Number of Community Gardens in the US

**A*@aol.com**

Dear Andy, 

The 1996 ACGA survey is probably the last time a serious nose count was done 
of US community gardens - not that it isn't important, but that there has been 
nobody who has been seriously taking the stats - we're all either trying to 
save gardens in our own cities and towns.  The links on our website are 
probably a 10th of all the community gardens in the US - many do not have a web 
presence or are one season, food security start ups. 

That said, I believe that for the purpose of a "factoid" you could say that 
the number hovers, depending on bulldozings and new start ups, between 5 -8 
thousand community gardens. A few CG's have been continually operated since their 
inception as Victory Gardens ( there's a 61 year old garden in Minnesota that 
has that distinction), a large number date to the early to mid seventies like 
the Clinton Community garden  <A 
HREF="http://www.clintoncommunitygarden.org/";>Clinton Community Garden</A> , and new gardens keep popping up every year.  

Demographically, there seem to be more volunteer food security focused 
community gardens poping up in the Southern part of the United States, like the CASA 
Community Garden in Alabama <A HREF="http://www.casagarden.com/";>CASA link</A>
 and Arkansas <A HREF="http://www.arkansashunger.org/gardens.htm";>Arkansas CG 
link</A> .  Poor people and folks of  good will and/or of faith based 
organizations  in southern states seem to feel comfortable with growing food for the 
hungry on a volunteer basis to make up for governmental program short-falls. 

The other area of growth seems to be in middle class communities where 
community gardens become ad hoc volunteer run public green space in addition to 
their food security focus.

Hope this has helped. 

Adam Honigman
Volunteer,
 <A HREF="http://www.clintoncommunitygarden.org/";>Clinton Community Garden</A>

---------- Original Message ----------------------------------
From: ASFisher@aol.com
Date: Mon, 14 Jul 2003 11:27:40 EDT

>What's the latest information on the number of community gardens in the US? 
>The most recent information I have seen is from ACGA's website about a 1996 
>survey. have there been any updates to this information?
>
>Thanks for your help!
>
>Andy Fisher
>Community Food Security Coalition
>POB 209
>Venice CA 90294
>310-822-5410 
>andy@foodsecurity.org
>
>

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