"A community garden is a place to go ...
To learn and educate;
To feel as part of the natural earth 
  (the bricks and mortar are the elements of the environment 
  that create anxiety and pessimism);
To develop a mechanism for communication, information sharing and networking;
To preserve and provide for the highest and best use of valuable resources;
To reduce the expenditure of cash for food and exchangeable materials;
To have peace of mind.
A community garden is a place to go to communicate 
  with earth, nature and oneself." 

"You need to give these youths a better perspective on life itself, and there's nothing better than growing things."

"Working on a garden not only beautifies the neighborhood and makes it safer, but teaches youngsters the value of hard work and improves their outlook on life."

"The garden has become an instrument of power that enables them to make the neighborhood safer and more beautiful."

"There's something nice about planting something alive. I really feel like I'm making a contribution to society. That's a big problem in contemporary life. Everybody just takes and takes and takes. You buy things. You're constantly in a consuming kind of situation. With the garden, I really feel like I'm changing things. I feel like I'm adding something."

These are some of the feelings that exist regarding a gardening program in a deteriorating community. Such a "Community Gardens" program has already been started in East St. Louis that aims towards using work force from the community for the production of vegetables and flowers, which can later be sold in the farmer's market.

Unlike other towns, where there is a shortage of land, this city faces the problem of having a large area of abandoned or vacant land. The other physical challenges for planning in this city are the location of the entire town in the flood plain along the Mississippi river and contamination of soils with heavy metals, especially lead, due to the many industries that existed here.

Why a community garden?

Advantages

Gardening programs provide an opportunity to occupy abandoned and other derelict properties which is something that is needed in this community to discourage criminal activity from taking place. This would not only provide employment to the people in the community, it would also help in bringing greater interaction amongst the members of the neighborhoods. An interaction between the members of the community will will result in safer neighborhoods; where children could again play outside their homes. Another advantage of this alternative is that one does not have to locate large tracts of land, but rather a few adjacent vacant lots could be utilized for this activity. This localized activity can provide a livelihood for old people, children, and single mothers with young children who could have otherwise not been able to travel to a far-off distance to work.

The sites that will be identified will form a hierarchy of spaces that would vary in their scale in terms of the numbers of people working in these gardens, ability of people to commute, demand of a particular type of crop, etc. (home-based, neighborhood/ community, or commercial production), identified all over the city with a centralized unit managing all these sub-units for marketing the produce. It would, in addition, have other activities like training programs for gardening and other skills like canning and food preservation which would equip the community with skills related with the primary occupation of agriculture.

Identification of vegetables

The challenge that we face here, is that of low-lying land, with a high water table and sites that are contaminated with heavy metals such as lead, mercury, etc. There is hardly any data available about the distribution of contaminated soils over the city, except for the CERCLA sites that have been identified by the Environmental Protection Agency as superfund sites that need to be cleaned up. Running soil tests is not a very feasible solution because of the high costs, as well as time involved in the process. Hence, we have to look for approximations and suggest alternative plantings that can achieve one of the following:

• a. Assist in detecting pollutants - A study done by Israeli researchers shows that egg plants and pinto beans among twenty other species, can be used to our advantage for the detection of pollutants by monitoring the extent of damage.
• b. Reduce contamination - Crops that will not be consumed but will actively take up contaminants from the soil.
• c. No adsorption/absorption of contaminants - Some plants that do not take up contaminants can be grown as produce.

Site Selection Criteria

For siting the three levels of garden sites that would enable us to achieve our objectives, certain site selection criteria were spelled out. These can be summarized as follows:

• Available land - The land that was considered to be available for siting gardens was identified as land in public housing, public land, open and vacant land.
• Hazard waste sites - All the land that was declared by the environmental protection agencies as being polluted was excluded from available areas. A buffer was created around these sites depending upon the degree of pollution associated with them. For example, a 1000m buffer was created around CERCLA sites whereas the other sites that were not as highly polluted, had a buffer of 250m around them.
• Interstate, Truck & rail routes - Since the gardens do not do well in highly urbanized sites, it would be advisable to site them away from Interstate highways and truck routes. These routes are prone to heavy traffic and continued construction activity which has a detrimental effect on the soils. No garden sites will be placed within 10000m of an Interstate highway or 500m of railroad tracks and 200m of a truck route. These distances were determined based on the intensity of traffic that one would expect on these routes.
• Flooding - Gardens will be designed according to the flooding situation in an area. Only the constantly flooded areas will be eliminated from the available areas.
• Selection of home-based, community and commercial garden sites - The sites that were considered suitable for gardens were categorized into three types on the basis of the area of land available, size of the neighborhood, proximity to community gathering places like churches and schools, etc. The garden areas are as follows:
  • Home-based gardens - less than 10,000 square meters.
  • Community / Neighborhood gardens - less than 25,000 square meters but greater than 10,000 square meters.
  • Commercial production gardens - Areas larger than 25,000 square meters will be used for commercial production. These would be located in areas on the outskirts of the city to facilitate shipping of the produce as well as have larger chunks of land available for this type of agriculture.

The Design

The design process consisted of the following steps:

1. Landuse feasibility study - In this the potential sites were identified after running an analysis using the Geographic Information Systems tool ARCINFO

Conclusions

The community garden program has reached such a stage when more and more people have started responding to it favorably. At this point, as planners, we should make an attempt to facilitate this program and help provide employment opportunities for people. This would bring about a positive attitude and optimism amongst the community of East St. Louis.

References

• Westmacott, Richard. 1992. African-American Gardens and Yards in the Rural South. University of Tenessee Press, Knoxville.
• Clevely, A. M. 1988. The Integrated Garden. Barrie and Jenkins, London. Boston Urban Gardeners. 1982. A Handbook of Community Gardening.

East St. Louis Action Research Project