Neighborhoods with community gardens tend to have lower crime rates than those that do not. Community gardens provide safe havens for children, parents and grandparents in low and moderate-income neighborhoods. Community gardens provide food for many families, soup kitchens and food distribution centers throughout the City. Community gardens have raised property values and made neighborhoods safer and better places to live. Gardens provide educational, environmental and cultural programs to neighborhoods at virtually no cost to taxpayers.
Community gardens offer a cultural anthropology of the city's immigrants.
The first wave of gardeners in New York City were Southern, people who had grown up on a farm. The next wave was primarily Caribbean, and the newest is Latino. The Lower Eastside of Manhattan has more community gardens per square foot than any urban neighborhood in New York City, Philadelphia, Boston and Berlin. Community gardens are examples of the human capacity to find solutions under the most daunting conditions. The future of community gardens is in jeopardy.