Nevertheless, there are significant recurring themes. An important one is the use of gardening to reintroduce "nature" to the city. Urban garden programs provide a participatory experience that connects people living in cities, especially children, to the soil and plant and animal life. In some cases, the garden has served as a foil to the city by providing an avenue for the expression of agrarian values and ethics. At the start of the twentieth century, the urban garden was often viewed as a transitional space, an opportunity to teach immigrants and urban dwellers to love nature and therefore leave the city for the suburbs and country. In the 1930s, the garden was a testing ground for new ideas on how to integrate nature and the city, as in public housing or cooperative housing proposals that included community garden plots. This reconnection with nature is often associated with improving social and psychological health. Today, gardens are often described as oases of green in a concrete-dominated urban world.
Laura J. Lawson, City Bountiful