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Illustration by Robin Tatlow-Lord
By Elise Harris
Email: eliseharris2@gmail.com
An Honours thesis submitted as part of a Bachelor in Urban and Regional Planning School of Natural and Built Environments University of South Australia
October 2008
Excerpts:
Abstract
Community gardens have been shown to have positive social, nutritional and educational benefits for their users, and improve the amenity, safety and patronage of the surrounding area. They also tie into wider themes of sustainability and food security. Despite these benefits, urban planners, as the keepers of land and determiners of land use, have had little to do with community gardens. This thesis will explain the benefits of community gardens and detail planning policies throughout the world that support community gardens. Lastly, recommendations will be made on how the South Australian planning system can better support community gardens.
1. Introduction
Community gardens create the types of social and environmental benefits that planners often strive to achieve in their work. They break down barriers between people, increase socialisation, provide exercise, improve nutrition and create safer spaces. Why then, have community gardens been overlooked by planners? A lack of interest and lack of knowledge has meant that planners have been ignoring community gardens in planning policy and literature, and inadvertently creating barriers to the creation of community gardens. This thesis argues that planners should become involved in creating, protecting and promoting community gardens, because of the multiple benefits that they offer. To aid them in this task, plans from around the world have been searched for planning policies that relate to community gardens. These plans have then been used to guide recommendations on how the South Australian planning system can aid community gardens.
This thesis will seek to promote the promotion, protection and creation of community gardens in the South Australian planning system. Firstly, a case will be made for the promotion of community gardens by urban planners, by explaining the benefits of community gardens. The literature on urban planning for community gardens will be discussed to give understanding and context to the issue, and then the state of planning for community gardens in South Australia and Australia will be ascertained by searching for planning policies that relate to community gardens. International planning policies will be examined to find the types of policies that could be used in South Australia to promote community gardens. Lastly, recommendations will be made for how South Australia can better plan for community gardens.
This introductory section will explain the broad global factors affecting the food supply, the implications for Australia and the role that planners can play in increasing food security.
6. Conclusion
This thesis has concentrated on a way that planners can improve people's food security – by supporting the development of community gardens. It has been shown that community gardens can also contribute to other desirable outcomes, such as improved health, crime reduction and community building. A literature review has found that the literature on urban planning on community gardens is not well developed, and that the broader concept of urban planning and food is still a relatively new field of planning. Most of the literature comes from the USA and Canada, and very little comes from Australia. Critical analysis of the literature and policies was limited by the lack of negative or dissenting views on community gardens, and research into the effectiveness of the policies. The low awareness of the importance of planning for food could explain why there are so few planning policies in Australia that relate to community gardens. Hopefully, this will change. Planners are well- placed to aid the development of community gardens, and there are a wide range of policy options of aiding in their creation, promotion and protection. To stimulate change in South Australia, a range of planning policies from around the world have been discussed, which have guided recommendations for how the South Australian planning system can plan for community gardens at the state and local level. The task now is for community groups to push for the recommendations to be put into policy, and for planners to recognise the benefits of community gardens, and aid in their development. By doing this, wider social and environmental causes will be aided, and cities will be better prepared for future food price increases from the decline in global agricultural production, and the double threats of climate change and peak oil.
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