How do community gardens contribute to a thriving National Park City: a case study of Chattanooga, Tennessee

On April 3, 2025, Chattanooga, Tennessee became the first National Park City (NPC) in North America. With a long, industrial history, Chattanooga has made quite the pivot from being widely renowned for its low air quality and particulate pollution to being recognized as the Best Outdoor City in the US by Outdoor magazine. The goals emphasized by the National Park City campaign are creating a city-wide common interest of community-led sustainability efforts. While the initiative highlights many important initiatives to make the city more sustainable and resilient, community gardens are noticeably left out of the conversation. This paper argues that community gardens act as an important contribution to our local landscape, providing an array of benefits to the local community including physical, mental, and social well-being of residents, economic stability, and ecological flourishing. In analyzing urban agricultural spaces throughout Chattanooga, this paper poses that community gardens are a critical element of a thriving National Park City. The project begins with a literature review summarizing the historical significance and modern-day functions of community gardens in the U.S. as well as the many benefits they provide. This data is then compared with the existing community-supported agricultural spaces throughout Chattanooga, detailing the various roles they play in the local community. An accompanying ArcGIS web map created using GIS technologies showcases the locations of the gardens throughout the city alongside previously existing census tract data depicting socio-economic variables such as percentage of households below the poverty level, receiving SNAP benefits, owning zero vehicles, and average yearly spending on fresh produce. Other data layers includes previously instated community gardens that are now defunct, major grocery stores throughout the city, and neighborhoods listed under the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Southside Chattanooga Lead Superfund Site to understand the landscape within which these gardens operate as well as the needs they seek to fulfill. The information in both the written and visual portions of this thesis has been combined and used to create a digital StoryMap so that members of the local community can easily understand, access, and utilize this data.