Tracing regime influence on urban community gardening: How resource dependence causes barriers to garden longer term sustainability

Abstract

This article explores how resource dependence leads to barriers to urban community gardening. Nine barriers to urban gardening were identified: finance, space, organizational structure, water, external damage, soil, communication, interpersonal issues, and participation issues. Using process tracing and grounded theory, we found that these barriers could be divided into three groups: primary, secondary, and participation barriers. Primary barriers are caused and directly influenced by the regime, whereas secondary barriers are the result of decisions and actions taken while addressing the primary barriers. All of these barriers cause frustration and affects the ability of the gardens to retain and acquire new members. This affects the longer term sustainability of the gardens and their potential to contribute to an urban governance transition.