Users' Behaviors and Evaluations of Allotment Gardens

Urban and Regional Planning Review Vol. 6, 2019 | 1

Users’ Behaviors and Evaluations of Allotment Gardens —An empirical research of four allotment gardens in Beijing

Meng YE*, Tomohiko YOSHIDA**

Abstract: The demand for allotment gardens is increasing at unprecedented rates in Beijing, China, and allotment gardens have also shown a trend towards being developed by civilians, but little is known regarding users’ characteristics, user behaviors, user evaluations, and their differences, all of which are essential for the improvement of allotment gardens in terms of satisfying their users and being preserved in China’s urban areas. The allotment garden’s overall evaluation is between good and general, with high evaluations given to landscape and facilities, including public facilities, infrastructures, and landscape environments, with low evaluations given to service and guidance, agricultural festival activities, rent, sanitary facilities, and skilled labor. Users’ evaluations about the provision of farm tools, seeds, and fertilizers, as well as sanitary facilities have positive impacts on an allotment garden’s overall evaluation. Users are inclined to give positive overall evaluations in case in which the allotment garden is equipped with sufficient and premium farm tools, seeds, and fertilizers, as well as clean sanitary facilities. Overall, the evaluations of northern and southern allotment gardens are statistically significantly different, in that northern gardens are better evaluated than their southern counterparts. There are statistically significant differences in terms of the overall evaluation of allotment gardens among the four operation modes. The consortium mode earned the best evaluation, whereas the individual mode had the lowest evaluation.

Keywords: allotment garden, user behavior, user evaluation, evaluation difference, impact factor

1. Introduction

The United Nations has disclosed a prediction that there would be nearly 5 billion urban inhabitants globally by 2030, an increase of 40% (Kabischa & Haasea, 2014)1), and that urban land will increase by 1.5 million km2 by 2030, tripling their baseline estimate of 0.7 million km2 based on MODIS 2001 (Seto et al., 2011).2) However, more than one-half of the world population lives in urban areas without access to agricultural land, according to the European Environmental Agency (2015).(1) Urban agriculture, mainly located in peri-urban open spaces and commonly associated with the idea of the countryside, is now increasingly inserted into city life as a form of urban-rural interface (Torreggiani et al., 2012).3) Allotment gardens (also called community gardens) constitute the only opportunity to engage with activities related to gardening and cultivation for the city’s inhabitants (Da Silva et al., 2016).4) They are often established in the hope of functioning as alternatives to the current food environment, providing chances for urban residents to engage in outdoor physical and social activities, as well as beautifying the urban landscape (Egli et al., 2016).5). Moreover, they are endowed with multifunctionality, including environment sustainability (DeSilvey, 20036); Krasny & Tidball,

* Graduate School of Policy Science, Ritsumeikan University, Japan. **College of Policy Science, Ritsumeikan University, Japan.

