People Who Garden: A Closer Look at Urban Community Gardeners in the California Central Coast Region
Social Sciences
Environmental Studies
Urban environments pose many challenges to social, economic, and environmental sustainability. Community gardens hold potential for addressing these concerns by fostering bottom-up, community management practices that embody local sustainability initiatives. However, despite prevalence of support for these spaces cited in literature, politics, and media, urban community gardens are increasingly becoming contested spaces as economic and population growth pressures pose challenges for the promotion and protection of these spaces. This thesis analyzes the implications of this issue using social geography and environmental justice frameworks. Using empirical research methods, I analyzed 189 gardeners in 19 urban community gardens within 3 counties of California Central Coast region to understand the socio-economic and socio-demographic characteristics of gardeners in relation to neighborhood census tract populations. The results show that urban community gardener populations were similar to neighborhood populations in gender and income while differences in age, ethnicity, and food security of gardeners were significant. Showing evidence that both validates and disputes commonly cited generalizations made about urban community gardeners, my research findings highlight the complexity of urban community garden spaces while providing reasons for the promotion and protection of these spaces.
