Community gardening and the capacity to enrich social bonding in urban neighborhoods

Abstract

This paper argues that the selection of the type of urban green spaces to be integrated into urban neighborhoods is critical in addressing these well-being problems. One of the drivers is the urban migration, where people are relocating themselves to new neighborhoods, cities or countries often with the hope of better economic opportunities and social infrastructure, therefore changing the landscape of the new society and the place they reside. It is worrying as these people might not receive enough social support due to their limited social network. It could further escalate to social well-being problems such as individualism and social isolation and could later be manifested mentally or psychologically as loneliness. Community gardens, as part of urban green spaces, offer meaningful social interaction opportunities that often being missed in the context of modern societies and urban lifestyle. Therefore, there is a need to review the effects of community gardening activities as an intervention strategy to strengthen the degree of social bonding to identify its capacity in integrating isolated people back into community life. As a conclusion, urban designers and policymakers are suggested to adopt community gardens as a safe open space in cities to encourage more people-people-places interaction.

Seeds, soil and social connections: growing community in community gardens

“…Recent literature on CGs show a variety of approaches to analyzing these social phenomena: from their role in urban placemaking (Wesener et al 2020), to the garden's ability to improve urban policy and design and create participation in community life. (Sharif and Ujang 2021). There is also a focus on the model of social capital as it is created and utilized by CGs to yield increased cooperation and mutual benefits (Christensen 2017;Kingsley et al 2020).…”

Bibliometric Analysis and Mapping of Articles Published on the Degree of Urbanisation Method in the Scopus Database

“…It was also reported that the demands of the growing population have created considerable problems for cities and become one of the most significant challenges for city management. It has been demonstrated that urbanisation has an impact on the urban population health caused by declining in the acreage of public open space in the city areas and the limited availability of urban infrastructures (Sharif & Ujang, 2021;. All of these problems become the most significant challenges for city management, due to the fact that the needs have grown far faster than public management capabilities .…”