Policy Name: Koloniträdgårdars and Urban Green Spaces
Availability and use of space are critical aspects of urban life, with local governments continually attempting to negotiate how public spaces are and should be utilized. Demand for “natural” spaces embedded into the fabric of urban life has been a part of the Swedish consciousness for more than a century. Through decades of resident intervention and requests for public green spaces, Sweden has become an example for how important the integration of green spaces is to city dwellers. There are multiple ways to access nature in and around major cities in Sweden, including Stockholm and Malmö.
Public parks and conservatories are excellent examples of what green spaces can look like. In addition to these more traditional forms of urban green spaces, however, major Swedish cities have placed an emphasis on natural spaces where their residents can grow and garden. One example of these garden spaces is what are called Koloniträdgårdars, plots of land that are owned by individual residents as designated spaces for them to garden and connect with nature. These plots are typically located around the outskirts of the cities, because they were originally created to bridge the gap between rural Sweden and their developing urban areas. If residents do not want or are unable to obtain a Koloniträdgårdar, there are also many public gardens scattered throughout cities, in public parks or created from empty spaces, where they can spend time or plant a garden.
Location: Large cities in Sweden including Malmö and Stockholm.
Population: 10.3 million people in Sweden. Approximately 65,600 people in Malmo and 2.5 million in the outer metropolitan area of Stockholm.
Food Policy Category: Urban Agriculture
Program/Policy initiated:
Koloniträdgårdars were created early in the twentieth century when rapid urbanization drove people to cities for job opportunities, which increased challenges like poor sanitation and insufficient living space. A proposed solution to the difficulties of urban life was to create plots that residents could buy that were close to the city and gave city dwellers a space to relax in nature. Throughout the twentieth century there was a boom in the creation of Koloniträdgårdars around major cities so that there are currently about 51,000 such plots.
Similar to Kolonitradgardars, urban gardens were created because residents wanted to grow food and flowers within the cities where they lived. They started coming together to form associations and petition their city municipalities to repurpose unused spaces to create more gardens, which the local governments of major Swedish cities responded positively to by granting their petitions.
How it Works:
Although Koloniträdgårdars are owned by individuals, all of the plots are distributed through a city registry. Each city has its own registry and keeps track of all available and claimed plots. Residents can apply for a plot through their city’s registry, and when one becomes available the resident can claim it and start paying a membership fee that serves as rent on the plot. There is no time limit on how long one can rent a plot, so many people keep their plots for upwards of twenty years.
Urban gardens work a bit differently. First, any already established urban garden is open to the public to spend time in as they wish. Most urban gardens also accept volunteers to participate in the actual gardening and maintenance of these spaces. There is no specific process for creating a new garden, and they are basically formed residents banding together to form associations that then present their petition to the city. If the petition is granted, the city begins to search for available space that would meet the requirements for a garden, such as healthy soil and access to water.
Program Goals:
The overall interest in abundant urban green spaces comes from a belief in the mental and physical benefits of consistent interaction with nature, whether through gardening or just spending time in a natural space. These gardening spaces aim to offer residents a refuge from the struggles of city life. Oftentimes individual gardeners and resident associations have specific goals for the spaces they are stewarding; such as focusing on engaging children outdoors, teaching permaculture, or facilitating neighborhood relationships and a sense of community.
Progress to Date:
Koloniträdgårdars have been around for more than a century where plots were primarily used as utility gardens to provide food and a natural space for families. But throughout the late twentieth and into the twenty-first century they have morphed into more ornamental gardens used for leisure. As urban gardening has gained popularity the world over, younger generations have become increasingly interested in how they too can steward urban land.
