In September 2014 the Manifesto „The City is Our Garden“ was published and has already been signed by more than 80 initiatives in Germany.
Manifesto: The City is Our Garden
For a few years now new forms of collaborative gardens have been evolving in numerous cities. These urban community gardens are an experimental space for a good city life. Together we, the city farmers, will transform fallow land into meeting places, harvest our own seeds, keep bees between and on top of high-rise buildings, experiment with various types of composting and exercise ourselves in preserving produce. We advocate a city worth living in and an urbanity that is future-oriented. A public space without access limitation or the obligation to consume is very important for a democratic and plural urban society. We are experiencing that on a daily basis.
Urban Community Gardens are:
- Common goods, opposing the increasing privatisation and commercialisation of public space
- A place of cultural, social and cross-generational variety and neighbourly collaboration
- A spot to experience nature, biodiversity, food sovereignty and seed preservation
- An ambience that welcomes participation in the form of designing, preserving and nourishing, thus creating an environment for the cooperative urban society to thrive in
- An experimental space to invent, form, re-use, repair and convert
- Ecological alternatives to soil sealing, fallow land and buffer strips
- Spanning the gap between city and rural agriculture by increasing awareness of high-quality food and that certain kind of agriculture which respects nature’s limitations and inherent worth, global justice and fair production conditions
- A place of environmental education, collective learning, trading and sharing
- Venues of quietness and shared time
- A contribution to a better climate, quality of life and environmental justice
- A vivid alternative to solitude, violence and anonymity.
In Summary
Urban gardens are part of a vivid and sustainable city that is worth living in. Their prominence and numbers are rising continuously. However, their legal status is nonetheless precarious and their continuity oftentimes uncertain. Many municipalities only consider the monetary value of an area, not its impact on the urban space and the metropolitan society.
We summon the politicians and urban planners to recognise the importance of community gardens, strengthen their position, integrate them in the construction and planning law and initiate a paradigm shift towards a garden-friendly city. Similar to the car-friendly city that granted every citizen the right to a parking space, the garden-friendly city should provide urban nature in walking distance. In practice this means:
- Providing the citizens with the right to shape the public place
- Guaranteeing close-to-home, public spaces for non-commercial use and as a learning facility to the citizens
- Implementing high-quality green space and urban nature while taking the needs of the different groups of humans, animals and plants into account.
Urban gardens are our habitat. This is where diversity is gathering, perspectives are growing and a sustainability-based society is evolving. We want our gardens to take root here. The city is our garden.
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