1. Community gardening activities as
a community creating tool
and their meaning for the urban citizens
-Study case: the Seoul forest community garden-
Muhammad. Zia Mahriyar
Kim Gu Hoi
Advanced Urban Sociology
Graduate School of Urban Studies
Hanyang University
2013

2. Contents
• Introduction
• The community gardening as the solution for
creating community in the city
• The Seoul forest
• Seoul forest community gardening activities
• Evaluation
• Conclusions
• References
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3. Introduction
“Yet commercial pressures and artificial attempts at mimicking urban life often
transform public spaces into theme park where symbols rather than experience”
(Castells, 2002, pp.12)
“It should now be clear why the issue of social integration comes again at the
forefront of urban sociology. Indeed, it is the very existence of cities as
communication artifacts that is called into question” (Castells, 2002, pp.14)
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4. Introduction (2)
 There are several concepts that can be implanted to enhance the cities as
communication tools
 In the smaller scale, the community garden can be said as one of the concept
which over environmental and social values
 Can the urban gardening play their role effectively as a community creating tool?
 What are the meanings of community gardening for people?
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5. The research flowchart
Interviews and
questionnaires
Descriptive-qualitative
Comparative assessment
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6. The community gardening as the solution for
creating community in the city
 “The deepest problems of modern life according to Georg Simmel (1903, pp.11)
flow from the attempt of the individuality of his existence against the sovereign
power of society, against the weight of the historical heritage and the external
culture and technique of life”
 The lack of sense of community in urban life requires communication between
each stakeholder in order to be solved
 David Harvey (2008, pp.40) said that “one step towards unifying these (city)
struggles is to adopt the right to the city as both working slogan and political
ideal”
 One of the countermeasure concept that has been popular nowadays includes
community gardening concept
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7. The community gardening as the solution for
creating community in the city
 The community garden has been known with different names throughout the
history:
 Ancient Egypt where the community waste were used for urban farming
 In the 19th century, allotment garden was popular in Germany
 During the World War I and II, victory garden concept was developed in US,
Canada, and UK
 The community gardening activities in most communities are open to the
public and provide space for citizens to cultivate plants for food or
recreation
 One of the well-established examples of community garden is Seattle’s PPatch program (Hou, 2013)
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8. The community gardening as the solution for
creating community in the city
 The community garden in Seattle has been started since 1970s by Picardo P- Patch
in Seattle
 It has been important feature of community-based place-making in recent
decades
 Gardening provides locally grown food, reduces dependency on imports, supports
community building, promotes active living, and empowers marginalized
communities
 To support the development of community gardens, the city of Seattle establish
the P-patch program in 1973. Since then, about 80 sites have been created around
the city and more are being added (Hou, 2013, pp.75)
 This community gardening activity has been implemented in various urban8 areas
around the world nowadays

9. The Seoul Forest
 The location of Seoul Forest community garden is near by Arisu Water
Purification Center. The community garden area is 773.63㎡ or 0.06% from the
total site area.
 Seoul Forest community garden accept about 40~50 applicants.
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10. The Seoul Forest
- History-
 Seoul Forest had been a royal hunting ground since the
reign of King Taejo of the Joseon Dynasty.
 Ttukseom is also well-known as the place that
accommodated the first water purification plant of
Korea.
 The Seongsu-dong area, of which Ttukseom was a
part, was developed into an industrial zone in the
1950s, and the Seoul Horse Race Park was
established in Ttukseom.
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11. The Seoul Forest
-Social, Urban, Environment context Seoul Forest provides Seoul citizens with a valuable
arena for various daily cultural activities, from simple
rest and leisure to more sophisticated art
events, through which people of all ages and
backgrounds can mix together and enjoy refreshing
cultural experiences.
 Seoul Forest is regarded as a life space that helps Seoul
to revive its natural vitality, and as a strategic point
linking all of the city’s forests.
 The construction of Seoul Forest was guided principally
by environment-friendly practices aimed at creating a
forest that breathes with nature.
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12. Seoul forest community gardening activities
- Actor and institutional context-
Source: the interview and questionnaire results, 2013
 The Seoul forest love community is run by 6 active members
 There are 10 people join the community gardening activities individually or with
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their family, and 40 people join from companies or other social groups

