Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-mkpzs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-23T03:55:32.810Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Ecosystem services and tradeoffs in the home food gardens of African American, Chinese-origin and Mexican-origin households in Chicago, IL

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 February 2016

John R. Taylor ,
Sarah Taylor Lovell ,
Sam E. Wortman  and
Michelle Chan
John R. Taylor*
Affiliation:
Falk School of Sustainability, Chatham University, Pittsburgh, PA, USA.
Sarah Taylor Lovell
Affiliation:
Department of Crop Sciences, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL, USA.
Sam E. Wortman
Affiliation:
Department of Crop Sciences, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL, USA.
Michelle Chan
Affiliation:
College of Applied Health Sciences, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL, USA.
*
* Corresponding author: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

With increasing urbanization and environmental degradation, urban landscapes are increasingly expected to provide a wide range of ecosystem services typically associated with rural areas, including biodiversity conservation and food production. Because residential landscapes constitute the largest single urban land use, domestic gardens have emerged as a topic of research interest and planning concern. The ecosystem services (or disservices) these landscapes provide, however, have not been rigorously measured, nor have tradeoffs between the services they provide been assessed. In this study, semi-structured interviews were conducted with 59 African American, Chinese-origin or Mexican-origin households with on-lot or vacant lot food gardens in Chicago. Crop plants and cultivated ornamental plants on the lot were inventoried and mapped at the species level. A total of 123 edible plant taxa from 25 families and 288 ornamental plant species from 85 families were identified, for a combined total of 387 species from 90 families. Cumulatively, the gardens of African American households were relatively rich in ornamental plant species and families, while those of Chinese-origin households had a depauperate flora. Crop plant richness was more even across sample types. Shade trees and a developed shrub layer were absent from most gardens, possibly representing a tradeoff in ecosystem services in favor of food production. The richness of the aggregate 2.1 ha of residential property inventoried in this study was comparable with or exceeded that of a 34 ha prairie remnant west of Chicago. However, only 35 (9.6%) of the inventoried species were native to the Chicago area.

Keywords

biodiversityagrobiodiversityecosystem servicesgreen infrastructurehome gardensurban agriculturefood securitymigrant gardeners
Type
Research Papers
Information
Renewable Agriculture and Food Systems , Volume 32 , Issue 1 , February 2017 , pp. 69 - 86
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2016 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Aguilar-Stoen, M., Moe, S.R., and Camargo-Ricalde, S.L. 2009. Home gardens sustain crop diversity and improve farm resilience in Candelaria Loxicha, Oaxaca, Mexico. Human Ecology: An Interdisciplinary Journal 37:23p.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
AHS. 2015. Master Gardeners [Online]. American Horticultural Society, Alexandria, VA. Available at Web site http://www.ahs.org/gardening-resources/master-gardeners (verified 7 June 2015].Google Scholar
Airriess, C.A. and Clawson, D.L. 1994. Vietnamese market gardens in New Orleans. Geographical Review 84:16p.Google Scholar
Aitken, S.N. and Whitlock, M.C. 2013. Assisted gene flow to facilitate local adaptation to climate change. Annual Review of Ecology, Evolution, and Systematics 44:367–388.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Akbari, H., Pomerantz, M., and Taha, H. 2001. Cool surfaces and shade trees to reduce energy use and improve air quality in urban areas. Solar Energy 70:295–310.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Anderson, E.W. 1986. A guide for estimating cover. Rangelands 8:236–238.Google Scholar
Avolio, M.L., Pataki, D.E., Pincetl, S., Gillespie, T.W., Jenerette, G.D., and Mccarthy, H.R. 2015. Understanding preferences for tree attributes: The relative effects of socio-economic and local environmental factors. Urban Ecosystems 18:73–86.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brussaard, L., De Ruiter, P.C., and Brown, G.G. 2007. Soil biodiversity for agricultural sustainability. Agriculture, Ecosystems & Environment 121:233–244.Google Scholar
Buchmann, C. 2009. Cuban home gardens and their role in social-ecological resilience. Human Ecology: An Interdisciplinary Journal 37:17 p.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Burghardt, K.T., Tallamy, D.W., and Gregory Shriver, W. 2009. Impact of native plants on bird and butterfly biodiversity in suburban landscapes. Conservation Biology 23:219–224.Google Scholar