20097)), the effective use of vacant urban lands (Holmer & Drescher, 2005),8) social and cultural maintenance, spaces for sightseeing, and opportunities for leisure, experience, and entertainment, hence benefiting all age groups (Milligan et al., 20049); Bowker & Tearle, 200710)) and the whole society (Partalidou & Anthopoulou, 201711); Holland, 200412)). In China, allotment gardens have great feasibility for development because they increase a farmer’s income, promote urban-rural exchange, enrich the lives of citizens, provide lower cost farming opportunities, and also provide educational and nostalgic functions (Wang & Zhang, 2008).13) Chinese scholars believe that the origin of allotment gardens is the high level of urbanization in economic development, and their essence is a combination of urban and rural culture, which they are inclined to define as follows: a form of production and management as well as rural tourism, in which peasants provide the cultivated land and help to plant and manage it, while urban citizens provide capital subscription, participate partly in cultivation, own the products that are harvested, and enjoy the pleasures of the agricultural labor process during this period (Kan et al., 2011).14) Regarding the characteristics of participants in allotment gardens, the development of eco-agriculture and community-supported allotment gardens are inseparable from the highly educated urban middle class dominated by business managers and college teachers, who have an academic qualification above a bachelor degree and an annual per capita income concentrated between 50–100 thousand yuan (Shi, et al., 201115); Shao et al., 201216)). A study about Beijing residents’ willingness to participate in allotment gardens using a logistic regression model shows that those who have a knowledge of allotment gardens and a middle- to-high income, are married and highly educated, or are retirees and workers, usually have a keen interest in participating in allotment gardens (Cai et al., 2013).17) The motivations to engage in allotment gardens have been changing over years (Armstrong, 2000),18) and presently have expanded far beyond the initial desire for food production (Da Silva et al., 2016)4) and include food security, environmental and health concerns, recreation, social cohesion, and therapeutic effects (Golden, 201319); Henryks, 201120)). The desire to grow one’s own vegetables, and the desire to experience pleasure, passion, and happiness are the motivations most often advanced by the gardeners, followed by the need to be outside and in nature, as well as the need for physical contact with soil and plants (Scheromm, 201521); Clayton, 200722)). People nowadays ever increasingly aspire to consume natural, fresh, and trustable food (Meenar & Hoover, 2012).23) As for the users’ evaluations or satisfaction with allotment gardens, the case of Seoul’s urban agriculture demonstrates that the supply of physical facilities, the increase in the time respondents are involved, and their cultivating areas positively affect their satisfaction level (Oh & Kim, 2017).24) An empirical study of allotment gardens in Taichung, Taiwan, holds that service content and operation management of allotment gardens can significantly affect participants’ overall satisfaction, as well as their willingness to recommend and their willingness to renew their membership in the garden (Cheng et al., 2005).25) However, there are some reasons that negatively affect the participation in allotment gardens, including difficulty accessing the gardens (Holland, 2004),12) theft, and vandalism (Teig et al., 2009),26) as well as the lack of time or availability to devote to the garden. The willingness to participate in allotment gardens among older age groups is limited by factors of physical and traffic conditions, so appropriate site selection before building an allotment garden should be considered, selecting suburban counties close to the city with relatively convenient transportation and providing scheduled shuttle buses in the mornings and evenings (Cai et al., 2013).17) Urban and Regional Planning Review Vol. 6, 2019 | 3

Based on the literature described above, although allotment gardens are not a new phenomenon in the world’s urban areas, especially their being used as a means of food production and self-sufficiency in times of war and economic crisis, the consciousness and practice of allotment gardens has not yet been widespread in present-day China. In addition, relevant studies on Chinese allotment gardens are neither sufficient nor profound for the reason that most Chinese studies focus on urban agriculture, not allotment gardens, and the studies on allotment gardens are concentrated on experience introduction of developed areas, while less empirical research is conducted from the perspective of users’ experience and feelings. Therefore, the objectives of this paper are to explore users’ behaviors and their evaluations of current allotment gardens in Beijing, as well as to analyze the differences in the evaluation of various allotment gardens and the impact factors of the overall evaluation, through which improvemnet measures can be made in order to promote well-planned allotment gardens alive in China’s urban areas, and meanwhile providing policy implications for Chinese governmental involvement in the issue of allotment gardens in the near future. The originality of this paper is such that, among the few studies on allotment gardens in present academia, no one has carried out research regarding the differences in the evaluation of allotment gardens at the different locations and with the diverse modes of operation in China. The authors are the first to study the differences in evaluations within this field, and combined with the flourishing development of urban agriculture, this study is very innovative and forward-looking. Regarding the methodology, this paper adopted a combination of fieldwork, questionnaires, interviews, SPSS, and GIS. The authors used 80 semi-closed questionnaires and 20 semi-structured interviews in order to collect the data from allotment gardens’ users, and used GIS to display the locations of allotment gardens surveyed. In addition, the authors applied categorical regression to determine the impact of specific evaluations on the overall evaluation, and further adopted a Chi-squared test in order to examine the differences in the evaluation of allotment gardens with different locations and diverse modes of operation. There are three reasons for selecting Beijing as the research area. First, current Chinese allotment gardens are intensively distributed around first-tier metropolises, such as Beijing, Shanghai, etc. (Shao et al., 2012).16) As the capital of China and the starting area in terms of establishing allotment gardens that adopt the operational philosophy of Community Supported Agriculture around 2008, Beijing has established a large number of various modes of allotment gardens around the city, and has been maintaining the strongest development momentum among the other cities in China. Second, although the current overall development of Beijing’s allotment gardens is in a spontaneous and groping phase with no unified guidance and norms, it has already shown broad prospects for development and a huge economic value of 12.3 billion yuan in 2014, 4.58 times the total revenue of agriculture sightseeing in Beijing City (Tian et al., 2014),27) combined with people’s relatively high cognition of allotment gardens (Cai et al., 2013).17) Third, policy support on leisure agriculture, ecological agriculture, and rural tourism has been implemented with unprecedented attention in recent years, through which we can see that a special policy on allotment gardens will be introduced in Beijing in the near future because of allotment gardens’ being a crucial part of the above agricultures as well as their tremendous value to both contemporary society and human life.

