The article spends a lot of time talking about the extent at which community gardens can serve as an effective alternative to current green infrastructure that is already promoted by New York City. While the article does give an solid case for why the city should have more incentives, financial or not, for municipalities to start growing community gardens. The biggest issue however with community gardens is that fact that there are several existing environmental conditions that require fixing before community gardens can become an effective and widespread thing in the city. We have spent plenty of time in class talking about how to address the different that come up with dealing with storm water runoff and full sewage systems.
We have talked about green infrastructure that treats grey water before releasing onto green roofs. Furthermore, the idea of permeable concrete on both sidewalks and roads has been an issue of discussion. It is clear that there are several benefits to community gardens. However, for us to address that issues that prevent those gardens from coming into fruition in New York City, it would probably be more beneficial in the short term to give government designed incentives to programs that promote conditions that would allow for these gardens to succeed in the city.
Despite the problems with trying to promote community gardens as a form of green infrastructure in the city, that does not mean the public cannot continue to utilize gardens. It would probably be a useful learning experience for kids especially to learn how to deal with community gardens in schools. This would obviously allow for kids to have more contact with nature as well as give the abilities to perhaps participate community gardens in the future. After all, even if the city decides to promote these gardens as a form of infrastructure, it would pointless if potential financial incentives for gardens would go to people and municipalities that were already planning for community gardens.
