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Posts Tagged ‘sense of community’

The Miracle of Tiny Gardens

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , on May 29, 2026| 2 Comments »

Photo: Annette Hornischer/American Academy in Berlin.
Kate Brown, MIT Professor and author of Tiny Gardens Everywhere.

It’s reassuring to think that small actions of many people can have a significant influence on what happens in the wide world.

In April, Kendra Nordin Beato of the Christian Science Monitor interviewed Kate Brown, a woman used to thinking very big, about how small improvements to improve urban living can play a role in saving the planet.

“Kate Brown, a professor of environmental history at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and an award-winning author,” says Beato, “has examined the wake of large-scale disasters and the massive challenges they create.

“On a smaller scale, Dr. Brown is also an avid gardener. Her most recent book, Tiny Gardens Everywhere: The Past, Present, and Future of the Self-Provisioning City, probes gardens as small patches of resilience, resistance, and regeneration.

“By studying histories of select European and North American urban gardens, she explores how these spaces helped to build communities centered on cooperation and mutual support. They also hold a promise, she says, for cities as places of sustainable food production. …

Kendra Nordin Beato
“What drew you, as an environmental historian, to this subject of urban gardening?

Kate Brown
“I wrote two big nuclear histories – and then about the environmental and health effects of Chernobyl, which were profound. As I worked on these big histories, I would think, once people find this out, it is going to change everything. And then it doesn’t.

“Countries are threatening each other as if it is the Cold War all over again with nuclear weapons. And then I started to think that maybe part of the problem, maybe these big histories – problems on a planetary scale – add to our sense of anxiety, apathy, you know, that we can’t do anything about it. I can’t get a U.N. resolution passed. So what can we do? We can do something on a very local level; we can do something in our own backyards.

“I love to garden. As you see in the book, my friend and I decided to plant a food forest around this mothballed school. And there I was, out in the street, and I got to know my neighbors in this really amazing way. I had lived there for 15 years and all it took was just to be out with a shovel in my hand to meet the guy who is always a porch sitter and get to know the kids who are running around. So that’s where I started to connect the simple act of planting a garden – especially in a visible place, whether that’s a front yard or public land – with community.

Beato
“One theme in your book explores how regenerative it is to extract life from seemingly little pockets of wasteland. …

Brown
“We call gardening recreation for a reason: because it’s fun. Gardeners find it fascinating to go out, mess around, see what happens, see what works. And it’s the small scale of it that makes it enjoyable, not drudgery. 

“Gardeners work with the environment. You treat your soil well; every worm is sacred. I abandon my garden every summer here in Cambridge [Massachusetts] for two months. I pack in the seeds, I set up a sprinkler that goes off at 5 every morning, and I have a lot composted from my kitchen compost. And when I come back, there’s really no space for weeds because all these plants – the beans are growing in the squash, the melons I didn’t even plant are vining their way around the potatoes and the garlic – all I have to do is come back and harvest, because this little space is self-propagating. …

Beato
“Why do you think gardens can strengthen, as you call it, civil societies?

Brown
“Not all community gardens are the same. [For instance, consider 19th-century factory workers in Berlin who] go to the edge of the town and they see all these sand dunes, basically. And so they take manure and the scraps from the brewery and the scraps from the sugar beet factory, all this organic material, and they build soils. … First it’s these miserable little gardens on sand, these poor little struggling plants. But then, within 10 years, they’re quite lush. And then, in another 10 years, most of the infrastructure is botanical. And so, people come together in these self-actuated communities, and they are living there, too. They start to build the sinews of what we would now call a social security network. They take up collections for people whose shacks burned down, unemployment collections, microloans to one another, and these places become very resilient. They weather war and famine. …

“We just did a YouGov Poll and asked a cross section of Americans what they do with their front-yard gardens. And 16% of Americans use their front yards to grow food. Then we asked: Did you get a lot of pushback? Did your neighbors complain? … Most of them – well over 60% – said, ‘Oh, my neighbors just compliment me. And a lot of them ask for advice because they want to do the same.’ So we found that these front-yard gardeners clustered together. Once somebody broke the mold, others wanted to follow. And so, we’re thinking there’s a quiet revolution against the institution of the American lawn that’s going on regardless of political affiliation. 

“In case you are thinking, ‘Oh, this can’t happen in a big country. This can’t be part of modern life,’ think of the Soviet Union [when it was a] nuclear superpower. By the 1990s, 96% of the potatoes people were eating were coming from tiny garden plots. We can go a long way toward feeding ourselves with these tiny urban spaces.”

