TY - JOUR

T1 - Increasing demand for urban community gardening before, during and after the COVID-19 pandemic

AU - Bieri, Dominik

AU - Joshi, Neelakshi

AU - Wende, Wolfgang

AU - Kleinschroth, Fritz

N1 - Publisher Copyright: © 2024 The Authors

PY - 2024/2

Y1 - 2024/2

N2 - Community gardens are growing in popularity worldwide, especially in densely populated urban areas. They provide semi-public spaces for joint gardening activities and serve as social and ecological retreats. The COVID-19 pandemic and associated restrictions in movement and leisure activities led to a changed demand for urban green spaces, but it remains unclear how it affected the overall trend in demand for community gardens. We measured interest to participate in community gardening between 2018 and 2022 based on a combination of counted application numbers and qualitative responses from garden coordinators. Out of 373 contacted community gardens, 70 replied, distributed across 43 cities in Switzerland, Germany, UK, USA, Canada and New Zealand. We find an increase in demand for participation in community gardens from 2018 to 2022, both based on counted application numbers and memory-based interest in participation. A generalized linear mixed model shows significant increases in applications from 2018 to 2019 (19 %), 2020 to 2021 (25 %) and 2021 to 2022 (16 %), but not from 2019 to 2020 (−0.32 %). These results confirm an ongoing trend of increasing demand for community gardens, with momentary reduced activity during 2020 due to COVID-19 restrictions, followed by a subsequent surge in demand. The peak increase in application numbers in 2021, along with the overall rise from 2018 to 2022, underscores the crucial role of community gardens in an urbanizing world, especially during challenging times. It is essential for urban planners to prioritize meeting this increasing demand as part of their efforts to make cities more sustainable.

AB - Community gardens are growing in popularity worldwide, especially in densely populated urban areas. They provide semi-public spaces for joint gardening activities and serve as social and ecological retreats. The COVID-19 pandemic and associated restrictions in movement and leisure activities led to a changed demand for urban green spaces, but it remains unclear how it affected the overall trend in demand for community gardens. We measured interest to participate in community gardening between 2018 and 2022 based on a combination of counted application numbers and qualitative responses from garden coordinators. Out of 373 contacted community gardens, 70 replied, distributed across 43 cities in Switzerland, Germany, UK, USA, Canada and New Zealand. We find an increase in demand for participation in community gardens from 2018 to 2022, both based on counted application numbers and memory-based interest in participation. A generalized linear mixed model shows significant increases in applications from 2018 to 2019 (19 %), 2020 to 2021 (25 %) and 2021 to 2022 (16 %), but not from 2019 to 2020 (−0.32 %). These results confirm an ongoing trend of increasing demand for community gardens, with momentary reduced activity during 2020 due to COVID-19 restrictions, followed by a subsequent surge in demand. The peak increase in application numbers in 2021, along with the overall rise from 2018 to 2022, underscores the crucial role of community gardens in an urbanizing world, especially during challenging times. It is essential for urban planners to prioritize meeting this increasing demand as part of their efforts to make cities more sustainable.

KW - Coronavirus

KW - Ecosystem services

KW - Greenspace

KW - Health

KW - Sustainable development

KW - Urban planning

KW - Wellbeing

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85182585571&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1016/j.ufug.2024.128206

DO - 10.1016/j.ufug.2024.128206

M3 - Article

AN - SCOPUS:85182585571

VL - 92

JO - Urban Forestry and Urban Greening

JF - Urban Forestry and Urban Greening

SN - 1618-8667

M1 - 128206

ER -