Development of Urban Gardening

Origin as well as global development and importance of Urban Gardening
The importance of urban gardening or community gardens is growing worldwide for different reasons. The areas that are available and used for agriculture for example, get constantly reduced due to climate change, migration into cities or the very low prices for food. At the same time the number of world population grows and the impoverishment especially within the cities, as well. For the first time in history and since several years now, there are worldwide more people living in the cities than on the country-side.



Especially in Latin-American and Asian metropolises, but also in the USA, is urban gardening an instrument for the fight against the growing poverty. Not least this is the reason that urban gardening has its origin there. In New York for example they started to build community gardens 40 years ago. Fallow land got taken and used for cultivation. In the beginning only the community and the beautification of the city was in the focus. But the goal became a different one pretty fast: to build gardens for the deserving poor where they can harvest herbs and vegetables.

But also the accident-sensitive supply of the population with food took a part in some countries. In Cuba for example they switched the cultivation of vegetables et cetera to small, sometimes inner-city agricultural businesses. These produce almost fully the needed products for the capital Havana. And in Russian metropolises like Moscow, by now over 50% of the population provide themselves with fresh foods.

In most European cities, in which urban gardening booms since almost 10m years, this trend follows mostly different goals. Here the main component is the social aspect in combination with a healthy nutrition.