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Declining burial rates and limited grave tenure mean that many cemeteries in Germany's capital are largely empty, in contrast to the increasingly crowded city around them. Some have been left to go wild: sprouting trees and underbrush that are home to birds and foxes. Their unsanctioned use—by guerilla gardeners, beekeepers, and dog walkers—is common. In an effort to normalise these activities, the Protestant Cemetery Association invited community groups to 'activate' several of their sites, showing a willingness to recast cemeteries as 'green infrastructure.' These activations follow a long history of repurposing 'fallow' lands in Berlin, which has increased as skyrocketing land values have intensified competition for space. The spatial politics of 'sunsetting' burial grounds are complex and highly contingent. Through interviews, photographs, and participant observation, this piece asks how emotionally charged sites for memorialisation transition to neighbourhood amenities, with a particular focus on the power of greening as something bordering on a civic religion in Germany. It also looks at the future of ageing cemeteries that, in the next decade, will close completely. These desanctified lands have been promised twice—as sites for housing and community facilities, and as climate-mitigating parklands—putting densification and urban greening at loggerheads. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents an agent-based model that explores the conditions for ongoing participation in community gardening projects. We test the effects of Ostrom's well-known Design Principles for collective action and use an extensive database collected in 123 cases in Germany and two case studies in the Netherlands to validate it. The model uses the Institutional Analysis and Development (IAD) framework and integrates decision mechanisms derived from the Theory of Reasoned Action (TRA). This allows the analysis of volunteer participation in urban community gardens over time, based on the garden's institutions (Design Principles) and the volunteer's intention to join gardening. This intention is influenced by the volunteer's expectations and past experiences in the garden (TRA). We find that not all Design Principles lead to higher levels of participation but rather, participation depends on specific combinations of the Design Principles. We highlight the need to update the assumption about sanctioning in such systems: sanctioning is not always beneficial, and may be counter-productive in certain contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Urbanization is increasingly compromising residents' connection to natural habitats and landscapes. With established relationships between human–nature connection (HNC) and pro-environmental behaviour and human well being, there are calls for effective interventions to strengthen HNC in urban settings. However, much of this research has operationalised HNC in narrow psychological terms. Based on an embodied framework of urban human–food connection (HFC) as a specific dimension of HNC, this article explores the role of active urban gardening in promoting different types of internal and external HFC and their link with pro-environmental food behaviour (PEFB). Based on a quantitative survey in Germany addressing vegetable gardeners in Munich (N = 254), a principal component analysis extracted four components of HFC comprising external body-related HFC (i.e. immediate urban garden-body activities: food harvesting and experiential food interaction) and internal mind-related HFC (i.e. immediate urban garden-mind activities including food discovery as well as food consciousness). These were found to be statistically related to one another. Furthermore, regression analysis revealed that food consciousness through concerns on food consumption and environmental impacts as well as food as part of life attitude as an internal HFC is the sole predictor of PEFB. The study suggests an embodied HFC model emphasizing the need for local body- and mind-based nature connections for fostering earth stewardship. Future research should explore the relationship between inner dimensions of nature connectedness and external behavioural change to enable transformations towards sustainability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Different forms of urban agriculture have gained increased interest and participation in Germany. One form of urban agriculture is self-harvest gardening where participants can lease a plot in a field with various vegetables. However, in Western Europe, little is known about self-harvest garden participants and providers or their motivation and social background. Therefore, in 2015 a survey was conducted with 173 participants and 34 providers from different regions and cities in Germany. The study aimed to compile a self-characterization of people engaged in this form of gardening on a national level. The outcome of the survey captures an emerging phenomenon. While many of the self-harvest gardens can be assigned as grassroot initiatives, participants generally characterized themselves as having a middle or high income, a sustainable lifestyle, high level of education and high nutritional awareness. Disproportionally often, females were engaged in self-harvest gardening. Providers were mainly farmers with a high affinity to organic agriculture. Often the farmers had synergistic effects with other activities like farm shops. Location of the garden area, good support by the providers, promotional marketing and social activities were identified as factors for successful self-harvest gardens. The main incentive for the participants seem to be their engagement in the production of local and healthy food, which can be taken into account by the providers when considering their future focus. On the other hand, problems with bad harvest, theft and vandalism were challenges for some self-harvest gardens. While, legal