2. Descriptions of Allotment Gardens Surveyed and Questionnaire Survey Urban and Regional Planning Review Vol. 6, 2019 | 4

2.1 Locational Distribution of Allotment Gardens Surveyed According to the authors’ survey, the allotment gardens in Beijing Urban Area (BUA) are mostly distributed in Haidian District and Fengtai District, and allotment gardens in Beijing suburbs are mostly distributed in Changping District, Shunyi District, Tongzhou District, and Daxing District. Some of the allotment gardens are also located in the outer suburbs of Beijing, but these are in the form of allotment gardens with holiday and leisure properties. After an extensive investigation, the authors finally focused on two allotment gardens in Haidian District and two in Fengtai District in order to conduct semi-closed questionnaires and interviews considering the wide involvement of allotment gardens in the north and south, as well as groups of different income levels. Specially, Haidian District has the second largest area in BUA, and Fengtai has the third largest area. However, the GDP between these two districts are very

Figure-1 Distribution of Allotment Gardens Surveyed and Respondents’ Residences different, in that Fengtai had a GDP of 116.99 billion yuan in 2016,(2) ranking second-to-last in BUA, but the GDP of Haidian was 461.35 billion yuan,(2) ranking as the second-highest in BUA. Moreover, the urban residential disposable income of Fengtai and Haidian was 47,127 yuan and 62,325 yuan in 2015—ranking as the lowest and second-highest, respectively(2)—indicating that people concentrated in Haidian have better income conditions compared with people living in Fengtai. The four allotment gardens surveyed are displayed in Figure-1. The area with the black outline is Beijing Urban Area (BUA), which is composed of six districts. The red circle line represents the ring road of Beijing, with a total of six ring roads. Little Donkey Farm and Sanyuan Urban Allotment are located in Haidian District, with the former located beyond the north sixth ring road and the latter located beyond the north fifth ring road, but near the north sixth ring road. Nanyuan Peasant Commune Allotment and Nanyuan Town Farm are located in Fengtai District, and are also located within the south fifth ring road. The triangle, circle, square, and star respectively represent the residences of respondents who use the allotment gardens of Little Donkey Farm, Sanyuan Urban Allotment, Nanyuan Peasant Commune Allotment, and Nanyuan Town Farm. Urban and Regional Planning Review Vol. 6, 2019 | 5

