Long-lasting change in America’s cities has to be driven from the ground up. Broad improvement with significant staying power requires the active participation of neighbors, community members, and teachers, not just organizational staff like the people who work at the Trust for Public Land or the Greater Newark Conservancy. That is why the non-profits strategize with city residents – to make sure that any change is supported and motivated by neighbors themselves. Beyond parks, people can also change a city’s feel and enhance its “social capital” by taking part in community greening, block beautification, and even establishing a community garden.

More Than Just Gardening (01:35)

The community gardening program and its many tangent programs, like flower barrel plantings and neighborhood garden contests, all rely on the power of individuals to come together and make a commitment to improve their city block from the ground up. Phyllis Bradley tells the story of the Richelieu Place community garden in her neighborhood, and how it has brought people on her Vailsburg block together. Not only does it beautify what was once a vacant lot, the garden provides vegetables that are shared among the neighbors and even serves as a great discussion hub for people strolling down the block, young and old. Phyllis grew up in Newark and could not remember ever seeing a vegetable garden.

Community gardening is often hampered by the challenges of securing a vacant city lot and recruiting enough neighbors to keep it viable. Community beautification, where one simply works at making one’s own property greener, has fast become a city campaign. With nudging help from the Conservancy, many property owners in a wide variety of neighborhoods have dedicated time into building gardens, flower beds, flower barrels and pots, or even just hanging flower boxes. We meet many of these Newarkers, from different wards, as we follow the Conservancy’s community greening coordinator Bryan Epps. He escorts volunteer judges around the city in the annual Greater Newark Conservancy City Gardens contest. These home gardeners, old and new, talk about how their gardens have enhanced, not just their own lives and properties, but encouraged others in the neighborhood to step up and do something to improve the block. In fact, one of the most popular categories in the annual contest is the “Best Block” award, where neighbors work together to coordinate a block greening and try their best to get maximum participation from the total block. The point is reinforced often: this is not just about gardening, but about bringing people together, which in turn builds community. Community-building, neighborhood by neighborhood, is the steadiest, surest way to improve a city.