Master's Dissertation: Growing Cohesive Communities

This research looked in to the potential for urban farms to aid in strengthening communities.  As many urban gardens and farms currently contribute only minimally to local food security, this research hoped to highlight another way in which institutes of urban agriculture contribute to the sustainability of local areas.  Currently, many urban green spaces in large cities face increasing pressure from various development interests.  This research hopes to illustrate one of many reasons that these spaces should be not only preserved by, but also receive increasing support from local governments.  While this research was carried out in London, many of the characteristics of the study, population, and city make it applicable to other large cities, especially New York.

In recent years the UK government policy has become increasingly concerned with discovering innovative ways to build local community cohesion, with a focus on promoting civic interaction that builds trust, understanding and a sense of place.  This paper brings together the concepts of ‘micro-publics’ (Amin, 2002) and ‘open public arenas’ (Healey, 1996) to suggest types of institutions that can serve this purpose and proposes that urban farms are one such institution.  To date, while other social benefits are acknowledged, the majority of research on urban agriculture (UA) has focused on food production and environmental concerns.  Furthermore, there remains a dearth of research looking specifically at urban farms, to which this paper hopes to contribute. This research uses the case study of Hackney City Farm in Hackney, one of the most diverse boroughs in London, to show how urban farming has the potential to bring diverse groups together and allow cohesion to be formed. Furthermore it shows that, despite concern that building stronger communities can cause exclusion, the cohesion built on urban farms has the potential to be inclusive of the broader community. It closes with recommendations for the increased support of urban farms by local authorities, but allows that further research is needed to increase the robustness of data in this field.

Urban Farms: Fertile Ground for the Growth of  Community Cohesion?