Sponsor
This research was made possible with the support of a Portland State University (PSU) Faculty Enhancement Grant and a grant from PSU's Institute for Sustainable Solutions.
Published In
Landscape and Urban Planning
Document Type
Post-Print
Publication Date
1-2016
Subjects
Gardens, Urban agriculture, Sustainable design, Differentiation (Sociology)
Abstract
As cities take center stage in developing and brokering strategies for sustainability, examining the uneven distribution of green infrastructure is crucial. Urban agriculture (UA) has gained a prominent role in urban greening and food system diversification strategies alike. Despite that it is the preeminent form of food production in North American cities, residential gardening has received little scholarly attention. Moreover, research on the intra-urban variability of home gardens is sparse. In this paper, we use a mixed-methods approach to assess the scale and scope of residential gardens in Portland, Oregon, a metropolitan region renowned for its innovations in sustainability. Using a combination of mapping, spatial regression, and a mail survey, we compare residential UA and the characteristics and motivations of gardeners in two socioeconomically differentiated areas of Portland and one of its major suburbs. Results demonstrate that engagement in UA is differentiated along both spatial and socioeconomic lines, with more educated respondents engaging for environmental reasons and more lowincome respondents relying on their gardens for food security. We contextualize our findings within broader urban processes, e.g. reinvestment in the urban core and displacement of poverty to the periphery. For policymakers, our results suggest the need for sustainability messaging that is sensitive to a variety of motivations and that resonates with a diverse population. For a city to reach a broader population, it may need to reframe its sustainability goals in new ways, while attending to the structural constraints to food access that cannot be resolved through local food production alone.
DOI
10.1016/j.landurbplan.2015.12.008
Persistent Identifier
http://archives.pdx.edu/ds/psu/16466
Citation Details
McClintock, N., Mahmoudi, D., Simpson, M., & Santos, J. P. (2016). Socio-spatial differentiation in the Sustainable City: A mixed-methods assessment of residential gardens in metropolitan Portland, Oregon, USA. Landscape and Urban Planning, 148, 1–16.
Description
© 2016 Made available under the CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 license http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
This is the manuscript version of an article accepted for publication and subsequently published by Elsevier. The definitive version can be found here.