The Urban Gardener as a Catalyst for Self-Organisation

A job function exploration in Crooswijk

Authors:

William Voorberg, Aike Janssen & Arwin van Buuren

Year:

2018

Abstract:

To support and facilitate citizens’ ambitions of self-organisation in urban green, the municipality of Rotterdam came up with the idea to appoint an urban gardener in several of its neighbourhoods. For each neighbourhood, the activities, duties and responsibilities of the urban gardener may need to be different according to the ambitions of the local inhabitants, their needs and desires in order to fulfill these ambitions, as well as the neighbourhood’s particular context and dynamics. In order to do so a co-design trajectory with stakeholders from the municipality of Rotterdam, involved citizens, housing corporations and the urban gardener was conducted. The report provides an elaborate description and evaluation of the trajectory.