How community gardens serve as ‘third places’ for Detroiters

“More of us are realizing that we are living in some pretty dystopian times, so trying to figure out what it means to be more self-sufficient through food is one of the most immediate ways of thinking about that,” Colvin said.
By Ethan Bakuli
Great Lakes Now
Apr 14, 2025
Excerpt:
Toward the end of 2023, I was newly unemployed and living by myself for the first time.
In between jobs, searching for employment and a means of fulfillment and community, I began to reflect on how my mom got into gardening. In the dead of winter, memories of childhood summers spent pulling weeds, tilling soil and fleeing the occasional garter snake alongside her began to color my mind.
At the behest of a friend, who spotted my loneliness a mile away, she suggested I volunteer at my nearest urban farm. Up until that point, I had been living in Detroit for three years, but struggling to build community or develop hobbies outside of my work life as a news reporter.
So much has been said in recent years about our collective need for third places, spaces for gathering and community outside of work or home, particularly in light of increased social isolation during the COVID-19 pandemic.
I had never considered that gardening, the beloved pastime of people like my mother or the enclave of immigrants I grew up in, could be a step toward belonging. But nationally, the number of applications for gardens across U.S. cities has grown year after year since 2018, according to a 2024 study published in Urban Forestry & Urban Greening.
Read the complete article here.
Source: https://cityfarmer.info/how-community-gardens-serve-as-third-places-for-detroiters/
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