenges associated with including foragers and their concerns.     

Whose energy transition is it,anyway? Organisation and ownership of the Energiewende in villages,cities and regions

As one of the most ambitious national energy transition initiatives worldwide, the German Energiewende is attracting a huge amount of attention globally in both policy and research circles. The paper explores the implementation of Germany's energy transition through the lens of organisation and ownership in urban and regional contexts. Following a summary of the principal institutional challenges of the Energiewende at local and regional levels the paper develops a novel way of conceptualising the institutional to urban and regional energy transitions in terms of agency and power, ideas and discourse, and commons and ownership. This analytical heuristic is applied to a two-tier empirical study of the Berlin–Brandenburg region. The first tier involves a survey of the organisational landscape of energy infrastructures and services in cities, towns and villages in Brandenburg. The second tier comprises a case study of current, competing initiatives for (re-)gaining ownership of the power grid and utility in Berlin. The paper draws conclusions on the diverse and dynamic organisational responses to the Energiewende at the local level, what these tell us about urban and regional energy governance and how they are inspired by – or in opposition to – new forms of collective ownership resonant of recent debates on reclaiming the commons. It concludes with observations on how relational approaches to institutional research and the notion of the commons can guide and inspire future research on socio-technical transitions in general, and urban energy transitions in particular.     

A critical and empirical analysis of the national-local ‘gap’ in public responses to large-scale energy infrastructures

A national-local ‘gap’ is often used as the starting point for analyses of public responses to large scale energy infrastructures. We critique three assumptions found in that literature: the public's positive attitudes, without further examining other type of perceptions at a national level; that local perceptions are best examined through a siting rather than place-based approach; that a gap exists between national and local responses, despite a non-correspondence in how these are examined. Survey research conducted at national and local levels about electricity transmission lines in the UK confirm these criticisms. Results do not support a gap between national and local levels; instead, both differences and similarities were found. Results show the value of adopting a place-based approach and the role of surveys to inform policy making are discussed.     

How can public–private partnerships contribute to security and human rights policy and practice in the extractive industries? A case study of The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC)

Across sub-Saharan Africa, the presence of foreign large-scale mining companies is increasing. This is in part a result of depleting resources in countries such as Canada, United States and Australia, and in part from a more favorable national mine investment climate in several mineral-rich African countries. Their increased presence raises important questions around the potential role and function of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) in the sector. In post-conflict and/or fragile states, CSR has further implications for conflict and risk mitigation strategies to ensure the protection of human rights. One CSR approach increasingly being considered is the public–private partnership, whereby companies, public donors, and development agencies leverage their relationships for mutual benefit. There is merit in exploring its function in post-conflict fragile states, where socio-economic needs are high and the capacity of the state to respond to a variety of mine governance challenges is limited. Two case studies from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) are presented, and their policy implications, discussed.     

The unusual suspects? Perception of underlying causes of anthropogenic climate change in coastal communities in Cambodia and Tanzania

Public perception of the underlying causes of anthropogenic climate change is a complex and subjective issue that is critical to effective risk communication. This issue is important to scientists and policymakers because of the role of individual perceptions in influencing their protective behaviour towards risk (e.g., the adoption of climate risk reduction and mitigation strategies). This cross-sectional study elucidated people's perceptions of the underlying causes of human-induced climate change in coastal communities in Cambodia and Tanzania. The multinomial logistic regression model was based on a geographically and demographically stratified national sample of 3,706 individuals conducted between March and September 2013. The distribution of the fundamental causes of anthropogenic climate change in the pooled sample was deforestation (29%), overpopulation – births and immigration (18%), greenhouse gas emissions (12%), illegal resource extraction (14%), and God's will and transgressing cultural norms (26%). Few people in both countries believed that, the usual suspect, greenhouse gas emission was the fundamental cause of anthropogenic climate change. The number of poor rural residents who indicated that deforestation was the major underlying cause of climate change was approximately three times more than members of the same sub-group who noted that greenhouse gas emissions were the underlying cause of climate change. People who had tertiary education were less likely to consider God's will and transgressing cultural norms as the underlying cause of anthropogenic climate change rather than attributing it to greenhouse gas emissions. Therefore, it is imperative to mainstream climate change into educational curricula in both countries.     

Trends and development of steel demand in China: A bottom–up analysis

With economic development, the Chinese steel industry has rapidly expanded over the past three decades. However, this expansion has resulted in many problems, such as increasing energy consumption and excessive environmental pollution. Therefore, it is important to analyze the future steel demand in China. This study presents changes in steel production and apparent steel consumption in the years 1998–2010. Steel is mainly consumed by construction, machinery, automobiles, shipbuilding, railways, petroleum, household appliances and containers, and these nine industries are analyzed separately using stock based models. The study suggests steel demand in China will rise from 600 million t in 2010 to a peak of 753 million t in 2025, and then gradually decrease to 510 million t in 2050. The construction industry is the largest steel consumer, although its share of total steel demand will decrease in the future. Steel demand in automobile manufacturing, by contrast, will increase rapidly before 2035, and its share will increase from 6.0% in 2010 to 19.0% in 2050. Sensitivity analysis on the four major impact factors such as saturation levels, lifetime distributions, GDP and urbanization rate shows that saturation levels of different products greatly affect long-term and short-term steel demands, while GDP and lifetime distributions, especially the lifetime distribution of buildings, mainly affect the short-term and long-term steel demands, respectively.     