Cameron, R.W.F., Blanuša, T., Taylor, J.E., Salisbury, A., Halstead, A.J., Henricot, B., and Thompson, K. 2012. The domestic garden–its contribution to urban green infrastructure. Urban Forestry & Urban Greening 11:129–137.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cilliers, S., Cilliers, J., Lubbe, R., and Siebert, S. 2013. Ecosystem services of urban green spaces in African countries—perspectives and challenges. Urban Ecosystems 16:681–702.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
City of Chicago. 2015. Community area 2000 and 2010 census population comparisons [Online]. City of Chicago, Chicago, IL. Available at Website https://www.cityofchicago.org/city/en/depts/dcd/supp_info/community_area_2000and2010censuspopulationcomparisons.html (verified 7 June 2015).Google Scholar
Clarke, L.W. and Jenerette, G.D. 2015. Biodiversity and direct ecosystem service regulation in the community gardens of Los Angeles, CA. Landscape Ecology 30:357–363.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Clarke, L.W., Li, L., Jenerette, G.D., and Yu, Z. 2014. Drivers of plant biodiversity and ecosystem service production in home gardens across the Beijing Municipality of China. Urban Ecosystems 17:741–760.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cook, E.M., Hall, S.J., and Larson, K.L. 2012. Residential landscapes as social-ecological systems: A synthesis of multi-scalar interactions between people and their home environment. Urban Ecosystems 15:19–52.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Corlett, J.L., Dean, E.A., and Grivetti, L.E. 2003. Hmong gardens: Botanical diversity in an urban setting. Economic Botany 57:365–379.Google Scholar
Daniels, G.D. and Kirkpatrick, J.B. 2006. Comparing the characteristics of front and back domestic gardens in Hobart, Tasmania, Australia. Landscape and Urban Planning 78:344–352.Google Scholar
Denavas-Walt, C. and Proctor, B.D. 2014. U.S. Census Bureau, Current Population Reports, P60-249, Income and Poverty in the United States: 2013, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC.Google Scholar
Dewaelheyns, V., Rogge, E., and Gulinck, H. 2014. Putting domestic gardens on the agenda using empirical spatial data: The case of flanders. Applied Geography 50:132–143.Google Scholar
Eyzaguirre, P. and Bailey, A. 2009. International case studies and tropical home gardens projects: offering lessons for a new research agenda in Europe. Crop genetic resources in European home gardens: Proceedings of a Workshop, 3–4 October 2007, Ljubljana, Slovenia. Bioversity International, 1.Google Scholar
Faeth, S.H., Bang, C., and Saari, S. 2011. Urban biodiversity: patterns and mechanisms. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 1223:69–81.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Galluzzi, G., Eyzaguirre, P., and Negri, V. 2010. Home gardens: Neglected hotspots of agro-biodiversity and cultural diversity. Biodiversity and Conservation 19:3635–3654.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gladis, T. and Pistrick, K. 2011. Chaerophyllum byzantinum Boiss. and Trachystemon orientalis (L.) G. Don—recently introduced from Turkish wild flora as new crop species among other interesting findings from immigrant gardens in western Germany. Genetic Resources and Crop Evolution 58:165–174.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goddard, M.A., Dougill, A.J., and Benton, T.G. 2010. Scaling up from gardens: Biodiversity conservation in urban environments. Trends in Ecology & Evolution 25:90–98.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Gray, E.R. and Van Heezik, Y. 2015. Exotic trees can sustain native birds in urban woodlands. Urban Ecosystems 1–15.Google Scholar
Grewal, S.S., Cheng, Z., Masih, S., Wolboldt, M., Huda, N., Knight, A., and Grewal, P.S. 2011. An assessment of soil nematode food webs and nutrient pools in community gardens and vacant lots in two post-industrial American cities. Urban Ecosystems 14:181–194.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Grove, J., Troy, A., O'NEIL-Dunne, J., Burch, W. Jr, Cadenasso, M., and Pickett, S. 2006. Characterization of households and its implications for the vegetation of urban ecosystems. Ecosystems 9:578–597.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Heynen, N., Perkins, H.A., and Roy, P. 2006. The political ecology of uneven urban green space–The impact of political economy on race and ethnicity in producing environmental inequality in Milwaukee. Urban Affairs Review 42:3–25.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hope, D., Gries, C., Zhu, W., Fagan, W.F., Redman, C.L., Grimm, N.B., Nelson, A.L., Martin, C., and Kinzig, A. 2003. Socioeconomics drive urban plant diversity. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 100:8788–8792.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hunter, M.C.R. and Brown, D.G. 2012. Spatial contagion: Gardening along the street in residential neighborhoods. Landscape and Urban Planning 105:407–416.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Iverson, L.R. and Cook, E.A. 2000. Urban forest cover of the Chicago region and its relation to household density and income. Urban Ecosystems 4:105–124.Google Scholar
