Understanding the predictors of sense of place and place attachment in the community gardens in Roanoke, VA

Community gardens have become a useful tool to minimize the impacts of food insecurity in many US cities. According to the Feeding America’s annual map, the 12.1 percent of Virginians are food insecure, and this rate is 16.9 percent in the city of Roanoke. The number of community gardens is increasing in Southwest Virginia. In order to understand the factors that influence peoples’ involvement and their support for community garden programs, research that investigates the sense of community garden place and people’s attachment to the community gardens is needed. This study has investigated the predictors of place attachment in community gardens and developed a place attachment measurement framework. A content analysis was performed on 32 peer-reviewed articles, six thesis/dissertations, and three technical reports from cooperative extensions of four different universities. This analysis identified five major categories of the framework including visual landscape preference, the symbolic meaning of the place, functional opportunities in the place, natural bonds, and cultural connections. This study also introduces an ongoing community-based participatory research that employs this framework in order to investigate the sense of place and place attachment in eight community gardens in Roanoke. Based on the preliminary findings, the individual predictors under each category and their factor loadings will be presented. The individual and community level predictors and cultural identities that are critical for people’s attachment will be discussed. This will surely help to satisfy people’s needs and expectations and to increase the involvement and support for the long-term success of these programs.