Home Gardening and the Social Divide of Suburban Space: Methodological Proposal for the Spatial Analysis of a Social Practice in the Greater Paris Urban Area

Ségolène Darly, Thierry Feuillet and Clémence Laforêt
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Ségolène Darly: Geography Department, UMR 7533 LADYSS Research Unit, Paris 8 Vincennes Saint-Denis University, 93200 Saint-Denis, France
Thierry Feuillet: Geography Department, UMR 7533 LADYSS Research Unit, Paris 8 Vincennes Saint-Denis University, 93200 Saint-Denis, France
Clémence Laforêt: Geography Department, Cergy-Paris University, 95011 Cergy-Pontoise, France

Sustainability, 2021, vol. 13, issue 6, 1-22

Abstract: This paper explores home gardening geography in metropolitan outskirts, seen as a major asset and challenge of the alternative suburban city model. Studies that estimate the domestic production of backyard gardens are scarce, but they all confirm the persistence of an ancient and “ordinary” phenomenon still firmly rooted in the food landscape of the globalised North cities. To fill a gap in European alternative urban and food systems studies, we focus on the case of two subsectors of the extended suburban belt of greater Paris agglomeration. We designed and performed a spatial analysis protocol that differentiates vegetable garden types to test spatial relationships between environmental and intrinsic factors and assess clustering patterns. We had to overcome several methodological barriers by building an original vegetable gardens database and applying distinct qualitative and quantitative methods. Our results show spatial home gardening patterns differentiation at three intertwined levels: At the micro-level of domestic space (according to the size and share of vegetable plots); at the house block level (according to their socio-economic and built environment profile); and at the level of the housing estates or urban agglomeration (according to the geography of social specialisation).

Keywords: vegetable gardens; home gardening; greater Paris region; point pattern analysis; Ripley’s K-functions (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:13:y:2021:i:6:p:3243-:d:517593

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