13. Seoul forest community gardening activities
- Importance(Participants’ perspective)
The Seoul forest community gardening offers:
Mental health
• Opportunity to connect each
other
Economic benefit
• Not so high, but you can
Natural
environment
get priceless mental
• Feel healthier
consciousness and be
• Grow their own natural
closer to nature
foods
Source: the interview and questionnaire results, 2013
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14. Seoul forest community gardening activities
- Importance (2)-
(Participants’ perspective)
• Based on the questionnaire answers, people see the main function of urban
gardening as ecological and social  It indicates that there is a changing of
activities orientation
• The volunteer said that they want to continue to do the activity
• Strong social cohesion
• Enhance sense of community
Source: the interview and questionnaire results, 2013
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15. Seoul forest community gardening activities
- Importance (3)-
(Organization and government perspective)
• The Seoul forest community gardening is also born from the main goal “the
improvement of communities”
• The importance of this activity for Seoul forest love community , Seoul green
trust, and Seoul city government is the creation of community which then uses
this community gardening activity as the catalyst to achieve this goal
Source: the interview and questionnaire results, 2013
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16. Seoul forest community gardening activities
- Local impact-
Mental Healing
Healing
Focus
Community Values
Citizens will be able
to feel the same way
Care
Source: the interview and questionnaire results, 2013
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17. Seoul forest community gardening activities
- Conflict-
• Community gardening member aspect
 Seoul
Forest
community
garden have no conflict in the
join membership. Because the
concept of urban gardening in
Seoul Forest is to educate the
member.
• Management officer aspect
 Actually the community garden is an informal program.
 The site of community garden owned by Arisu Water Purification Center.
Source: the interview and questionnaire results, 2013
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18. Seoul forest community gardening activities
- The differences to other gardens-
 Things that makes urban gardening in Seoul Forest different is
educational concept.
 second thing is the variety of member. Because of management officer
open the recruitment via internet so, not just Sungdong-gu people join
but also all over the Seoul city.
Source: the interview and questionnaire results, 2013
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19. Evaluation
 The individuality of urban-life style and segregation between them (stakeholders)
has become the importance issues
 How the bond between people can be strengthened?
 Some development trends nowadays:
 The destruction of traditional community
 development of exclusive apartment complexes
 sub-urbanization with low density
 The iconic flagship projects which has been omnipresent as the government
efforts to improve their city’s global image tend to have less value to the
community because of their non-inclusivity
 In short, what the urbanites need are the facilities or spaces that has meaning for
them
 Is it the case for the Seoul forest community gardening?
 What is the meaning of Seoul forest community gardening activities for people?
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20. Evaluation
- The Seoul forest community gardening as a community creating tool Activities bring together people which some of them did not know each other
 Gardening together, making kimchi, drinking and eating foods together was
mentioned to strengthen social cohesion
 These point has been emphasized as the difference to other types of gardening
The participants:
 Has joined for around 1 – 2 years
 Doing gardening 3-4 times a week to 2 times or more per months
 Gardening in the week-end and week-day afternoon
<shows the sustainability>
 Feel proud to be addressed as the Seoul forest community gardeners
<shows the existence of value of community>
 Come by walking to around 1 hour trip by car
 Some come with family, as individual, or as a group
 Mainly know the Seoul forest community gardening from internet
<Participants come from different places and social characteristics. Yet the
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community gardening can unify the diversities and grow the sense of community>

21. Evaluation
- The meaning of Seoul forest community gardening activities for people-
 The natural environment and mental health are the main values
<exclusion of economic value shows the change of main orientation>
The community garden:
 Is seen as the mental healing process, which give people chances to interact
 Is natural environment
 Offers mental and environmental consciousness as something that cannot be
bought with money
 Has the community development effect to the city overall
<Seoul forest community gardening has the natural environment, mental health and
community development meanings>
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22. Conclusions
From all of the discussions, we come into conclusions that:
1.
2.
The community gardening activity creates the new community from the people
that did not know each other at the first time. The togetherness and sharing
between participants enhance the social cohesion and create the community
values
The meaning of community garden to the people are the natural environment
exposure, mental healing process, and community development
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23. References
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Castells, M,. 2002. Urban sociology in the twenty-first century. Cidades- Cominidades e
territorios. Dez. 2002, n. 5, pp. 9-19.
Harvey, D., 2008. The right to the city. New left review 53.
Hou, J., 2013. Community ‘owned’ public space: Seattle’s alternatives to POPS. Sustaina
ble urban regeneration. Vol.25.
Kim, S, E., 2013. A comparative study on park marketing strategies by operating agenci
es. Seoul national university.
Lee, H, A., 2008. The process of Seoul Forest park’s cultural establishment and the role
of civil organization. Chugye university for the arts.
Lee, J, Y., 2012. Determinants of demand for Seoul Forest Park. Sejong university.
Wirth, L., 1938. Urbanism as a way of life. The American journal of sociology. Vol.44. Th
e University of Chicago press.
Simmel, G., 1903. The metropolis and mental life. Die Großstadt und das Geistesleben
Seoul Forest Homepage. (http://parks.seoul.go.kr/)
Min, K, K., 2013. Urban agriculture booms in Seoul. the Hankyoreh.
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