sociologal studies

I couldn't agree less with the idea that these studies (the one proposed for St. Louis) are a waste of time.  Last night I met with a City Councilmember whose questions were all about:  how many gardens, who gardens, where do they garden, what good is gardening, how do you know that gardening is good, how do gardens have anything to do with the City agenda, particularly the low-income in-fill housing agenda, why should we spend money on this etc. etc.  He was friendly about gardens and still very clear that we gardeners in St. Paul need to have a very compelling story with reliable data if we expect to get anything from the City at all in terms of support for community gardening.  And since not all City or park or foundation staff are friendly, we need to be doubly aware of the measures we can take to give authority to our claims that community gardening is good for all of us.
 
My reaction to this posting was:  fantastic!  I want to see the tools they develop to measure gardening and I can't wait to see the study results.  Please be sure to disseminate them through ACGA.
 
Anna Wasescha
Farm in the City
1312 Dayton Avenue
St. Paul, Minnesota  55104-6440
651.646.8733 (phone)
651.646.0034 (fax)
a*@tc.umn.edu
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