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Visiting parks and gardens supports physical and mental health. We quantified access to public parks and gardens in urban areas of England and Wales, and the potential for park crowdedness during periods of high use. We combined data from the Office for National Statistics and Ordnance Survey to quantify (i) the number of parks within 500 and 1,000 metres of urban postcodes (i.e., availability), (ii) the distance of postcodes to the nearest park (i.e., accessibility), and (iii) per-capita space in each park for people living within 1,000m. We examined variability by city and share of flats. Around 25.4 million people (~87%) can access public parks or gardens within a ten-minute walk, while 3.8 million residents (~13%) live farther away; of these 21% are children and 13% are elderly. Areas with a higher share of flats on average are closer to a park but people living in these areas visit parks that are potentially overcrowded during periods of high use. Such disparity in urban areas of England and Wales becomes particularly evident during COVID-19 pandemic and lockdown when local parks, the only available out-of-home space option, hinder social distancing requirements. Cities aiming to facilitate social distancing while keeping public green spaces safe might require implementing measures such as dedicated park times for different age groups or entry allocation systems that, combined with smartphone apps or drones, can monitor and manage the total number of people using the park. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Green activism and guerrilla gardening lie at the more informal end of the urban food growing movement, but little is known about the extent of this practice or the future of such unplanned activities. Accordingly, this paper firstly explores a range of informal Urban Agriculture practices, illuminating the practice within Europe, North America, Africa and other continents. The paper then proceeds to focus explicitly on Salford, UK, where guerrilla gardening is being encouraged by the local authority. Using ethnographic and interview data, we focus on the actors involved, their relationship with authority and the wider impact of their activities; exploring their motives, aspirations, values and beliefs. The results reveal the ability of the informal movement to regenerate ‘forgotten’ space and bring communities together, and the ‘darker’ side of the activity, with actors sometimes restricting access to colonised land. Ultimately, the paper reveals how this movement is expanding and that more research is required to better understand the actions of those who pursue a more informal approach to urban gardening and those who seek to regulate land use activity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents one of the first comparative studies of European garden cities, dealing with those in Denmark, England and Germany. First, the introduction and development of the concept of the garden city in Denmark is reviewed, from the pre-Howardian workers' associations to the height of the popularity of garden cities in 1910-1925, when cooperative societies, housing companies, municipalities, industrial concerns and private owners built garden cities. Second, comparisons are made with England and Germany, where the article partly examines the inspiration behind Danish garden cities, and partly shows the extent to which the concept of the English garden city, in both Denmark and Germany, merged with national, social and political agendas, as well as with cultural and architectural traditions and values. In conclusion, the English garden city was not simply transposed. The terms German garden city and Danish garden city are more appropriate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite an emerging literature on guerrilla gardening as a political practice in public spaces, with few exceptions, these accounts theorise it as working against many corporate and bureaucratic forms of power. Using the example of ‘F Troop’—a group of gardeners operating on a site in an English midland city—this paper focuses on the practices of urban guerrilla gardening in order to illustrate that these are perhaps not as ‘resistant’ or ‘celebratory’ as previous accounts have suggested. Rather, this paper draws on ethnographic data to focus attention on the micro politics of garden activism, arguing that the social backgrounds and motivations of those involved in guerrilla gardening and their relationship with other users of the space surrounding the dig site are also important—but largely underacknowledged—aspects of guerrilla gardening. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

A significant development in urban history was the emergence of the Garden City movement at the end of the nineteenth century, inspired by the writings and actions of Ebenezer Howard. The movement would generate a broad range of urban typologies and various visionary models of the city during the twentieth century. The Garden City was a direct response to what were perceived to be the evils of large industrial cities and attempted to reunite country and town, particularly through the residential garden and the act of gardening. Using Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari's assemblage theory I examine gardens and gardening, and the agencies inherent to these. By evoking the early history of the first Garden City at Letchworth, we can ask what role can gardens and gardeners play in addressing contemporary urban issues? [1]. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]