problems were not a major concern for the providers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Plate illustrating the different spatial scales of the concept of "biodiverse edible schools." The different scales contribute to a deeper understanding of local, nutritious, and fresh food production and consumption, and establish links to biodiversity in educational and outdoor-related programs of school curricula. • The "biodiverse edible schools" concept links local urban nature and healthy food. • The concept allows children to experience food production and to improve their diet. • The concept includes a school kitchen, a garden and a neighboring vacant wild site. • Working with wild edible plants raises awareness of healthy food and biodiversity. • Cultural and provisioning ecosystem services of urban nature elucidated. Policies to move us towards livable, sustainable cities need involvement and support from urban societies. For children in particular, as future players in urban development, experiences in nature provide a basis for further interactions with nature and increase awareness of environmental issues. However, children are spending less and less time in nature, which threatens the development of environmentally aware behavior and can have negative health impacts. Schools are critical for environmental education, and there is a long tradition of schools serving as sites of food production and consumption, although consideration of biodiversity is often absent. We argue here for a concept of "biodiverse edible schools" that link food production and consumption with local biodiversity. This increases opportunities for children to better understand both urban nature and healthy food. We highlight the role of edible wild plants as a promising vector for coupling the usually distinct fields of food and biodiversity in the daily life of students. Using a case study from Berlin, Germany, we illustrate how stakeholders from different spheres can work together to bring critical components of biodiverse edible schools to reality. The components of our project include (1) a school kitchen supplied with food from regional producers; (2) a garden on the school's grounds for producing food; (3) a neighboring vacant wild site as a habitat for wild edible plants, and, most importantly, (4) collaborative activities in planning, managing, and using the garden and the wild site. This case study demonstrates opportunities and challenges for policies aimed at strengthening the bonds between children and nature, helping them better understand food production, and improving their diet. The concept of biodiverse edible schools highlights promising functions of wild urban land as an informal component of urban green infrastructure that can jointly support cultural and provisioning ecosystem services in cities. [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]

Cities have become major contributors to sustainability problems and, in the meantime, seedbeds for sustainability transformation. Urban nature-based solutions, such as greening strategies that foster urban food production as a cross-cutting issue, promise to have multidimensional benefits for sustainable urban development. However, a conceptual understanding of interlinkages between nature-based solutions and their contribution to sustainability transformation is lacking. The goals of this study are twofold. First, to develop a conceptual model for testing multi-dimensional impacts of urban nature-based solutions supporting social-spatial, social-ecological and individual sustainable transformation. The model has been developed based on the concepts of place attachment, human-food connection and pro-environmental food behaviour. Second, the conceptual model is applied to the example of edible cities. Edible cities can be considered an innovative nature-based solution that provides multiple co-benefits by offering (free) food for urban residents in public spaces. A Principal Component Analysis of a survey among residents of Andernach (N = 380), one of the first edible cities in Germany revealed, in contrast to the conceptual three-dimensional model, a four-dimensional model with high construct validity and reliability. The model comprises a) place attachment, b) experiential and c) material human-food connection as well as d) pro-environmental food consumption. Items of internal emotional and philosophical human-food connection included within the pro-environmental food consumption scale suggested their important role in fostering sustainability. Results suggest that the edible city can be considered a strategy for increasing urban attractiveness and place identity, supporting social bonding and experiential human-food connection by using the edible areas for nature observation and recreation. However, although the residents are well informed about the edible city concept, most residents are not actively involved and rarely use the food provided by the edible city. Thus, they also could not answer questions related to cognitive human-food connection such as estimating the food's taste and health quality. To strengthen material and cognitive human-food connection, policy implications of the results propose the implementation of accompanying information and participation activities. By linking nature-based solutions with sustainability transformation, this study provides conceptual and practical implications for the multidimensional benefits of innovative urban greening strategies such as edible cities. • A multi-dimensional model can assess impacts from edible cities. • It is based on place attachment, human-food connection, pro-environmental behavior. • Edible cities support place attachment and experiential human-food connection. • Internal human-food connection relates with pro-environmental food consumption. • Trust building on food safety in edible cities can support material food connection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]