One current difficulty is that the number of people interested in obtaining a plot is much greater than the number of plots that are available. Plots are owned by individuals who have obtained them through their city’s registry, with the owners being the ones to maintain the space. Though the public is invited to spend time within the Koloniträdgårdars, they are visitors to the green space, the public is not typically invited to help maintain the plots or decide what is grown within them. Once a person no longer wants their plot, they cease paying membership fees and the land goes back into the registry system. Plot owners typically keep their plots for decades, meaning the ability for the current generation of residents to own their own plot has become difficult, sometimes with a wait time of decades for a plot to open back up. This is another reason urban gardens have become so important and popular: they have become an accessible way for residents to steward land.
Why it is important:
Firsthand accounts of elder stewards cite the mental and physical benefits of urban green spaces, with university studies confirming their assessments. Cecilia Senfors, associate professor of psychology at Stockholm University, found through her research that people who frequently visit greenspaces “have better health outcomes, in terms of fewer depressive symptoms, less anxiety, better sleep and fewer feelings of loneliness and social isolation.” The ability to consistently move your body, have tasks that need completing, and spend time with neighbors, helps residents maintain a better quality of living overall.
In addition to the physical and mental wellbeing of urban garden stewards, green spaces in Sweden offer community-centered spaces where people from different backgrounds can come together to learn, grow, and share resources, which also creates a way to integrate immigrants and new Swedish citizens into the community. As the gardeners themselves put it in an ethnographic study by researcher Ida Åberg, “A potato and radish look exactly the same regardless of what language you speak…which means you can communicate on a level that ignores many things that pull people apart and I think this is an important thing with gardening”. More than simply providing a place to be neighborly, these green spaces can create a place of refuge and a resource for marginalized communities throughout Sweden.
Similar practices:
The urban gardens of major Swedish cities are in many ways similar to those in other global cities like New York. In New York City, the organization GreenThumb, which was established in 1978 in response to the abandonment of public and private land, is a volunteer-run urban program with approximately 550 gardens that operates under the auspices of the NYC Parks Department. The way they create and maintain garden space is similar to the urban gardens in Sweden in that they are both resident-led and resident-maintained. The ecosystem of community gardens in NYC, though impressive, is, however, just a small-scale model of urban gardening spaces when compared to the country-wide implementation of green spaces in Sweden. This comparison begs the question as to what urban gardening might look like in the US on a larger scale and with more governmental support.
Evaluation:
The physical and mental wellbeing of residents has been greatly supported by the sheer number of green space available in the major cities of Sweden. The access to nature, fresh produce, and community has reduced anxiety and loneliness. And this support goes beyond creating more mental and physical health on an individual basis to address the way Sweden views resident participation in urban planning.
The ability of residents to demand and create green spaces that are encouraged and supported by local governments makes them part of the decision-making process, which in turn makes them feel that they have a responsibility to show up for their cities and communities.
The produce coming out of Swedish urban gardens and plots is significant; however, the concept of urban gardens as spaces to improve food security and aid the local food economy is a relatively new one. There are programs and urban farms, like the Stadsbruk methodology developed by Botildenborg, an incubator farm program at one of Malmö’s sustainable farms, attempting to integrate into the local food economy. This program is a way to create a connection between urban farmers and municipalities, provide farmer training, and support farmer access to resources. The farms modeled on this methodology have been gaining traction in Malmö as the incubators that facilitate farmer training and also sell their crops to local restaurants, but only time will tell if the program and methodology can be be replicated throughout the country. But whether or not urban agriculture as a whole will significantly change the local food economy in Sweden, the desire for urban gardens and green spaces seems only to be growing.
Learn more:
Sweden’s Secret to Well-Being? Tiny Urban Gardens. NY Times.
Urban farming-a growing trend in Malmö. Talk of Cities.
Imagining Urban Gardening Space: An Ethnographic Study of Urban Gardening in Sweden. Ida Åberg.
Stadsbruk-A Winning Concept in Urban Farming.
The New Urban Gardening Commons: Creating Spaces of Care and Connection. Urbanscapes.
Kolonilott Explained. Swedish Herald.
Community gardening in Stockholm: participation, driving forces, and the role of the municipality
