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Growing public spaces in the city: Community gardening and the making of new urban environments of publicness

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  • Paul Milbourne

Abstract

The demise of public space in cities across the Global North has received considerable scrutiny from urban scholars in recent years, with accounts of the loss, privatisation and increased regulation of public space prevalent within the academic literature. This paper seeks to complicate these dominant narratives of public space transformation by exploring the complexities of existing public spaces and the emergence of new spaces of publicness in the city. It uses a case study of community gardening in mundane and everyday neighbourhood spaces to provide a more nuanced and progressive reading of the relations between publicness and space in the city. Drawing on empirical materials from recent research on community gardening projects in 15 cities in Australia, Canada, the UK and the USA, the paper highlights how community gardening is creating new environments of publicness across public, private and in-between spaces that complicate both the end of public space discourse and conventional understandings of public space within urban studies.

Suggested Citation

  • Paul Milbourne, 2021. "Growing public spaces in the city: Community gardening and the making of new urban environments of publicness," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 58(14), pages 2901-2919, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:urbstu:v:58:y:2021:i:14:p:2901-2919
    DOI: 10.1177/0042098020972281
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Florian Langstraat & Rianne Van Melik, 2013. "Challenging the 'End of Public Space': A Comparative Analysis of Publicness in British and Dutch Urban Spaces," Journal of Urban Design, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 18(3), pages 429-448, August.
    2. Mark Whitehead, 2009. "The Wood for the Trees: Ordinary Environmental Injustice and the Everyday Right to Urban Nature," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 33(3), pages 662-681, September.
    3. Soyoung Han & Joong Won Kim & Yoonku Kwon, 2019. "Contemporary Spatial Publicness: Its New Characteristics and Democratic Possibilities," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(17), pages 1-18, August.
    4. Sarah Dooling, 2009. "Ecological Gentrification: A Research Agenda Exploring Justice in the City," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 33(3), pages 621-639, September.
    5. Judit Bodnar, 2015. "Reclaiming public space," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 52(12), pages 2090-2104, September.
    6. Andy Pratt, 2017. "The rise of the quasi-public space and its consequences for cities and culture," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 3(1), pages 1-4, December.
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    Cited by:

    1. Jiayi Liu & Yanbin Li & Yanhan Xu & Castiel Chen Zhuang & Yang Hu & Yue Yu, 2024. "Impacts of Built Environment on Urban Vitality in Cultural Districts: A Case Study of Haikou and Suzhou," Land, MDPI, vol. 13(6), pages 1-26, June.
    2. Yi Hua & Zhi Qiu & Wenjing Luo & Yue Wang & Zhu Wang, 2021. "Correlation between Elderly Migrants’ Needs and Environmental Adaptability: A Discussion Based on Human Urbanization Features," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(10), pages 1-16, May.
    3. Sandra Ricart & Carlo Berizzi & David Saurí & Gaia Nerea Terlicher, 2022. "The Social, Political, and Environmental Dimensions in Designing Urban Public Space from a Water Management Perspective: Testing European Experiences," Land, MDPI, vol. 11(9), pages 1-24, September.
    4. Shivant Jhagroe, 2024. "Fences, seeds and bees: The more-than-human politics of community gardening in Rotterdam," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 61(8), pages 1488-1507, June.

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