I registered for and completed HORT 435 Urban Horticulture. Described by my peers as a “part two” to Sociohorticulture, Urban Horticulture launched us headfirst into wicked problems, a term I would come to retroactively apply to the course material covered in this class.

 

The layout of this course was a series of case studies followed by a debate modeled off real-life scenarios. The very first case study was a look into sociocultural barriers in urban horticulture, and covid's impact on access to public parks. With each case study our professor requested we find the "big question" of the situation. Without knowing the problem, how could we discuss solutions? For me, this question was "how can equity be assured across all socioeconomic brackets?”

 

In case study two it was "what role does community gardens play in plant biosecurity?". In three I pondered "how can we incorporate horticulture into the structure of our society when most of our infrastructure has already been built?" and four posed the question "how can we increase funding for studies looking into the benefits of horticulture in urban spaces?". The very last case study of the semester ended with me asking "how can garden systems be expanded so that sustainability and garden-based education become an integral part of major urban cities?"

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Guest lecturers were occasionally brought in to give their expertise. One converted an old unused lot into a series of low income housing, another was a doctor that spoke of resilient urban design and planning cities with natural disasters in mind, and a third discussed how to collect and analyze data. All three presented very different topics that offered part of a solution to the question of how we can increase access to nature for everyone. The depth and range of material covered in this class left me sitting with the realization that there is no easy fix to our problems.