A New Top-Down Governance Approach to Community Gardens: A Case Study of the “We Garden” Community Experiment in Shenzhen, China

Abstract

Over the past few decades, development in China (including Shenzhen) has been led by the State, meaning that the government has been responsible for major decisions in urban construction and management. However, the current enormous contradiction between people’s demand for livability and Shenzhen’s unequal and inadequate urban development means that leaving all the administrative work to the government alone has become unsustainable. Since 2020, Shenzhen has introduced a new urban management approach called “We Garden”, in which the government supports public participation aimed to transform idle public lands into green spaces in the form of community gardens. Because this ongoing but novel community garden experiment is a recent development in China, literature investigating the phenomenon context, especially the associated motivations and governance structure, remains scarce. This paper aims to clarify the governance structure and operation mechanism of the Shenzhen community garden program through all stages: from planning and design through construction or implementation to management. Fieldwork with active participation, direct observation, and semi-structured, qualitative interviews as participant in a nonprofit organization revealed that the Shenzhen experiment was driven by urban environmental public governance rather than individual needs. The community garden development approach is a new top-down governance structure that expands on existing governance types in the literature, while emphasizing the key role that nonprofit organizations play in the process. Therefore, this new governance approach expands beyond the environmental improvement of urban communities, serving as a new mechanism for sustainable public participation in urban environmental protection.

Exploring relations between community gardens and cultural institutions in terms of diverse governance models: A case study of Warsaw and Poznań, Poland

“…This proves the results of Fox-Kamper et al (2018), for example, namely, that a continuum i.e. of six types of governance of community gardens distinguished to date in the literature (see McGlone et al, 1999;Nettle, 2014;Fox-Kamper et al, 2018;Zhang et al, 2022) is suitable for depicting more complex governance variations. However, our study shows that governance structures may also not be stable within the same development phase.…”

“…Applying the categorization of governance models following McGlone et al (1999), Fox-Kämper et al (2018 and Zhang et al (2022) proved useful for identifying relations between cultural institutions and other stakeholders participating in community gardens. At different stages of development, the governance structure in both gardens changed.…”

“…Then, Fox-Kämper et al ( 2018) expanded these five different governance structures by adding a new sixth category called "bottom-up with political and/or administrative support (PAS)", in which the establishment of garden projects benefits from bottom-up dynamics in combination with continuous top-down (governmental) support. Finally, Zhang et al (2022) completed the list with a seventh item, i.e. top-down with public engagement driven by non-profit organizations.…”

Adapting to urban gardening in China: how will policymaking help migrant and native gardeners?

“…Businesses initially funded community gardens, while local government support at the grassroots level started in 2016 (Yuelai Liu et al, 2022;Mai et al, 2023). Shenzhen has constructed 360 community gardens as government initiatives between 2019 and 2023, with plans to add another 120 gardens by the end of 2023 (Zhang et al, 2022;Wen, 2023). The rapid expansion of government-led community garden construction in China is evident.…”