To the casual observer, community gardens may look like places where people just come to grow fruit and vegetables. Through digging beneath surface appearances, however, the research literature suggests that there is more to the creation of and participation in community gardens than that which is immediately apparent.
The overall aim of this research was to explore and interpret the meaning of community gardens in terms of the sought and experienced well-being of the individuals who participate, and their associated communities. This research was undertaken in the Christchurch/Selwyn district, in the aftermath of the Christchurch earthquakes of 2010-2011.
This research utilised the technique of photo-elicitation interviews to study the meanings attributed to community gardening, in the post-earthquake environment. Five gardens were investigated. Results show that a range of meanings, and well-being outcomes are experienced through a combination of physical, educational, aesthetic appreciation, contemplative, creative and social connections within the garden and within the overall context of nature. Significantly, within the post-earthquake environment, the community gardens can offer participants the opportunity to appreciate life and what it means for them.
Akaroa is a small township situated within Akaroa Harbour, on the southern side of Banks Peninsula. It is approximately 75 kilometres, or 90 minutes by car, from Christchurch City. At the 2006 Census of Population and Dwellings, the ‘usually resident’ population of the township was 510 people. In addition to the usually resident population, Akaroa has a large number of non-resident property owners/ratepayers, many of whom own holiday homes. Many of these holiday homes are available as
casual rentals (i.e., they may be occupied by people other than the property owners). The township acts as a service centre for the scattered population of the outer bays area of Akaroa Harbour, many
of whom work in Akaroa. Akaroa is a popular day trip or short stay destination for Christchurch residents. Akaroa is also known as a destination which draws upon the French heritage of its pioneer
settlers and the associated village charm derived from this heritage. Not unexpectedly, given the size and village character of Akaroa, the increase in cruise ship arrivals and passenger numbers has had an impact upon the town’s community.This research was commissioned and funded by Christchurch and Canterbury Tourism (CCT).
Indigenous Peoples retain traditional coping strategies for disasters despite the marginalisation of many Indigenous communities. This article describes the response of Māori to the Christchurch earthquakes of 2010 and 2012 through analyses of available statistical data and reports, and interviews done three months
and one year after the most damaging event. A significant difference between Māori and ‘mainstream’ New Zealand was the greater mobility enacted by Māori
throughout this period, with organisations having roles beyond their traditional catchments throughout the disaster, including important support for non-Māori.
Informed engagement with Indigenous communities, acknowledging their internal diversity and culturally nuanced support networks, would enable more efficient
disaster responses in many countries.
Millions of urban residents around the world in the coming century will experience severe landscape change – including increased frequencies of flooding due to intensifying storm events and impacts from sea level rise. For cities, collisions of environmental change with mismatched cultural systems present a major threat to infrastructure systems that support urban living. Landscape architects who address these issues express a need to realign infrastructure with underlying natural systems, criticizing the lack of social and environmental considerations in engineering works. Our ability to manage both society and the landscapes we live in to better adapt to unpredictable events and landscape changes is essential if we are to sustain the health and safety of our families, neighbourhoods, and wider community networks.
When extreme events like earthquakes or flooding occur in developed areas, the feasibility of returning the land to pre-disturbance use can be questioned. In Christchurch for example, a large expanse of land (630 hectares) within the city was severely damaged by the earthquakes and judged too impractical to repair in the short term. The central government now owns the land and is currently in the process of demolishing the mostly residential houses that formed the predominant land use. Furthermore, cascading impacts from the earthquakes have resulted in a general land subsidence of .5m over much of eastern Christchurch, causing disruptive and damaging flooding. Yet, although disasters can cause severe social and environmental distress, they also hold great potential as a catalyst to increasing adaption. But how might landscape architecture be better positioned to respond to the potential for transformation after disaster?
This research asks two core questions: what roles can the discipline of landscape architecture play in improving the resilience of communities so they become more able to adapt to change? And what imaginative concepts could be designed for alternative forms of residential development that better empower residents to understand and adapt the infrastructure that supports them?
Through design-directed inquiry, the research found landscape architecture theory to be well positioned to contribute to goals of social-ecological systems resilience. The discipline of landscape architecture could become influential in resilience-oriented multi disciplinary collaborations, with our particular strengths lying in six key areas: the integration of ecological and social processes, improving social capital, engaging with temporality, design-led innovation potential, increasing diversity and our ability to work across multiple scales. Furthermore, several innovative ideas were developed, through a site-based design exploration located within the residential red zone, that attempt to challenge conventional modes of urban living – concepts such as time-based land use, understanding roads as urban waterways, and landscape design and management strategies that increase community participation and awareness of the temporality in landscapes.
The disastrous earthquakes that struck Christchurch in 2010 and 2011 seriously impacted on the individual and collective lives of Māori residents. This paper continues earlier, predominantly qualitative research on the immediate effects on Māori by presenting an analysis of a survey carried out 18 months after the most destructive event, on 22 February 2011. Using a set-theoretic approach, pathways to Māori resilience are identified, emphasising the combination of whānau connectivity and high incomes in those who have maintained or increased their wellbeing post-disaster. However, the results show that if resilience is used to describe a “bounce back” in wellbeing, Māori are primarily enduring the post-disaster environment. This endurance phase is a precursor to any resilience and will be of much longer duration than first thought. With continued uncertainty in the city and wider New Zealand economy, this endurance may not necessarily lead to a more secure environment for Māori in the city.
The coordination of actors has been a major focus for much of the research in the disaster relief humanitarian logistics discipline. While much of this literature focuses on the initial response phase, little has been written on the longer term recover phase. As the response phase transitions into the longer term recover phase the number and types of actors change from predominantly disaster relief NGOs to more commercial entities we argue that humanitarian values should still be part of the rebuild phase. It has been noted that humanitarian actors both cooperate and compete at the same time (Balcik, Beamon, Krejci, Muramatsu and Ramirez, 2010), in a form of behavior that can be described as ‘co-opetition’ (Nalebuff and Brandenburger, 1996). We use a case study approach to examine an organizational model used to coordinate civil and commercial actors for the rebuild of the civil infrastructure for Christchurch, New Zealand following a series of devastating earthquakes in 2010/11. For the rebuild phase we argue that ‘co-opetition’ is a key behaviour that allows the blending of humanitarian and commercial values to help communities rebuild to a new normal. While at this early stage our contribution is limited, we eventually hope to fully elaborate on an organisational model that has been created specifically for the tight coordination of commercial actors and its relevance to the rebuild phase of a disaster. Examining the behaviour of co-opetition and the structures that incentivise this behaviour offers insights for the humanitarian logistic field.
