Newsletter: The Interdisciplinary Magic of Community Gardens
I want to discuss a surprisingly simple idea that’s literally under our feet, with the power to change the world.
But before I get there, I want to share my latest fascination. This fascination can make you and me healthier while uniting our communities. It has the power to lower crime, increase voter turnout, and even help us eat more fruits and vegetables.
It can improve air quality, reduce flood risks, and reduce food waste.
In fact, it has been doing all of these things for decades in New York City. I’m talking about community gardens.
Last month, my partner Shylin and I signed a lease in New York!
There are a lot of reasons why we made this big decision. Personally, traveling has filled me with so much inspiration.
But without a home base, I have lacked a community and place to apply all of what I’ve become so excited by. That’s why, during our first week here, I headed to a local community garden to volunteer.
The minute I walked in, I knew I found something special.
As my foot stepped from concrete to mulch, the hot, stinky, New York summer air turned airy and cool.
“Here, come smell the mint leaves,” the first steward I met told me, a spectacled man with a hat and a man bun, who told me he’s worked in the garden for eight years. I heard birds chirping and I saw butterflies settle onto bright flowers. He showed me the blueberry shrub and the willow hut. “Next season, we’ll have blueberries,” he told me.
My next day in the garden, the DJ with his solar-powered equipment played Puerto Rican classics, and others danced, sang, and played handheld drums.
Each time I’ve stepped into the garden, New York City has transformed before me.
I truly believe that community gardens can change our cities. I write about all their benefits in this new article, Community Gardens Can Save Us: 21 Benefits of These Volunteer-Led Spaces.
But can they really change the world? Maybe not by themselves, but they reveal a powerful lesson that can.
Community Gardens: A Living Lesson in Interdisciplinary Thinking
What has struck me most about helping out is how it intersects with many challenges facing today’s world.
It’s about community, yes, but it transcends that. Community gardens provide healthy food and quality air, reduce stress, and support mental health.
Then there are the benefits to the surrounding ecosystem and the planet. They’re a powerful tool for creating cleaner cities and fighting climate change.
It may be cliché to say that “everything is connected,” but this becomes apparent in a community garden.
How could Puerto Rican drums be linked to food sovereignty? It sounds out of left field unless you’re in the garden nodding your head to the beat along with them, a few feet from the blueberries and tomatoes planted by these same gardener-musicians.
I Reject Society’s Call to “Specialize”
Our society often pushes us to “specialize” and focus on one issue. There are “climate activists” and “social justice activists,” even though those challenges are impossible to unlink.
Colleges often require you to pick a major, to focus on one broad area.
To visualize this, imagine each “discipline” like an island, each separated by sea. In the eyes of society, each island is separate and self-sufficient. But if you look closer at the island, countless species of fish, coral, plants, and other marine life coexist and interact with all the other islands.
Beauty, innovation, and creativity are more often found when we dive in and notice how it all intersects.
When we focus on intersections, we unlock the potential for more holistic and impactful solutions. Instead of addressing issues in isolation, we can find ways to tackle multiple problems at once.
This is also more fun.
My personal enthusiasm for many topics has shown me that this is how my brain prefers to think. (I wouldn’t be surprised if yours does too.)
I felt a physical jump in my body the moment I realized, walking through Barcelona this spring, how important the organization of thin, car-free streets leading into plazas is for the city’s outdoor, everyday social life.
(More on that in this article, Urbanism Lessons from Barcelona’s Gracia District.)
I felt a similar jump when I connected learning a new language to protecting culture and local knowledge.
When I read about the construction of highways, and as I walk under them myself, the jolt strikes me once again as I understand how it links to our affordable housing crisis, continued segregation, and environmental destruction.
(More on that in this essay on The Highways Tried to Kill Hartford.)
It’s through connections that I’ve made my most exciting breakthroughs.
And thanks to these connections I will continue to volunteer in the garden, to fight for many of the issues facing us at once.
As you work on solving big challenges, I encourage you to think about how industries, disparate ideas, and diverse perspectives connect.
It may lead you to somewhere beautiful. In my case, it led me to the local community garden.
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