2.2 Questionnaire Setting and Survey Process The questionnaire is composed of three parts: (1) users’ basic characteristics, including gender, marital status, education, occupation, monthly income, age, and address; (2) users’ behaviors, including motivation, companion, travel time, frequency per week, travel method, time spent commuting from residence to allotment garden, duration of stay, and rent paid; (3) users’ evaluations, including their overall evaluation and more specific evaluations based on 15 specific items which can be summarized into the four dimensions of location and transportation, service and guidance, operation and management, and facilities and landscape. The evaluation of allotment gardens is measured through the use of a Likert 5 scale, with five choices of “very good, good, general, bad, and very bad”. The total number of users of these four allotment gardens is 475, among which 101 users are from Little Donkey Farm, 132 are from Sanyuan Urban Allotment, 115 are from Nanyuan Town Farm, and 127 are from Nanyuan Peasant Commune Allotment. Before conducting questionnaire survey and interview, efficient sample size needs to be calculated because sample size is the most potent method of achieving estimates that are sufficiently precise and reliable for policy decisions or scientific inquiry (Gray, 199028); Lenth, 200129)). Efficient sample size is based on an estimate of the sample size required to limit sampling variability to the desired level (Gray, 199028); Burmeister & Aitken, 201230)). In terms of studies using quantitative research methods, there are some similar formulas for the computation of efficient sample sizes. This study used a calculation formula(3) given by Gray (1990),28) and the population size is the total number of users of four allotment gardens, that is, 475. The efficient sample size is calculated to be 96 before the finite population correction, and 80 after. Therefore, this study ultimately distributed and collected 80 questionnaires. In order to fully characterize the user population of each allotment garden, the study randomly selected the same number of users in each farm as a sample, namely 20 users. Considering that this study uses random sampling and the sample size is equivalent to efficient sample size, the sample is a good representation of the population. With aspect to statistical methods, this study mainly used categorical regression. The assumptions of categorical regression are that there must be only one response variable, and the number of valid cases must exceed the number of predictor variables plus one.(4) This study has 14 predictors, while the valid cases are 80, indicating that the sample size statistically satisfy the requirements of categorical regression. Different from quantitative research, there is no formula for calculating the sample size of qualitative research because qualitative research is concerned with meaning and not making generalized hypothesis statements. The dominant factor which determines the majority of qualitative sample size is saturation, which occurs when adding more participants to the study does not result in additional perspectives or information (Mason, 2010).31) For phenomenological studies, Creswell (2013)32) recommends 5-25 and Morse (1994)33) suggests at least six. For all qualitative research, 15 is the smallest acceptable sample (Guest et al., 2006).34) The experience of most qualitative researchers reveals that in interview studies little that is “new” comes out of transcripts after having interviewed 20 or so participants (Green & Thorogood, 2009).35) Based on the abovementioned guidelines for sample sizes in qualitative research, this study used 20 in-depth interviews to complement the quantitative study which is the main research method of this study. Since interview is the secondary research method in this study, the qualitative sample size of 20 is large enough to obtain enough data to sufficiently

Urban and Regional Planning Review Vol. 6, 2019 | 6 describe the phenomenon of interest and address the research questions, and the saturation has been attained. The formal survey time is August 2017. Users usually arrive at allotment gardens in the morning for farming and picking, and leave around noon. Retirees generally use allotment gardens whenever time allows, whereas office workers use them on weekends. Based on these features, the survey time was scheduled for weekdays and weekends from 9:00 to 12:00 a.m. The investigation objects were the users of the four allotment gardens mentioned above. The authors took the users who were not involved in the farm work, or engaged in simple labor as the main investigation objects, adopting the method of random sampling. The subjective question aspect was conducted with the interview method, and the objective question—such as choices—were directly given to the respondents to fill in. In the case that respondents were unable to fill in the questionnaires, the authors filled them in instead of the respodents by asking the questions and respondents answering. During the survey, questionnaires were filled in and collected in person. In order to ensure the authenticity and validity of the completion of each questionnaire, the questionnaire was eliminated on the spot if an invalid answer was found. By using this method, the authors sent out and collected 80 questionnaires (all were effective questionnaires, not including invalid questionnaires), with each allotment garden being sent out 20 questionnaires equally. The effective sample rate reached 100%.

3. Descriptive Statistical Analysis of Results

3.1 Descriptive Statistical Analysis of Respondents’ Demographics The demographics of respondents show the following features in Table-1: (1) Respondents’ gender and marital status are characterized by a concentration trend, namely that 61.25% of the respondents are male, and up to 98.75% are married. (2) With regards to educational background, respondents having an education of junior college and undergraduate respectively accounts for 30%; those having an education of technical secondary school/ senior high school accounts for 23.75%; and those having a master’s degree and above accounts for 10%. As a whole, 70% of the respondents have an education level above that of junior college. (3) In terms of occupational distribution, up to 58.75% of respondents are retirees, which is the largest user group, while 16.25% are leaders or administrators of enterprises and institutions, and 10% are office clerks. (4) As for the after-tax monthly income of respondents, 46.25% of the respondents have a monthly income less than or equal to 6,000 yuan; 23.75% have a monthly income between 6,001 and 8,000 yuan; and 18.75% earn between 8001 and 10,000 yuan. The proportion of middle- and high-income groups who have more than ten thousand yuan-monthly income totally accounts for 11.25%, which is slightly different than the previous studies of Shi et al. (2011) 15) and Shao et al. (2012),16) who hold the viewpoint that the development of eco- urban agriculture—such as allotment gardens—is related to the rise of middle-income groups. Here, the authors also agree with this viewpoint, but believe that the reasons for these divergent findings lie in three points. First, the investigation time of Shi et al. and Shao et al. was in 2011 and 2012, when allotment gardens were in the midst of small-scale development, and users were mostly middle class intellectuals and business executives. Second, their surveys focused on the allotment gardens in the northern part of BUA dominated by Haidian District, where people with a generally high income lived. However, the authors also expanded the scope of investigation to the southern part of BUA, where residents with poor income conditions lived,

