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Chapter 7 Grassroots Gardening Initiatives: Community Gardens in Berlin

Enterprising Communities: Grassroots Sustainability Innovations

ISBN: 978-1-78052-484-9, eISBN: 978-1-78052-485-6

Publication date: 12 January 2012

Abstract

In recent years, quite a number of local initiatives in Berlin have turned former empty lots or brownfields into publicly accessible open (green) spaces, some only temporarily, others on a more permanent basis. A few of those projects – often inspired by those created in New York City – can be identified as community gardens. Collective gardening, in the form of community gardens, is still a rarely known form of creating, shaping and using public space in Germany. However, for more than a decade Berlin has experienced an increase in the emergence of those kinds of grassroots initiatives. Although there are much older examples of open spaces created by and for residents, as discussed below, most of the existing gardens today have been created since the year 2000. The question is, what led to the recent rise in community gardening projects in Berlin? To answer this question, this chapter will examine the local governing context in Berlin in which the recent rise of community gardening has taken place and compare community gardens across a 20-year temporal divide.

Citation

Rosol, M. (2012), "Chapter 7 Grassroots Gardening Initiatives: Community Gardens in Berlin", Davies, A. (Ed.) Enterprising Communities: Grassroots Sustainability Innovations (Advances in Ecopolitics, Vol. 9), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 123-143. https://doi.org/10.1108/S2041-806X(2012)0000009010

Publisher

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Emerald Group Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2012, Emerald Group Publishing Limited