The value of urban farms and gardens in terms of their potential for supplying a healthy diet to local residents is well known. However, the prime objective of these spaces often differs from one of food production with this being the means by which other outputs are achieved. Valuing these spaces that provide diverse benefits is therefore a complex exercise as any measure needs to incorporate their physical as well as their social outputs. Only through such an integrated approach is the true value of these gardens revealed and the scale of their potential for contributing to health agendas made apparent. Social return on investment studies can be heavily resource dependent and the rapid cost benefit approach advanced here suggests that with limited expertise and minimal invasion of volunteer and beneficiary time and space, a public value return on investment ratio can be estimated relatively rapidly using an ‘off the shelf’ tool. For the food growing area of a London community garden, a return on investment of £3 for every £1 invested is calculated. This demonstrates the contribution that community gardens can make to social wellbeing within cities and justifies a call for further recognition of these spaces in urban planning policy.

中文翻译：

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评估物质和社会产出：对伦敦社区花园的快速评估

城市农场和花园在为当地居民提供健康饮食方面的价值是众所周知的。然而，这些空间的主要目标往往不同于粮食生产，这是实现其他产出的手段。因此，评估这些提供多种好处的空间是一项复杂的工作，因为任何措施都需要结合其物理和社会产出。只有通过这种综合方法，这些花园的真正价值才能显现出来，它们为健康议程做出贡献的潜力的规模才能显现出来。投资研究的社会回报可能严重依赖于资源，这里提出的快速成本效益方法表明，由于专业知识有限且对志愿者和受益人时间和空间的侵入最小，使用“现成”工具可以相对快速地估算公共价值投资回报率。对于伦敦社区花园的食品种植区，每投资 1 英镑计算投资回报为 3 英镑。这表明社区花园可以为城市内的社会福祉做出贡献，并证明呼吁在城市规划政策中进一步承认这些空间是合理的。