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Table-1 Analysis of Respondents’ Demographics (Sample: 80)

Basic Features Specific Items Frequency Percentage(%) Gender Male 49 61.25 n=80 Female 31 38.75 Marital Status Married 79 98.75 n=80 Unmarried 1 1.25 Education Junior high school and below 5 6.25 Technical secondary school/Senior high school 19 23.75 Junior college 24 30.00 n=80 Undergraduate 24 30.00 Master and above 8 10.00 Occupation Civil servant 1 1.25 Leader or administrator of enterprises and institutions 13 16.25 Educational/technical personnel 2 2.50 Office clerk 10 10.00 n=80 Individual/private-sector worker 7 8.75 Retiree 47 58.75 Farmer 2 2.50 Monthly Income ≤ 6000 37 46.25 6001 - 8000 19 23.75 8001 - 10000 15 18.75 10001 - 13000 4 5.00 n=80 13001 - 16000 1 1.25 16001 - 20000 1 1.25 20001 - 30000 2 2.50 ≥ 30000 1 1.25 Age < 40 7 8.75 40 - 49 16 20.00 50 - 59 17 21.25 n=80 60 - 69 26 32.50 70 - 79 13 16.25 ≥ 80 3 3.75 Address Haidian District 38 47.50 Chaoyang District 2 2.50 Shijingshan District 1 1.25 Fengtai District 27 33.75 n=80 Xicheng District 10 12.50 Dongcheng District 1 1.25 Other 1 1.25 such as Fengtai District, which is the most backward area of development of Beijing’s six urban districts. Third, because the forms of allotment gardens do not belong to high-end entertainment within the category of urban agriculture, combined with a reasonable annual rent, an increasing number of people can afford and are willing to rent and use such kinds of plots with a rise in per capita income and the awakening of the consciousness toward green and healthy consumption. All of this evidence indicates that allotment gardens in China—especially in the first-tier cities and coastal developed areas such as Beijing—have demonstrated a trend in terms of civilian development. (5) In terms of age distribution, the age group with the largest proportion of 32.5% is 60–69, followed by 50–59 and 40–49, and then by 70–79. The proportion of respondents between the age of 50 and 69 years old is more than 50%. Hence allotment gardens are most prevalent in the elderly groups, especially among the elderly who have already retired. Nonetheless, people more than 80 years old rarely use allotment gardens both because

Urban and Regional Planning Review Vol. 6, 2019 | 8 of their physical condition as well as because of the often remote locations of allotment gardens. Allotment gardens are also less used in age groups younger than 40, which relates to the amount of life pressures one is under, a general focus on one’s career, and a lack of leisure time resulting from the common responsibility of taking care of children and the elderly. (6) In the distribution of residential zones, 47.5% of the respondents come from Haidian District, 33.75% from Fengtai District, 12.5% from Xicheng District, and a few from other areas. Above all, on the basis of the survey, the users of allotment gardens mainly fall within the following demographics: male, married, medium-to-high level of education, retirees, are the leaders or administrators of enterprises and institutions, general or slightly high level of income, and are middle-aged or elderly, between the ages of 40 and 69.

