Guerilla gardening for sustainable cities

by Nick Saltmarsh, SD Scene editor
31 Mar 2010 

Richard Reynolds, recently appointed as one of 15 new London
Leaders for 2010, explains to SD Scene how guerilla gardening and the
Pimp Your Pavement campaign can help make London and other cities more
sustainable.

For Richard Reynolds, a London
Leader for 2010, guerilla gardening is a powerful strategy to help
London become a world-class sustainable city.

His vision is of a city of abundant plots and patches of land
lovingly tended by local communities, the increased plant cover
providing havens for wildlife and helping create a more sustainable
environment for the city as a whole, all with minimal demands on the
public purse.

What is guerilla gardening?

Guerilla gardeners cultivate land in the public realm without
permission. Despite the name, this is no “plant-and-run” activity;
instead guerilla gardeners are committed to maintaining their plots,
returning to water and weed just like those responsible for private
gardens.

Reynolds has been bringing beauty in this underhand way to neglected
tree-pits, borders and forgotten corners of land since 2004, recording
his activities on his Guerilla
Gardening blog. He is the author of On
Guerilla Gardening, an account of illicit cultivation across 30
countries and 360 years.

The Pimp Your Pavement campaign

Reynolds has just launched the Pimp Your
Pavement campaign, an experiment to explore the possibilities of
engaging both the authorities and a wider public audience in the joys
and benefits of guerilla gardening.

Launching the Pimp Your Pavement campaign
in Southwark

The attitude of the British authorities troubles Reynolds, who cites
the arguments thrown at him by officials from local councils and other
public bodies: allowing the public to tend public areas is a health and
safety hazard; public bodies have the resources to do a better job;
council workers will dig up guerilla plants anyhow.

In Reynolds’ experience, these argument just don’t stack up: the
risks are absolutely minimal and far outweighed by the wider benefits;
for all their resources, public bodies don’t successfully tend beautiful
gardens throughout the public realm – and, in any case, surely there’s
an argument for doing it more efficiently, giving resources to local
people prepared to contribute their own time and effort; council workers
aren’t so stupid as to pull up perfectly good plants, leaving many
guerilla gardens to thrive for years.

Embracing the guerillas

Countering any suggestion that his vision is utopian, Reynolds points
to cities where guerilla gardening has been embraced by public
authorities for the greater good of cities and their inhabitants.

In Amsterdam, the city adopted facade gardening, a tactic practised
by guerilla gardeners back to the 80s to make the most of the limited
land available in such a watery environment, planting in narrow gaps
right up against the street frontages of the densely packed townhouses.
In Vancouver, Berlin, Zurich and Essen the authorities have also come to
appreciate the social and environmental benefits of their citizens’
illicit gardening in public spaces.

Closer to home, the Liverpool John Moores University’s Adopt-a-plot project encouraged
families in South Liverpool to take on a neglected plot of land in their
community and transform it through gardening.

Even in London, a “laggard in terms of public spaces” according to
Reynolds, Camden Council has notably gone out on a limb by encouraging
and enabling Shaun Canavan, an elderly and blind resident of Ryland Road
in Kentish Town, who began planting up the treepits of his street for
want of a garden. When the floral plantings became a popular local
landmark, Camden responding by removing paving stones to provide more
open ground.

Releasing control of public spaces

Reynolds hopes the Pimp Your Pavement campaign will help convince
councils, transport authorities and other to let go their control over
the public realm in the realisation that local people can do just as
good a job – if not better – of maintaining beautiful public spaces -and
certainly at less expense.

More sustainable cities

Although the pimping of pavements is an activity at the most local of
levels – just beyond our own doorsteps – the effects Reynolds is
insistent that the effects really can help make cities more sustainable.

The social benefits are perhaps the most obvious, helping build a
sense of community and place in peoples’ immediate surroundings.
Listening to Reynolds’ accounts of his experience, it’s clear that
guerilla gardening is a very social activity, cutting across
generations. As an outlet for self-expression and a relaxing but
physical activity, guerilla gardening also has the potential to improve
well-being and public health.

The environmental benefits are also very tangible, particularly when
the sum of many individual pavement plots is considered. Increased
vegetative cover has been shown to help cool urban environments,
reducing the heat island effect; less concrete and more soil improves
drainage, helping to avoid flash flooding. As the climate changes and we
experience more extreme weather, these benefits will be all the more
crucial.

Benefits for urban wildlife include the creation of natural corridors
and a greater abundance of plants for bees to pollinate.

There are potential economic benefits too, as the contribution of
volunteer labour helps keep the costs of maintaining public spaces down.

An uphill struggle

Reynolds recognises that he’s taking on an “uphill struggle” to
persuade authorities to go beyond silent toleration to encourage,
support and enable communities to care for the public spaces around them
– ideally he’d like to see them sharing resources to help cover the
expenses of publicly spirited guerilla gardeners. But with his unbridled
enthusiasm, commitment and new status of London Leader, he’s got every
chance of succeeding.

http://sd.defra.gov.uk/2010/03/guerilla-gardening-for-sustainable-cities/?utm_source=email&dm_i=A78,...