A political ecology of community gardens in Australia: form local issues to global lessons

The local impacts of global urbanization (e.g. dwindling green spaces, food insecurity, land shortages, loss of biodiversity) have triggered resurgent interest in various forms of urban agriculture (Godfray et al., 2010; Evers and Hodgson, 2011). In many rapidly growing cities across the Global North (GN) and Global South (GS), residents are clamouring for better access to places to grow safe and healthy food, for spaces that foster social inclusion, and improved environmental quality (Guitart et al., 2015). Urban cultivation initiatives are often framed around the social benefits of local food growing and typically seek to be 'sustainable' (Chapters 8 and 9, this volume). These twin goals have important implications for land-use planning and policy, implications that we address in this chapter.