How does culture influence the political and economic processes shaping cities? Socially rich but unprofitable land uses, such as community gardens, create a trade–off between maintaining local character and increasing exchange value. To understand how less profitable land uses can prevail in development conflicts, I examined documents and interviewed advocates for Seattle's P–Patch program, which has secured virtual permanence for its publicly owned garden sites. My historical analysis shows that the P–Patch advocates, endowed with significant cultural capital, appealed to notions of Seattle's place character and leveraged the city's legal–policy infrastructure to institutionalize community gardens within Seattle's urban planning framework. The gardens serve a wide constituency, including many low–income and minority residents, but as neighborhood amenities signifying urban sustainability, they also contribute to gentrification. My findings suggest that residents can leverage culture and local character to protect use value, but equity is far from inherent to this process and therefore requires deliberate consideration.

中文翻译：

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培育场所：城市发展与西雅图 P-Patch 社区花园的制度化

文化如何影响塑造城市的政治和经济过程？社会丰富但无利可图的土地用途，例如社区花园，在保持当地特色和增加交换价值之间创造了一种权衡。为了了解利润较低的土地用途如何在开发冲突中占上风，我检查了西雅图 P-Patch 计划的文件并采访了其倡导者，该计划已为其公共花园用地确保了虚拟永久性。我的历史分析表明，拥有重要文化资本的 P-Patch 倡导者诉诸于西雅图的地方特征概念，并利用该市的法律政策基础设施将西雅图城市规划框架内的社区花园制度化。花园服务于广泛的选区，包括许多低收入和少数民族居民，但作为象征城市可持续性的邻里便利设施，它们也有助于高档化。我的研究结果表明，居民可以利用文化和当地特色来保护使用价值，但公平远非这一过程所固有的，因此需要深思熟虑。