[Community_garden] on cg benefits

[cordalie.benoit at aya.yale.edu]

This is an excellent point.  We divide the values of community managed 
openspace into four categories:

Health; green infrastucture, i.e. instead of storm sewer, air conditioner, 
air purifier, etc.; communal  or social; and finally economic both personal 
i.e. adding to a families food budget, avoided medical costs for persons 
with a healthy diet, regular exercise and  social added value to tax rolls 
that well kept public space contributes and so on.

Obviously these factors interdigitate and reverberate on many levels, but 
the four categories make the values easy to remember and vivid.
Cordalie, Director of Community Gardening, New Haven Land Trust
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "lynng30" <lynng30 at yahoo.com>
To: <community_garden at list.communitygarden.org>
Sent: Monday, March 05, 2007 9:54 AM
Subject: [Community_garden] on cg benefits


> On the economics...
> One benefit that I don't think was mentioned but that
> applies perhaps only to certain cities is the cost of
> maintaining the land.   If gardeners are using
> city-owned land to garden on, city services doesn't
> have to come around to mow, pick up trash or whatever
> they do as regular maintenance.
>
> In Cleveland - a city suffering from problems of many
> vacant lots - a good number of gardens are on
> city-owned land.  It's useful to quantify how much
> money gardeners are saving city services by
> maintaining lots - there could even be an hourly rate
> applied.  The cost of maintaining vacant lots came up
> at a council hearing some time last year.
>
> -lynn gregor
>
>
>
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