Advocacy & Research

Webinar: Public Health and Community Gardens
Recorded April 11, 2012. Community, school and employer-sponsored gardens play an important role in improving health and reducing obesity. Gardens increase access to fresh vegetables, provide opportunities for physical activity, teach both adults and children about the origins of their food, and promote healthier eating behaviors. As gardening opportunities increase, advocates must often address legal and policy issues that affect the development and maintenance of gardens. These issues include access to water, composting efforts, land use planning and zoning considerations, liability issues, and the organizational structure of the gardens. 

Seeding the City
Public Health and Law Policy Center's Document on urban agriculture and land use policy (Oct, 2011).

Highlights from Journal Articles Supporting Community Gardens
From Cornell University

USDA Food Desert Map
Minnesota has many low-income neighborhoods with a high concentration of residents living in "food deserts".  According to the census numbers, 644,000 Minnesotans live in a food desert; 82,000 live in Hennepin County and 56,000 live in Ramsey County. The remaining 506,000 live in surrounding counties and in outstate MN. Use this tool developed by the USDA to inform people where food desserts are located where you live.

A Dietary, Social and Economic Evaluation of the Philadelphia Urban Gardening Project
Article by Dorothy Blair, Carol C. Giesecke, and Sandra Sherman. 1991.
Found that community gardens are "an important strategy for improving vegetable consumption, gaining control over the quality and variety of produce consumed, and facilitating community relationships and development."

Bloom to Grow
Why community gardens should be a part of our park system. Printed in the P&R Magazine, a journal of the National Recreation and Park Association March 2006.

Community Development Through Gardening: State and Local Policies Transforming Urban Open Space
Article by Jane E. Schukoske, looking at the variety of public policies that have impacted community gardens over time and across the U.S. Can be found in Journal of Legislation and Public Policy, Spring 2000, Volume 3, Number 2.

Leave No Child Inside
Article by Richard Louv for Orion Magazine (March-April 2007) speaks to the physical and mental necessity of children exploring nature.

Peak Soil
A new take on Peak Oil - why growing food locally is so vitally important to our longterm success. Printed in Culture Change in April 2007.

The Food System: A Stranger to the Planning Field
An article reprinted in City Farmer from the Journal of the American Planning Association in 2000. Notes that planners are not aware of the food system and thus may undermine it.

Whitmire Study
Commissioned by Gateway Greening a community gardening organization in St. Louis, Missouri. This study examined the impact of community gardens on indicators of quality of life for years 1990 and 2000. They found a strong correlation between community garden development and reversal of urban decline in neighborhoods. Click to view slide presentation.

The Effect of Community Gardens on Neighboring Property Values
2006. Vicki Been and Ioan Voici, New York University, compared property values of properties located near community gardens and those that were not. They found residential properties near gardens were greater with an increase over time. Greatest impact can be found in disadvantaged neighborhoods, including greater economic development and increased rates of homeownership.

Making Policy: Steps Beyond the Physical Garden
2000 Issue of Community Greening Review, a publication of ACGA, is available online and has great tibits on public policy and community gardens. Well-worth a review!

The Diggible City
Completed by students in the Master of Urban and Regional Planning program at Portland State University, the Diggable City Project was an attempt to take an inventory of vacant, publicly-owned land in the Portland area, and to start a conversation about how that land might be used to support urban agricultural activities.