City Bountiful: A Century of Community Gardening in America - History Book on Urban Farming & Sustainable Living | Perfect for Gardeners, Historians & Eco-Conscious Readers

City Bountiful deals with the history of urban gardening in modern American cities. Many of the gardens were in response to hard times and allowed the poor to grow food for sale or to be eaten, while gardens during wars allowed people of all backgrounds to replace food diverted to the war effort. Helpful as these were, the book shows how too often the men behind these gardening movements had little understanding of the problems poor people were dealing with. The worst example of this was how promoters thought gardening would encourage the urban poor to move to rural areas and take up farming, a laudable goal except for the fact that the poor couldn't hope to buy or even rent land.In spite of occasionally clueless leadership these gardens often accomplished their main goal and produced large amounts of food. Impressive as these results were, whenever hard times ended so too did support for the gardens. They were forgotten until the next crisis and then revived for only as long as absolutely needed before being discarded again. You'd think political leaders would recognize a good thing and stick with it, but neither party seemed enamored with keeping this low cost solution going.The book does a good job of showing both the positives and negative of urban gardening over the decades and doesn't sugar coat failures. The author goes into detail as to why so many gardens failed, including because gardeners gave up on their gardens or the land was developed for other uses. It also shows how gardens were promoted for different reasons besides growing food and flowers, such as teaching, beautification, promoting patriotism and even encouraging assimilation of immigrants. I found the book an interesting read and a worthy addition to my library.