Digging up the earth in New York City: A community-based environmental movement
Item
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Title
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Digging up the earth in New York City: A community-based environmental movement
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Identifier
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d_2009_2013:7d4fc607a514:10180
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identifier
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10432
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Creator
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Ikeda, Yoko,
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Contributor
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Ida Susser
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Date
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2009
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Language
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English
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Publisher
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City University of New York.
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Subject
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Cultural anthropology | Environmental science | Urban planning | community gardens | environmental movement | gentrification | New York | urban environment | volunteerism
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Abstract
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Community gardens are an important green asset to New York City, helping to improve the urban environment and provide accessible open green space to residents and visitors. The unlikely presence of numerous community-run gardens in the midst of densely-populated, highly-valued property is the result of the community garden movement initiated in the 1970s in an effort to reclaim decaying neighborhoods by transforming garbage-filled lots into gardens. Examining the successes and struggles of the community garden movement along with everyday activities that occur within community gardens, this study provides insight into crucial elements required to sustain community-based conservation. Based on participant observation and interviews, this study highlights the oral histories and internal operations of two community gardens with different organizational structures located in two distinctive neighborhoods. The institutionalization of the garden movement and individual gardens, as well as the participation of available and willing volunteers who assume leadership positions are important factors in ensuring the longevity and strength of individual gardens and the community garden movement as a whole.;The community garden movement emerged at a time of New York City's financial struggle. The presence of gardens on city blocks has since affected the gentrification process of the neighborhoods in which they were originally founded. The community garden, once a symbol of a struggling neighborhood and resistance of people against urban decay has grown into a site that symbolizes resistance against overdevelopment and the loss of green space. At the same time, the gardens have become an attraction of a gentrified neighborhood. In the changing neighborhoods, community gardens are more than open green space; they are a democratic space where people of different economic and racial backgrounds come together and interact, a place for community building.;The community garden movement as a true grassroots environmental movement has created communally and voluntarily managed open green space. The creation and maintenance of community gardens attest to the strength of volunteerism in the United States. This study of community gardens shows the possibility of a bottom-up approach to greening an urban area and improving the quality of life in an urban city.
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Type
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dissertation
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Source
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2009_2013.csv
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degree
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Ph.D.
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Program
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Anthropology