More at the Monitor, here.

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How Small Towns Build Trust

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on July 26, 2023| 6 Comments »

Photo: Enita Jubrey.
The Citizen’s Academy of Windsor, Connecticut, lets participants view historical documents dating back to the 1600s in the town clerk’s vault. 

Have you heard of the Citizen’s Academy movement? It was new to me. According to the Christian Science Monitor, there are about 1,000 in the United States. They help to build trust in local government and a sense of community.

Sarah Matusek and Sara Lang have a report at the Christian Science Monitor.

“The lifeguard’s legs disappear into the pool. A few tense seconds pass. He emerges with an arm around a limp young man whom he hauls to the deck for CPR.

“The audience applauds. Over a dozen Coloradans on bleacher seats are touring Woodland Park’s aquatic center, a sparkling, tiled complex with ample lap lanes. They convened earlier that April evening to learn about Parks and Recreation … the city department that hires local teens as lifeguards. The evening’s visit is part of an eight-week citizens academy, which ends with a graduation ceremony.

“ ‘It’s been super interesting,’ says Dan Carroll in the pool parking lot. His doubts about the building’s $11.9 million expense to the city were quelled, he says, after learning about its use.

“ ‘I’m going to promote it,’ says Mr. Carroll about the academy program. ‘I think more and more people need to know how the city operates.’ …

“The programs educate civic-minded folks about the gears of local government, and how they might chip in. Proponents also say they have a role to play in shoring up trust.

“ ‘It’s a cheap, easy, very direct way to get meaningful community engagement,’ says Michael Lawson, Woodland Park city manager. …

“The town of roughly 8,000 in conservative Teller County has had its share of community tension recently, with national attention on its school board, which has sparked local protests.

“The city itself, however, doesn’t run schools. Neither does it handle social services like food benefits – that’s the county. Explaining the limited purview of what the city does is a key feature of the citizens academy, Mr. Lawson says. …

“The programs, which go by different names, can last several weeks and are often free. Participants meet local officials like the mayor and visit a range of departments – public safety, waste management, zoning offices – led by local staff. 

“Citizens take advantage of local services daily, like when they turn on the tap or take trash to the curb, but that exists as ‘background noise for most people,’ says [Rick Morse, professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Government]. Through citizens academies, he adds, ‘that faceless bureaucracy now becomes a person.’

“That’s a lesson the Decatur 101 program in Georgia tries to hit home. Participants receive ‘a book with a picture of all the people that have talked and what their job description is and what they do,’ says Shirley Baylis, business development manager, ‘so they know how to reach each of those people.’

“Dr. Morse conducted a 2016 survey of 658 citizens academy participants across six states. He found 84% of respondents said their program ‘somewhat or significantly positively’ shaped their level of trust in local government.

“A behind-the-scenes look at the water treatment plant in Wichita, Kansas, inspired a perception shift for participant Christopher Parisho. 

“ ‘I already knew it took a while and that it was really expensive, but now I had a better understanding of why,’ he says. … Understanding how your city works doesn’t just help in knowing the right person to field complaints, he adds. It can help someone ‘reach out to the right people when something is done right.’ …

“Several participants say learning about the fiscal responsibility and budgets of their towns is compelling – after all, cities and states can’t rack up debt as easily as the federal government. That includes longtime Woodland Park resident Catherine Nakai. She joined the program in early 2020, between volunteering on a local land-use board and running for City Council. 

“ ‘I understand the budget a whole lot more,’ because of the program, says Council member Nakai. …

“Staffing is one area that citizens academies report as a challenge, in terms of the time commitments the programming demands. [And] broadening access to a wide range of residents presents another hurdle.  

“That’s why Alachua County Citizens Academy in Florida tries to ensure its sessions take place along community bus loops. In Georgia, Decatur 101 offers evening and morning sessions to accommodate different schedules.

“Matt Leighninger, director of the Center for Democracy Innovation at the National Civic League, challenges programs to think beyond the hope that spreading the gospel of government functions will automatically invoke trust. That’s a ‘defensive posture,’ he says, and not always earned. Public officials can also work to better trust their constituents.

“ ‘It’s not enough just to say: Here’s how government works,’ says Mr. Leighninger. ‘The question really should be: Here’s how a government could work,’ with more citizen input.”

More at the Monitor, here. No firewall.

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