Urban community gardening,social capital,and "integration" – a mixed method exploration of urban "integration-gardening" in Copenhagen,Denmark

ABSTRACT

This study examines a community garden in Copenhagen, Denmark, "The Urban Integration Gardens" that endeavours to strengthen social integration in the local multicultural neighbourhood. The "community" in the gardens is explored, with a focus on how they foster social capital, particularly opportunities for "bridging" social capital. A mixed-methods approach is used, by employing a qualitative analysis of gardeners’ perceptions of "community", diversity and inclusivity, through the lens of "cognitive" social capital, and the meanings the gardeners assign to their experiences, and how they understand their involvement in the gardens. We also examine "structural" dimensions of social capital, involving quantitative data from a questionnaire and data from Statistics Denmark, comparing data concerning socio-demographic backgrounds from gardeners and residents in the local neighbourhood and Copenhagen. Major findings include that the garden generates both bonding and bridging "cognitive" social capital, and the gardeners consistently agreed that the garden has a strong community, and is permeated by diversity and inclusivity. Nonetheless, data from Denmark’s Statistics Office reveal that the garden does not "represent" the diversity in the neighbourhood regarding the distribution of members with a Western/non-Western background, as well as social class. This suggests that endeavours to involve co-citizens with non-Western backgrounds and gardeners with lower social status are restrained by potential structural barriers, which limits the "width" of bridging social capital in the garden.     

The behaviour of suppliers and consumers in mandated markets: the introduction of the ethanol–petrol blend E10 in Germany

In December 2010, the German government increased the maximum ethanol content that can be blended with petrol from 5% to 10%, which facilitated the introduction of the ethanol–petrol blend E10. The revised ethanol–petrol blend was introduced with ambitions towards decarbonizing the transport sector as well as to support energy security and rural development. While usually supportive of actions aimed to combat climate change, the great majority of German motorists have refused to buy E10. The lacking demand for E10 is the empirical phenomenon addressed by this study. How did the fuel suppliers comply with the policy provisions? Which actors made attempts to influence the motorists’ demand for the new ethanol–petrol blend? Which actor was assigned the responsibility for the problems that occurred upon the rollout of the new fuel type? These research questions guide this study, which concentrates on the behaviour of transport fuel suppliers and consumers in mandated markets, that is, markets created by policy provisions.     

“Housing for all” at the era of financialization; can (post-disaster) cities become truly socially resilient and egalitarian?

This paper examines the realism of the resilience ambition and process of the U.S. housing system, shedding light on its heterogeneity as well as the financialization currently acting as the driving force in real estate production. The resilience ambition leading to enhanced justice and egalitarianism is understood as the provision and maintenance of post-disaster housing for all within an institutionally diverse landscape of housing policy makers and implementers. Particular emphasis is given to the post-Katrina institutional transformations resulting from multifarious interactions between multilevel institutional structures and a diverse landscape of low-income housing policy implementers – referred as social resilience cells (SRCs) in this paper. The nature and level of these transformations determine the degree to which resilience in its heterogeneous form has been incubated in New Orleans. The paper concludes with a discussion on the macro conditions and bottom-linked governance structures under which all SRCs could be better bolstered in a post-financialization, radicalised neowelfare U.S., and which in turn create possibilities for materialising the resilience ambition.     

Is everyone hot in the city? Spatial pattern of land surface temperatures,land cover and neighborhood socioeconomic characteristics in Baltimore,MD

Urban heat island effect refers to the phenomenon that ambient air and surface temperatures in urban areas are several degrees higher than surrounding rural areas. Higher temperatures not only impact the comfort of urban dwellers, but also increase energy use, ozone production, and the risk of death for humans in a heat wave. Our research focuses on the variation in land surface temperature in the Gywnns Fall Watershed, Maryland. We found that land surface temperature is highly variable spatially, resulting in "hotspots" within the heat island. We further explore how this temperature variation relates to social factors on the scale of the census-based block group. We show that land surface temperature is statistically higher in block groups that are characterized by low income, high poverty, less education, more ethnic minorities, more elderly people and greater risk of crime. These variables were mapped to evaluate the spatial relationship of land surface temperatures to social factors. This spatially explicit approach facilitates identification of specific areas to prioritize for heat prevention and intervention efforts. We demonstrate, through an exercise, how incorporating data on land surface temperature and social factors into heat intervention strategies could contribute to efficient allocation of limited resources and services. The exercise also indicates where heat prevention efforts, such as tree-planting programs, are most needed to help reduce heat exposure and moderate the urban heat island effect.     

Well-being for all? The social distribution of benefits gained from woodlands and forests in Britain

Well-being is a positive physical, mental and social state and has increasingly become an area of interest to researchers and policy-makers internationally. This paper presents results from research that analyses the well-being benefits gained by different sections of society through viewing, engaging with, and accessing woodlands and forests in Britain. We draw on 31 studies undertaken since 2001 and present a meta-analysis of quantitative data and a meta-synthesis of qualitative data to explore the range of benefits and associated activities in woodlands, and their social distribution. We also present a state-of-the-art typology of well-being benefits for woodlands in Britain. The findings illustrate the wide range of well-being benefits gained by different social groups through various forms of engagement with and activities undertaken in woodlands. We illustrate the wide range of meanings and values attached to trees and woodlands across different social groups. The evidence also illustrates how carefully designed and targeted interventions can be particularly effective in enabling and encouraging people to visit woodland sites, to participate or get involved in new activities and, therefore, to realise a range of well-being benefits.