Jaganmohan, M., Vailshery, L.S., Gopal, D., and Nagendra, H. 2012. Plant diversity and distribution in urban domestic gardens and apartments in Bangalore, India. Urban Ecosystems 15:911–925.Google Scholar
Kinzig, A.P., Warren, P., Martin, C., Hope, D., and Katti, M. 2005. The effects of human socioeconomic status and cultural characteristics on urban patterns of biodiversity. Ecology and Society 10:23.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kirkpatrick, J.B., Davison, A., and Daniels, G.D. 2013. Sinners, scapegoats or fashion victims? Understanding the deaths of trees in the green city. Geoforum 48:165–176.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kloppenburg, J.R. 2005. First the Seed: The Political Economy of Plant Biotechnology, University of Wisconsin Press, Madison, WI.Google Scholar
Knapp, S., Dinsmore, L., Fissore, C., Hobbie, S.E., Jakobsdottir, I., Kattge, J., King, J.Y., Klotz, S., Mcfadden, J.P., and Cavender-Bares, J. 2012. Phylogenetic and functional characteristics of household yard floras and their changes along an urbanization gradient. Ecology 93:S83–S98.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kortright, R. and Wakefield, S. 2011. Edible backyards: A qualitative study of household food growing and its contributions to food security. Agriculture and Human Values 28:39–53.Google Scholar
Larsen, L. and Harlan, S.L. 2006. Desert dreamscapes: Residential landscape preference and behavior. Landscape and Urban Planning 78:85–100.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Larson, K., Nelson, K., Samples, S., Hall, S., Bettez, N., Cavender-Bares, J., Groffman, P., Grove, M., Heffernan, J.B., and Hobbie, S. 2015. Ecosystem services in managing residential landscapes: Priorities, value dimensions, and cross-regional patterns. Urban Ecosystems 1–19.Google Scholar
Levy, P.R., Gilchrist, L.M., and Association, I.D. 2012. Downtown Rebirth: Documenting the Live-work Dynamic in 21st Century US Cities. International Downtown Association. Available online at: http://definingdowntown.org/report/ (verified 24 January 2016).Google Scholar
Loram, A., Thompson, K., Warren, P.H., and Gaston, K.J. 2008. Urban domestic gardens (XII): The richness and composition of the flora in five UK cities. Journal of Vegetation Science 19:321–330.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lovell, S.T. 2010. Multifunctional urban agriculture for sustainable land use planning in the United States. Sustainability 2:2499–2522.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lovell, S.T. and Taylor, J.R. 2013. Supplying urban ecosystem services through multifunctional green infrastructure in the United States. Landscape Ecology 28:1447–1463.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Marco, A., Dutoit, T., Deschamps-Cottin, M., Mauffrey, J.-F., Vennetier, M., and Bertaudière-Montes, V. 2008. Gardens in urbanizing rural areas reveal an unexpected floral diversity related to housing density. Comptes Rendus Biologies 331:452–465.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Martin, G.J. 2004. Ethnobotany: A Methods Manual. Earthscan, Sterling, VA.Google Scholar
Matsuoka, R.H. and Kaplan, R. 2008. People needs in the urban landscape: Analysis of landscape and urban planning contributions. Landscape and Urban Planning 84:7–19.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mazumdar, S. 2012. Immigrant home gardens: Places of religion, culture, ecology, and family. Landscape and Urban Planning 105:258–265.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McCune, B., Grace, J.B., and Urban, D.L. 2002. Analysis of Ecological Communities. MjM software design, Gleneden Beach, OR.Google Scholar
McDonald, J.H. 2009. Handbook of Biological Statistics. Sparky House Publishing, Baltimore, MD.Google Scholar
McKinney, M.L. 2006. Urbanization as a major cause of biotic homogenization. Biological Conservation 127:247–260.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Méndez, V., Lok, R., and Somarriba, E. 2001. Interdisciplinary analysis of homegardens in Nicaragua: Micro-zonation, plant use and socioeconomic importance. Agroforestry Systems 51:85–96.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Minkoff-Zern, L.-A. 2012. Pushing the boundaries of indigeneity and agricultural knowledge: Oaxacan immigrant gardening in California. Agriculture and Human Values 29:381–392.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nair, P.K.R. 2006. Whither homegardens? In Kumar, B.M. and Nair, P.K.R. (eds). Tropical Homegardens: A Time-Tested Example of Sustainable Agroforestry. Springer, Dordrecht.Google Scholar
Nazarea, V.D. 1998. Cultural Memory and Biodiversity. University of Arizona Press, Tucson, AZ.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nazarea, V.D. 2005. Heirloom Seeds and Their Keepers: Marginality and Memory in the Conservation of Biological Diversity. University of Arizona Press, Tucson, AZ.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nicholls, C.I. and Altieri, M.A. 2013. Plant biodiversity enhances bees and other insect pollinators in agroecosystems. A review. Agronomy for Sustainable Development 33:257–274.Google Scholar
