Exploring the ties between community attachment and community gardens
Date Issued
2015
Date
2015
Author(s)
Lee, Lok Yi Lorraine
Abstract
The concept of people-place relationships has been widely discussed in various academic fields of study, including landscape, environmental psychology and geography. Among different scales of people-place relationships, urban communities has been gaining much interest due to urbanization. Community is defined as a place where people live closely together; community attachment implies the emotional bonding between people and community (Trentelman, 2009). Extensive literature exists regarding both factors and benefits of community attachment. For example, a longer length of residence in the communities is associated with stronger community attachment (Kasarda, 1974). Community attachment is of upmost importance to social development since it brings the society stability, safety and social familiarity. To date, urban greenery has been gaining much attention, much temporary open space in the city are transformed in to urban edible space, and community gardens are a popular choice. Researchers have discovered functions and benefits of community gardens, including revitalizing urban environment, improving community attachment, promoting community interaction and boosting ecological sustainability. A considerable amount of researches focus on influences of community gardens on community attachment of participants, few examined such effects on non-participants. In order to use of the already limited open space in the urban area wisely, exploring effects of community gardens on community attachment to different groups of residents is needed. Recently, Taipei City has launched a Garden City Project in response to white paper proposed by current Mayor Wen-je Ko. It is hoped to transform Taipei into a greener livable city. It is expected that more and more urban edible space will created, and the number of community gardens will increase. In view of this, it is critical to further understand functions and benefits of communities, as well as its influences on community attachment towards non-participants. The purpose of this research is to examine influences of community gardens to community attachment in the urban context. Three community gardens in Taipei City are chosen as survey locations; on-site questionnaire survey and exploratory qualitative interview survey are conducted. The results show that, regardless of groups of residents (active participants, passive participants or non-participants), setting of community gardens would reinforce their community attachment respectively. Overall, community gardens are accepted in three locations. Since community gardens are intended to be built on temporary land use, it is suggested that further researches may focus on changes of community attachment.
Subjects
Community attachment
Community gardens
Urban edible landscape
Urban edible space
Type
thesis
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ntu-104-R01628317-1.pdf
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