3.2 Descriptive Statistical Analysis of Respondents’ Use Behaviors The features of respondents’ use behaviors are presented in Table-2: Motivation, companion, and travel time are shown as the result of “Multiple answers,” and the denominator is the total number of samples, which is 80. (1) In terms of participation motivation, the top three motivations are growing healthy and organic food, obtaining physical exercise, and as a mode of entertainment. The proportions of these three motivations are 68.75%, 67.5% and 46.25%, respectively. (2) Regarding participation method, 66.25% of respondents visit allotment gardens with their spouses, 31.25% visit them alone, and 26.25% take their children to allotment gardens. (3) Regarding travel time, 48.75% of the respondents visit allotment gardens whenever time allows, and 41.25% choose to go there on weekends. Based on the interviews, among the respondents visiting allotment gardens whenever time allows, most of them are retirees who have more flexible schedules. Most of the respondents who choose to go on the weekends are office workers with regular jobs and only weekend breaks. (4) In terms of participation frequency weekly, 32.5% of respondents visit allotments once per week, and 30% separately go there twice a week or three times a week and above, respectively. 60% of the respondents visit allotment gardens twice and above weekly. (5) Regarding travel method, 56.25% of respondents drive private cars to allotment gardens—most of whom are users of allotment gardens located in the north BUA—and 30% by public transport. The majority of respondents using public transport are the elderly, because of the free rides as well as the fact that they have no time constraints. Respondents who use electric car (storage battery car) are those with a relatively short distance from their residences to the allotment gardens that they use. (6) Regarding the time spent traveling from their residence to the allotment garden, 33.75% of respondents spend 0.5-1-hour commuting, 26.25% spend less than 0.5 hour, and 21.25% spend 1–1.5 hours. The proportion of respondents who spend less than 1 hour on their commute to the allotment garden is 60%. Nearly all respondents spend less than two hours traveling from their residences to allotment gardens. 7) Regarding the duration of stay at the allotment garden, 50% of the respondents stay for 3–5 hours, 26.25% stay for 2–3 hours, and 16.25% take a long stay for 5–8 hours. 8) Regarding the rent paid, 53.75% of the respondents pay between 2,000 and 3,000 yuan per year. The average rent is calculated to be 2,465.37 yuan per year. On the whole, users participate in allotment gardens with three main motivations: healthy food, physical exercise, and entertainment. They usually visit allotment gardens with their spouses or alone anytime, on weekends and twice and above weekly, use private car or public transport with a one-hour journey, stop over for 3–5 hours, and pay an annual rent of 2,000– 3,000 yuan.

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Table-2 Analysis of Respondents’ Use Behaviors (Sample: 80) Use Behaviors Specific Items Frequency Percentage (%) Obtain healthy and organic food 55 68.75 Experience agricultural work 12 15.00 Return to pastoral and close to nature 19 23.75 Learn farming knowledge 4 5.00 Obtain physical exercise 54 67.50 Motivation Spend weekends meaningfully 3 3.75 Let children experience farm work and know 7 8.75 agricultural knowledge Parent-children interaction 2 2.50 As a way of entertainment 37 46.25 Other 2 2.50 Child/Children 21 26.25 Spouse 53 66.25 Colleagues 2 2.50 Companion Friends 8 10.00 Older family members 4 5.00 Oneself 25 31.25 On weekends 33 41.25 Travel time (Time to go On weekdays 8 10.00 to allotment garden) Whenever time allows 39 48.75 Less than once 6 7.50 Once 26 32.50 Frequency per week Twice 24 30.00 Three times and above 24 30.00 Public transport 24 30.00 Private car 45 56.25 Travel method Bicycle 2 2.50 Electric car 8 10.00 Walk 1 1.25 < 0.5 hour 21 26.25 Time spent from 0.5 - 1 hour 27 33.75 residence to allotment 1 - 1.5 hours 17 21.25 garden 1.5 - 2 hours 13 16.25 ≥ 2 hours 2 2.50 < 2 hours 2 2.50 2 - 3 hours 21 26.25 Duration of stay at 3 - 5 hours 40 50.00 allotment garden 5 - 8 hours 13 16.25 ≥ 8 hours 4 5.00 < 2000 yuan/year 19 23.75 Rent paid 2000 - 3000 yuan/year 43 53.75 ≥ 3000 yuan/year 18 22.50 Note: Multiple answers are divided by sample number.

