Seeding Social Capital? Urban Community Gardening and Social Capital

Søren Christensen

doi:10.13189/cea.2017.050305

Abstract

There is a continuing debate regarding urban community gardening's benefits to local communities, and a particularly interesting branch of this debate has focused on community gardens capacity to encourage and facilitate social interaction, which may generate social capital. Social capital is an increasingly important concept in international research and measures of social capital have been associated with various measures of health. In a meta-analysis of literature published between 2000 and 2016 regarding community gardens' social advantages, through the lens of the concept of social capital, it is demonstrated that several studies substantiate that urban community gardens create social capital, both bonding and bridging, and exhibit indications of linking. It is moreover identified how there is much to be learned from future research, illuminating how urban community gardens can foster social capital, and thus benefit cities and local communities. The meta-analysis finds that mixed methods approaches can enrich future research on how urban community gardens can foster social capital, and thus benefit cities and local communities. Particular promising would be using qualitative methods that focus on the meanings ascribed to urban garden's activities in combination with documenting the sociodemographic, ethnic, and cultural composition of the volunteers and gardeners, in comparison with the local neighborhood in general. The analysis' findings furthermore implicates there is much to be learned from more focus on the structural dimensions of social capital, in addition to the cognitive dimensions, as this would yield a more nuanced depiction of social advantages of urban community gardening.

Highlights

Here defined as an activity based in open spaces managed by members of the local community in which foods or flowers are cultivated, has in the last twenty years been widely promoted as a fruitful way to improve both the physical, mental, and social dimensions of health
The following section analyzes urban community gardening through the concept of social capital, and examines (1) whether and how it is supported that urban community gardening creates or facilitates bonding, bridging and/or linking social capital, and (2) what we can learn from the included studies in terms of urban community gardens fostering social capital
Table 3 below presents an overview of the studies included, including whether the studies demonstrate that urban community gardening fosters social capital; bonding, bridging, and/or linking, and elements identified in each study as important in creating social capital in urban community gardens

Summary

Introduction

Here defined as an activity based in open spaces managed by members of the local community in which foods or flowers are cultivated, has in the last twenty years been widely promoted as a fruitful way to improve both the physical, mental, and social dimensions of health. While social capital in some instances is linked to negative outcomes [21], it is mostly linked to various positive outcomes [22], including improved child development [23], increased mental health [24], lower crime rates [25], [26], reduced mortality [27], lower susceptibility to depression [28] and loneliness [29], higher perceptions of well-being [30], [31] and self-rated health [32], [33] This supports the importance of examining urban community gardening as arenas for facilitating social capital

Methods

Results

Conclusion