Spatial justice and heritage enhancement in the urban gardening

Urban agriculture activities can enhance rural heritage by taking care of the tangible heritage and by supporting intangible heritage transmission, re-interpreting the agricultural function through the needs of contemporary city (Branduini 2015). Urban gardens hold a multiplicity of actors that use the space in different ways and share knowledge, tools and skills, not only agronomic, but also social, relational and economic: they can have different feeling of justice. Comparing different typologies of urban gardening (family, allotments, squatter, community, educational, therapeutical) recognized by the COST Action UAE (Simon-Rojo et al. 2015) in three Mediterranean metropolis (Seville, Marseille, Milan), the investigation identifies how social justice (investigated in the ongoing JASMINN project funding by the French National Research Agency) is expressed and translated in a spatial form. Results evidence that transmission of tangible heritage is incisive if deliberately chased by the main aims of the association managing the garden, thus the dissemination of intangible heritage is mainly an intergenerational and intragenerational transmission. The procedural justice is a shared tool: once a rule is a priori defined, the participants accept and follow it, no matter if it concerns the maintenance of heritage, the quality of space, the technique and philosophy of cultivation. The commitments are shared and planned in the meetings and are rarely defined by the garden rules. The specific design of the urban garden 43 has also an impact on its inclusiveness. External partnership and educational purposes are fundamental when the gardeners ask for legitimation of the space. Finally, the three metropolis are pursuing similar actions but with different agendas.