Los Angeles Community Garden

Community gardens are public pieces of land cultivated by members of a community to provide green space, a common meeting place, beautification, education and recreation. These public, green spaces help cut down the costs of groceries and increase the amount of community engagement and self-sustainability. So why did public officials and others want to get rid of them? Most public officials saw these beautiful, community gardens as only a temporary solution to the vacant lot that they were placed in. They were located there to brighten and liven up the space until a more economically sound development could be implemented, like housing, retail stores, restaurants, shopping centers, anything that could produce money. Specifically, these case

This city has created a plot of land for community gardening that is about 14 acres in size. This garden was created by the South Los Angeles Community Garden and the Urban Gardening Program of the Los Angeles Regional Food Bank. The South Central Farm was mainly created since the community’s well-being and health went downhill after the “1992 Rodney King beating and subsequent civil disturbances that exposed the city’s racial and economic disparities.” This large, community garden served as a way for the community of low income to get nutrition and food access, but to also provide social networks, cultural expression, skill development and environmental restoration. One of the problems with this garden is that the city did not offer the previous land owner their right to first refuse the repurchase of the property. With that being said, the previous owner bought it back and the gardeners were forced to evict the land. Obviously, this made the gardeners angry since they were not aware of the negotiation. Despite all of their efforts to keep the land, through petitions, marches, protests, letter campaigns and speaking at council meetings, the land was bulldozed in