Nowak, D.J. and Dwyer, J.F. 2007. Understanding the benefits and costs of urban forest ecosystems. In Kuser, J.E. (ed.). Urban and Community Forestry in the Northeast. 2nd ed. Springer, New York, NY. p. 25–46.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Patton, M.Q. 2014. Qualitative Research & Evaluation Methods, Sage Publications, Thousand Oaks, CA.Google Scholar
Pickett, S., Cadenasso, M., Grove, J.M., Boone, C.G., Groffman, P.M., Irwin, E., Kaushal, S.S., Marshall, V., Mcgrath, B.P., and Nilon, C.H. 2011. Urban ecological systems: Scientific foundations and a decade of progress. Journal of Environmental Management 92:331–362.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Reyes-García, V., Vila, S., Aceituno-Mata, L., Calvet-Mir, L., Garnatje, T., Jesch, A., Lastra, J.J., Parada, M., Rigat, M., Vallès, J., and Pardo-De-santayana, M. 2010. Gendered homegardens: A study in three mountain areas of the Iberian Peninsula. Economic Botany 64:235–247.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sattler, T., Duelli, P., Obrist, M.K., Arlettaz, R., and Moretti, M. 2010. Response of arthropod species richness and functional groups to urban habitat structure and management. Landscape Ecology 25:941–954.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Scales, B.R. and Marsden, S.J. 2008. Biodiversity in small-scale tropical agroforests: A review of species richness and abundance shifts and the factors influencing them. Environmental Conservation 35:160–172.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sluis, W.J. 2002. Patterns of species richness and composition in re-created grassland. Restoration Ecology 10:677–684.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Smith, R.M., Thompson, K., Hodgson, J.G., Warren, P.H., and Gaston, K.J. 2006. Urban domestic gardens (IX): Composition and richness of the vascular plant flora, and implications for native biodiversity. Biological Conservation 129:312–322.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Smith, V.M., Greene, R.B., and Silbernagel, J. 2013. The social and spatial dynamics of community food production: A landscape approach to policy and program development. Landscape Ecology 28:1415–1426.Google Scholar
Stockwell, C.E. 2005. Englewood [Online]. IL, Chicago. Available at Web site http://encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org/pages/426.html (verified 7 June 2015).Google Scholar
Swink, F. and Wilhelm, G. 1994. Plants of the Chicago Region. Indiana Academy of Sciences, Indianapolis, IN.Google Scholar
Taylor, J.R. and Lovell, S.T. 2012. Mapping public and private spaces of urban agriculture in Chicago through the analysis of high-resolution aerial images in Google Earth. Landscape and Urban Planning 108:57–70.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Taylor, J.R. and Lovell, S.T. 2014. Urban home food gardens in the Global North: Research traditions and future directions. Agriculture and Human Values 31:285–305.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Taylor, J.R. and Lovell, S.T. 2015. Urban home gardens in the Global North: A mixed methods study of ethnic and migrant home gardens in Chicago, IL. Renewable Agriculture and Food Systems 30:22–32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Van Heezik, Y.M., Freeman, C., Porter, S., and Dickinson, K.J. 2014. Native and exotic woody vegetation communities in domestic gardens in relation to social and environmental factors. Ecology and Society 19:17.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vitiello, D. and Nairn, M. 2009. Community Gardening in Philadelphia: 2008 Harvest Report. University of Pennsylvania Planning and Urban Studies, Philadelphia.Google Scholar
Vogl, C.R., Vogl-Lukasser, B., and Puri, R.K. 2004. Tools and methods for data collection in ethnobotanical studies of homegardens. Field Methods 16:285–306.Google Scholar
Wheater, C.P., Bell, J.R., and Cook, P.A. 2011. Practical Field Ecology: A Project Guide. John Wiley & Sons, Hoboken, NJ.Google Scholar
Wortman, S.E. and Lovell, S.T. 2013. Environmental challenges threatening the growth of urban agriculture in the United States. Journal of Environmental Quality 42:1283–1294.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Yadav, P., Duckworth, K., and Grewal, P.S. 2012. Habitat structure influences below ground biocontrol services: A comparison between urban gardens and vacant lots. Landscape and Urban Planning 104:238–244.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zong, J. and Batalova, J. 2014. Mexican immigrants in the United States [Online]. Migration Policy Institute. Available at Web site http://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/mexican-immigrants-united-states/-Immigration%20Pathways (verified 9 June 2015).Google Scholar