Why so few garden allotments in the USA?

I’ve always been jealous of their allotment system across the pond (although I’m not jealous of their dreary climate). I think they have some law where if a certain number of residents request garden space, the local government has to designate an allotment area. I wish we had that here. Most cities in the US do have some type of community gardens, usually run by a non-profit and people can rent a raised bed for the season. I see school and church gardens fairly often, but we need more for sure

The housing crisis here in the Vancouver area is creating it's own problems for community gardens and allotments.  Some of the newer condominiums being built include a community garden for the residents-small but useable.

We have some community gardens in our area, but like you say the list to get one is really long.

One of the ideas being floated is for oldies like myself and DH who are still in their houses with established gardens to share their yards with younger families who live in condos or townhouses.  They do the work with a view to getting a share of the produce and some valuable education for their children on food production, pollinators etc.

We have a 60 by 100 foot city lot with a wildlife/pollinator habitat, some raised beds in the front yard.  The back yard is raised beds with a large garden at the bottom of the slope.  It would be nice to anticipate staying in our home as long as possible without having to worry about maintaining the yard.  (Could even be room for a couple of beehives). 

The city we live in is quite small though environmentally friendly, everyone is encouraged to grow a tree and there are stringent bylaws for cutting down a tree.  City council doesn't seem to care how you garden as long as there is no junk or old cars sitting in your yard.

In fact, we regularly have city employees stop by just for a look-see and to praise our efforts.  I guess we really have to look at our methods of  gardening within the cities to create a balance.


 

Well, aren't community gardens group efforts generally, with all those who are gardening there working towards some common goal decided by the majority or whatever? Allotments are spaces you lease and can design / grow as you please on.

desertwoman,

A community garden here could either consist of a large group of individuals farming a community area or indviduals farming a collection of raised beds.


We have very few allotments and they are generally a larger area- some actually have a little gardening shed on them and a large raised bed or planting area.   

alpacasock ,

There’s quite a good description of the history of allotments in this link.

www.allotment-garden.org/allotment-information/allotment-history/

My brief schoolboy understanding or at least the way I was taught was that it was mainly due to the enclosures that happened starting in the 1600’s.

Common land left over from the feudal land system in the Middle Ages was basically being taken into private ownership and people who used to be able to make use of it no longer had that option. As a result there were quite a few movements of people who opposed all this and this combined with the general upheaval in that time frame after King Charles I was executed created some push back for change. Coincidentally King Charles III was crowned today.

There were a bunch of groups that tried to change that perhaps most appropriately the Diggers
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diggers, but also other interesting groups like the levelers (early socialists) and the ranters (heretics who liked worldly pleasures) who were more interested in political and religious change. I suspect the Puritans, Quakers were part of that time frame of upheaval. The levelers were quite interesting especially from an American perspective and believed that all men were equal under the law, with equal rights, freedom of religion and wanted to write a constitution, where have you heard that before.

Over time and with the onset of the Industrial Revolution and the move from rural to town and city living there was a movement to allow people formally to have the right to land. This was set into law with the allotment act of 1887 that compelled local authorities to give allotments to residents who requested them. It also gave authority to local government to compulsory purchase land to do that. Subsequent to that there have been a few laws in acted protecting that right, the allotment act of 1950 made it illegal to prohibit the keeping of chickens and rabbits.

interestingly even today allotments are measured in rods. 10 rods being thought optimal to supply a family with food. The rod in question is based upon the length of the stick that you would need to prod your team of oxen from behind a Roman plough.