Urban horticulture and community economic development of lagging regions精品.pdfVIP

7 Urban Horticulture and Community Economic Development of Lagging Regions Albert Ayorinde Abegunde Department of Urban and Regional Planning, Obafemi Awolwo University, Ile Ife, Nigeria 1. Introduction One of the global challenges of this era is climate change, arising from global warming and depletion of oxone layer; originally caused by reduction of green spaces on the earth surface. This is because only18% of earth surface is cultivable or capable of growing plants (Omisore and Abegunde, 2000). The rest is occupied by seas, mountains and ice (Encarta, 2005).The little area capable of growing plants (agriculture, landscaping, horticulture and green conservation) is highly competed for by housing, industrial and road constructions and incessant environmental disasters like bush burning, flooding, deforestation and settlement expansion due to urbanization. In other dimension, promoting green space development in the new millennium calls for special concerns from professionals in environmental sciences. The global need for increasing green areas have and may not be easily met in lagging regions of the world where war, famine, environmental pestilence and low income and inadequate infrastructure are on the increase. (Frey, 2000; Amati, 2008). In another dimension, these have made residents living in regions where basic needs of life are not met to care less for their environment (Food and Agr