Shared Ground: Urban Agriculture and the Politics of Land

Urban land is often spoken for long before people arrive. Through policy, speculation, and deeply embedded systems of ownership, land in the city is managed in ways that reflect and reinforce social and economic hierarchies. Within this context, the practice of growing food can appear incidental.

 2025 Inspire Project | Minneola Chester Street Community Garden

More than a decade ago, I wrote my dissertation on the potential of urban agriculture not only to grow food, but to reclaim space and advance new forms of collective responsibility. Since then, I’ve worked on and witnessed projects that integrate agricultural spaces into schools and urban neighborhoods.

During time spent in Oslo, I visited many kolonihager—seasonal garden allotments often located on public land.  These small plots, leased by apartment dwellers and others without private green space, are more than gardens. They are shared landscapes of cultivation, offering access to land in a city where ownership is often out of reach.  

Elsewhere, lasting access to growing space has required stronger legal structures. Community Land Trusts (CLTs), which hold land in perpetual trust for community benefit, offer one such model. Their value lies not only in legal ownership, but in the principles they uphold such as accountability, reciprocity, and permanence.

When applied to urban agriculture, CLTs shift the ground beneath community growing. Unlike gardens that rely on temporary permissions or vulnerable leaseholds, land held in trust allows for long-term cultivation.  This continuity matters. It allows communities to build knowledge across generations, to plan beyond the short term, and to embed food cultivation within broader social and cultural patterns.

Urban development can often feel extractive, yet these models remind us that another relationship to land is possible. In increasingly expensive cities, where multifamily housing is expanding and private land access is shrinking, planners and policymakers must create meaningful ways for residents to connect with land.

Written by Abigail Shemoel