China is still in flux, a complex country with layers and layers of history and stories. In any metropolis, upscale real estate and old buildings coexist. Affluent citizens may live in proximity of rural migrants, while ignoring their existence. A community garden in Shanghai tries to address these tensions.

A straw hat protecting her from the sun, Ms. Gao was busy pruning bush when we arrived to the Knowledge and Innovation Community Garden, an urban garden in a neighborhood near Fudan University in central Shanghai. She is one of the the individuals in charge for this little plot of land, located just a quick walk from a subway station, along streets that have very little resemblance from what I remembered from my visits to the area 30 years prior. Now cute stores and fancy little restaurant pepper the streets, confirming Shanghai’s claim to modernity and coolness.

The contrast between the buildings on the two sides of the garden is quite stunning

The garden is a sliver of green in between two very different worlds. One one side, a luxury complex of tall buildings hovers over the green area. Built by a Hong Kong developer, it boasts square food prices that are not so different from those in large cities in the US. The apartments in this gated community are bought by those who in Shanghai have been able to take advantage of the quick economic development of the country, working in business, finance, or international trade. On the other side, old buildings, recently repainted but still revealing a quite passé architectural style, remind passers by of earlier times, when most housing was publicly owned, with large state-directed companies and government agencies providing cheap but decent lodging to workers. The contrast between these two sides of the garden, so close but at the same time very far from each other, is a clear indication of how China is still in flux, a complex place with layers and layers of history and stories.

In between the two parts of the neighborhood lay a piece of land that legally belonged to the Hong Kong developers but could not be built on because underneath there were water pipes belonging to the city. The sliver of terrain had quickly turned into a dump for construction garbage. It was at this point that just a few years ago a collaboration was launched between three partners: the real estate developer, the local neighborhood government, and a university, which took the lead in the initiative. The project is also meant as an experimental model in participative urban design to verify to what extent different interests and goals can overlap or event coincide to generate shared places.

Old containers have been recycled to create the community center

The garden also has designated areas for kids to play and big shipping containers recycled as community centers, well designed and welcoming, where many of the planned activities take place. Besides providing a green space for the neighbors, the initiative is meant to create a space for public education about nature, the environment, and sustainability. For instance, an installation illustrates the meaning and relevance of water saving, while a large box for composting, donated by a Swedish company, allows citizens to familiarize themselves with the practice itself. It is allowed to walk dogs in the garden; actually, their feces can be picked up by especially designed contraptions and then composted right there, in colorful containers.

Special containers have been designed to recycle dog feces

Another important goal is to support the local biodiversity of plants and seeds, especially for the children. Inside the community center, many drawings show the engagement of the youth with botany, flowers, and growing cycles. Of course, raised beds are available for the cultivation of edible plants, in order to show kids by what fresh vegetables looks like, and what is necessary to do to make them grow. Individuals and companies can also rent square meters of raised bed, the income of which is used to support the garden activities.

Dried seeds and drawings allow children to familiarize themselves with local plants

Overall, there is a strong desire to establish connections with cultural past and the tradition of China. One wall carries verses from the Shi Jing (the Classic of Poetry), the first collection of Chinese poems, dating back to the Zhou dynasty (11^th to 7^th century BCE) and full of reference to agriculture and rural life. As a community activity, the verses were projected on the wall so that anybody could paint following the silhouette of the characters. However, continuity with the past is not only a matter of national political strategy. Chinese cities are full of farmers that either have moved there in search of better job opportunities or have been displaced, becoming involuntary victims of the modernization process. The legal status of land ownership still unclear in China, a situation which allows local authorities to decide what to do, which often means selling to developers for new construction projects. Although farmers were instrumental, back in the early 1980s, to kick start the economic development of the country after the disasters of the Cultural Revolution, they are now second-class citizens, and incomes in rural areas are much lower than in the cities. The national government is well aware of these issues. For instance, in the brand new Century Park, built in 2010 for the Shanghai Expo, an edible garden has been opened to the public. The intention is both to familiarize urban dwellers with edible plants and to highlight their importance for Chinese culture and economics, thus giving a sense of pride to displaced farmers in their skills and knowledge.

Bricks are painted on and hinged to create books

The social inequalities of the new China are physically visible at the Knowledge and Innovation Community Garden. A wall, left over from whatever was there before, does not allow the people from the older (and poorer) buildings to have direct access to the garden and a more convenient route toward the nearby subway station. The volunteers involved with the garden are trying to open a door in the wall to allow physical and symbolic communication between the two sides of the area. Events have been organized in which volunteers undo the wall brick by brick, with all sorts of tools. The bricks removed from the wall are the painted with decorative images but also with more personal stories, and then laid down to dry, the same way seeds used to be laid on the soil to dry. Some of the bricks are then connected by hinges, creating “books” that are meant to tell stories. And many of those stories are likely to be heavy, just like the bricks…

A special thank you to my doctoral student Cheng Qiu for arranging this visit and to Liu Ziwei for leading it.