Exploring the perspectives of urban allotment gardens in Czechia: Balancing food production, recreation, ecology and housing

This paper explores the recent developments in urban allotment gardens (UAGs) in Czechia, situating them within ongoing debates in urban planning across Central and Eastern Europe. Responding to increasing pressures on urban land, the study has two main goals: (1) to identify key trends in urban gardening, and (2) to develop a typology of UAGs relevant for local authorities. The research focused on diverse cities—Uherské Hradiště, Opava, Olomouc, and Ostrava—using geospatial methods, including historical and recent aerial imagery and orthophotographs, together with field research, to analyse the characteristics and development patterns of UAGs over time. We selected various UAGs and examined their features, such as location, size, plot count, and land-use patterns. Our findings led to the identification of four main types of UAGs: production-oriented (with at least 50% productive area), mixed production-recreation (with 25–45% dedicated to production, 25–55% to recreation), mainly recreation with housing potential (over 60% recreation area), and climate-adaptive (with at least 50% nature-recreation space). The findings reveal a common presence of mixed production-recreation UAGs, which tend to shift from food production to recreational or residential use. These trends are influenced by factors such as urban location, land ownership, planning policies, and gardening practices. The paper contributes to European debates on sustainable urban land management by critically examining the role of urban gardening in planning and providing evidence-based recommendations for local authorities.