The urban gardens in South Tyrol (IT): spatial distribution and some considerations about their role on mitigating the effects of ageing and urbanization
Interest in urban gardening is growing as a means of enhancing social contact and reusing urban spaces. This practice, in fact, has positive effects in social and environmental terms. Because of these effects, urban gardening has spread especially in extensively urbanized and metropolitan areas where land consumption and pollution are more intensive, and also social distress and loneliness are more diffuse. On the contrary, urban gardens are not very common in mountainous areas. The regional graphic in this article illustrates the spatial distribution of urban gardens in South Tyrol, a mountainous region in the north of Italy. The analysis of the graphs shows that urban gardens are concentrated in the municipalities and in the provincial capital located at a relatively low altitude above sea level.