Abstract
Allotments gardens in Western Europe developed in the context of the Industrial Revolution. At first, they were seen as a way to alleviate poverty in the working classes. In the regions of Southern Europe where the Industrial Revolution arrived later, urban populations have kept stronger links with the rural world. Allotment gardens were fewer in number and were ignored by governments.
The development of allotment gardens, however, was slight compared with Russia and other Central and Eastern European countries. In the case of France, prosperous populations turned towards owning a house in the country in addition to their city apartment, and more broadly to single-family homes with gardens. From the late nineteenth century, apartments in residential buildings have housed a large portion of low-income groups and part of the middle class. The active relationship with nature enabled by gardening was transformed into a visual and aesthetic relationship with public parks and gardens maintained by professionals or by brief stays outside the city for those who have the means to go on holiday. Tens of millions of city-dwellers are excluded from having an active relationship with nature.
Since the 1980s, the rise in new forms of poverty, as well as sociological and cultural changes, have led to an increase in allotment gardens and prompted public authorities to take a greater interest in them. Vegetable production increases to meet nutritional needs. The city-dweller has rediscovered the therapeutic functions of gardening. He or she has become aware of the major environmental challenges, the need for more independent lifestyles, with more efficiency and solidarity. This has given rise to new allotments: community gardens, “insertion” gardens, and educational or therapeutic gardens. A new generation of family gardens looks like Russian allotment gardens. Everywhere, a new figure in working the soil is emerging in the contemporary urban world: an Urban Grower who is both different and very similar to his Russian counterpart.
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Notes
- 1.
The latest comes from the Ministry for the Equality of Territories and Housing—Ministry for Sustainable Development and Energy. Certu. La maison individuelle, une réponse au logement des Français? (The Detached House, an Answer for Housing the French?) Seminar of Urban Observation, 13 November 2012.
- 2.
Valuation method. The data from INSEE (National Institute for Statistics and Economics Studies) allow for a quantitative approach to second homes (http://towww.insee.fr/fr/themes/document.asp?Reg_id = 0*ref_id = T13F071). They numbered 3,153,000 in 2012. A substantial share (1,334,000) consisted of housing in multidwelling buildings, in particular in cities and tourist areas. Country houses allowing access to soils and other elements of nature constituted a portion of the remainder (1,819,000). On a high-end assumption, where these country houses would be around 1,800,000, and with an average household size of 2.27 occupants, this access mode would concern around 4 million people, i.e. 7 % of the French urban population (56,522,000).
- 3.
Interview with Salvatore Savior, Professor at the University of Palermo and member of the Laboratory of Social Anthropology at the Collège de France. Paris, January 2014.
- 4.
Telephone interview with Erik Gómez Baggethun, Institute of Environmental Science and Technology Faculty of Sciences, Campus de la Universitat Autónoma de Barcelona. January 2014.
- 5.
Telephone interview with Theodosia Anthopoulou, Associate Professor of Social Geography. Dept. of Social Policy—Panteion University. January 2014.
- 6.
Calculation: percentage of the population not going on holiday by size of urban area supplied by a study from CREDOC (Hoibian 2010, p. 12). Agglomeration data size provided by INSEE (Clanché F., O. Rascol). The INSEE data relate to the 2007. The urban population has increased since then. Thus, the figure of 17 million city-dwellers not going away on holiday is certainly a little lower than the reality.
- 7.
This percentage is twice as high for low-income households than for households earning more than € 3,100 per month. CREDOC (Hoibian 2012) notes that these differences are generally growing wider with the crisis.
- 8.
“Urban Sprawl in Europe—The Ignored Challenge”, 2006.
- 9.
See, for example, Pierre Donadieu, Professor at École Nationale Supérieure du Paysage de Versailles.
- 10.
This is a way of bringing nature into the city via an area reserved for “soft” modes of transit (e.g. walking, cycling) or as a natural path that connects densely-populated areas with forests on the outskirts or the open countryside.
- 11.
CREDOC (Hoibian 2010, pp. 47–48).
- 12.
Interview with Raúl Puente Asuero, Comité Pro-Parque Educ. Miraflores Profesor Universidad Pablo de Olavide, Seville. Paris. January 2014.
- 13.
Telephone interview with Frederico Meireles Rodrigues, UTAD, The University of Trás-os-Montes and Alto Douro Department of Forest Science & Landscape Architecture. January 2014.
- 14.
- 15.
Telephone interview with Theodosia Anthopoulou, Associate Professor of Social Geography. Dept of Social Policy—Panteion University. January 2014.
- 16.
Non-profit association (ASBL) attached to the national organisation “National Verbond van Volkstuinen”.
- 17.
Fédération Nationale des Jardins Familiaux et Collectifs (National Federation of Family and Allotment Gardens).
- 18.
COST Action TU1201. http://www.urbanallotments.eu/case-studies: Mary Benson, National University of Ireland Maynooth.
- 19.
See, for France, René Louis Villerme. Table of Physical and Moral Condition of Workers Employed in Manufacturing Cotton, Wool, and Silk (1840). This text is at the origins of the 1841 law that set a minimum age of eight for children to work in factories with more than 20 employees. In 1874, the law on child labour and minor girls in industry set this age at 12 years.
- 20.
Law referred to as the “Speenhamland Law”, 1795 to 1834.
- 21.
Richard Wiltshire, Professor/researcher in public social and political sciences at King’s College, London. Conference for the seminar of the international network “Sustainable Development of Cities: the Relationship between City-Dweller and Nature”, Paris, 5 May 2011.
- 22.
Thorpe Report. Report of the Departmental Committee of Inquiry into Allotments [Chairman: Professor H. Thorpe (Allotments)]. Presented to the Parliament by the Ministry of Housing and Local Government and the Secretary of State for Wales, by Command of Her Majesty. October 1969. London, 498 p.
- 23.
In the United States, the Community Gardens concept refers to both allotment gardens (vegetable gardens) and Community Gardens in the British sense (shared gardens). In France, the term used is “Jardins partagés” (shared gardens).
- 24.
Richard Wiltshire, op. cit.
- 25.
In France, 400,000 so-called “White Russians” emigrated after the 1917 Revolution, mainly becoming factory workers. Several waves of emigration followed because of the Second World War, and then some dissidence.
- 26.
Source: Yann Besse. Communication to the Seminar. Session 1, 22 January 2009.
- 27.
Presentation by François Guillotte, territorial project manager for Habitat Paris, in charge of the Chaufourniers project.
- 28.
Joël Humbert. Interview conducted in September 2011.
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Boukharaeva, L., Marloie, M. (2015). Western and Southern Europe viewed from a Russian Perspective. In: Family Urban Agriculture in Russia. Urban Agriculture. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-11614-3_8
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