Overview

Social changes through urban gardening and farming Gardens are often spaces of hope, expected to solve many problems in a city including food insecurity and climate resilience. In fact, there has been a historical trend of urban gardening gaining popularity during times of crisis. Gardens of Hope is the story of urban gardening in New Orleans in the decade after Hurricane Katrina. Yuki Kato highlights the impact urban gardens have on communities after disasters and the efforts of well-intended individuals envisioning alternative futures in the form of urban farming. Drawing on repeated interviews with residents who began cultivation projects in New Orleans between 2005 and 2015, Kato explains how good intentions and grit were not enough to implement or sustain urban gardeners' visions for the post-disaster city's future. Coining the term ""prefigurative urbanism,"" Kato illustrates how individuals tried to realize alternative ways of living and working in the city through pragmatism and innovation. Gardens of Hope asks key questions about what inspires and enables individuals to pursue prefigurative urbanism and about the potential and limitations of this form of civic engagement to bring about short- and long-term changes in cities undergoing transformation, from gentrification, post-pandemic recovery, to climate change.

Full Product Details

9781479827404

Table of Contents

Reviews

""Greening initiatives like urban gardens are often talked about as contributors to gentrification or places for organized political activism. In this excellent new book, Yuki Kato discovers how gardens are also places for urbanites to generate the hope that positive change in times of uncertainty is possible. With richness and depth, Gardens of Hope changes how we see civic action in cities.""-- ""Richard E. Ocejo, author of Sixty Miles Upriver: Gentrification and Race in a Small American City""

Author Information

Yuki Kato is Associate Professor of Sociology at Georgetown University. She is the co-editor of A Recipe for Gentrification: Food, Power, and Resistance in the City.

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