We analyse the creation of community urban gardens in neighbourhood environments, as a disruptive way of broadening the repertoire of action of the neighbourhood movements that oppose the neoliberal forms of urbanization. The commons and the right to the city combine and generate collective collaboration practices, which favour the construction of communities and the emergence of new forms of citizen participation in local politics.
Since the emergence of the capitalist industrial city, the experiences of urban agriculture have been varied, linked to a wide range of different critical historical situations, carried out or driven by diversity of groups, with different purposes and motivations. Since the end of the 20th century, a relevant part of these experiences has taken the form of communal urban gardens.
In our research, we present two cases in which the neighbourhood mobilization and the creation of community gardens converge: the urban gardens of the neighbourhoods of Benimaclet and El Cabanyal, in the city of Valencia. They combine urban agriculture and neighbourhood movement, as an action to oppose important urbanization projects with a strong impact on the personality, physical and social, of both neighbourhoods.
Researchers: Rafael Castelló-Cogollos & Ramón Llopis Goig.
