Urban is the New Rural: An Exploratory Investigation of Community Gardens and Urban Agriculture in Vancouver, BC

Abstract

Urban agriculture (UA) is a re-emergent issue in the Global North (Lovell, S., 2010; Vitiello, D., Brinkley, C., 2014a; Morgan, K., 2015). Capturing academic attention with social justice and sustainability, UA remains poorly understood (Hendrickson, M., Porth, M., 2012; Vitiello, D., Brinkley, C., 2014b; Opitz, I., et al., 2016). Given the little academic attention on UA in Canada, this research examines the case study of Vancouver, British Columbia. Focusing on themes of social justice, agricultural capacity, and food systems planning, this research investigates measurements to describes UA development and provides data on UA in Canada. This research follows an exploratory mixed methods design. Research begins with a closed-ended quantitative survey with community gardens in Vancouver, British Columbia, and is followed by qualitative semi-structured interviews capturing detail and explanation. Indicating similar results observed elsewhere in literature, poor social justice can be observed. Despite this, strong development of land capacity and water access are also present.