3.3 Descriptive Statistical Analysis of Respondents’ Use Evaluations The user evaluation condition of Beijing’s four allotment gardens was evaluated by the method of the Likert 5 scale: “very good” was given 5 points, “good” was given 4 points, “general” was given 3 points, “bad” was only given 2 points, and “very bad” was given just 1 point. The average scores of each specific item—as well as the overall evaluation of allotment gardens—were calculated according to the respondents’ evaluations. In addition, the authors divided 15 specific items into 4 dimensions based on the similarity of the questions: location and transportation, service and guidance, operation and management, and facilities and

Urban and Regional Planning Review Vol. 6, 2019 | 10 landscape. Afterwards, a factor analysis was used in order to verify the correctness of this classification. The result extracted 4 principal components from the 15 specific items, which was same with our classification. Furthermore, SPSS19.0 was used to calculate the scores of each dimension, as shown in Table-3. With regards to the overall evaluation, a good evaluation is twice that of a general evaluation, and the total score of these four allotment gardens is 3.64, indicating that the overall evaluation is basically favorable—between “general” and “good”. The respondents rate the dimension of service and guidance as the lowest, with 3.42 points, and rate the dimension of facilities and landscape dimension as the highest, with 3.62 points. The average score of the 15 specific items is 3.49, displaying a slight difference from the overall evaluation of 3.64, which implies that respondents give an overall evaluation on the higher side. Table-3 Overall and Specific Evaluations of Allotment Gardens

Score of Frequency Total Score Category Specific Items Each Item Very (Mean) Good General Bad Very Bad (Mean) Good Overall Evaluation 3.64 3 49 24 4 0 Location and Transportation Convenience of location 3.41 1 37 36 6 0 3.43 Dimension Convenience of arrival/transportation 3.44 0 40 35 5 0 Service attitude 3.55 5 41 27 7 0 Technical guidance for farming 3.45 5 34 33 8 0 Service and Guidance 3.42 Provision of farm tools, seeds and fertilizers 3.51 3 40 32 5 0 Dimension Skilled labor 3.41 3 33 38 6 0 Agriculture festival activities 3.20 1 20 53 6 0 Rent 3.30 0 33 38 9 0 Operation and Management 3.46 Farming regulations/restrictions 3.50 1 39 39 1 0 Dimension Solution to dispute 3.59 0 47 33 0 0 Public facilities/marks 3.79 0 64 15 1 0 Facilities and Landscape Overall landscape environment 3.65 0 54 24 2 0 3.62 Dimension Infrastructures (irrigation/electricity) 3.71 1 56 22 1 0 Sanitary facilities 3.35 1 36 33 10 0 Average score of 15 items 3.49 Among the 15 specific items, the ones that the respondents gave a more general evaluation than a good evaluation for are skilled labor, agricultural festival activities, and rent, whereas farming regulations/restrictions are given an equal evaluation between good and general. The items given the most number of bad evaluation—from highest to lowest—are sanitary facilities, rent, technical guidance for farming, and service attitude. The items with lower scores are as follows: agricultural festival activities, rent, sanitary facilities, skilled labor, and the convenience of the location. Based on the interviews, the authors found that there were no agricultural festival activities in some of the allotment gardens, such as Nanyuan Peasant Commune Allotment and Sanyuan Urban Allotment. In Nanyuan Town Farm, the activity propaganda is more than the actual implementation, and the activities held are open to the external public and not just to internal users, combined with no special events for these users. In comparison, Little Donkey Farm has done well in this aspect, demonstrated by the users’ positive evaluations. However, these users do not have much of a demand for agricultural festival activities, even with some users’ expression of the dispensability of such activities,

Urban and Regional Planning Review Vol. 6, 2019 | 11 according to interviews. The common complaint about rent is not that the rent is high—though there are a lot of grumbles about slightly high rent—but that the rent has kept rising in recent years. Also, there is lack of preferential treatment for the old users in terms of maintaining the original price, resulting in that some older users express an unwillingness to renew their membership. The most common complaint about the sanitary facilities is the delayed cleaning up of bathrooms and the presence of weeds. In view of the summer interview time, most of the respondents pay more attention to the sanitary condition of the allotment gardens. However, there is no bathroom on Nanyuan Town Farm, therefore, users have to go outside to use other bathrooms. In terms of skilled labor, respondents complain about the lack of skilled workers. One large allotment garden is equipped with only one or two technical workers, which is far less than users’ needs, based on the interviews. Furthermore, these skilled workers do not show enough enthusiasm, lacking the initiative to offer help. Under normal conditions, skilled workers offer help only when they are asked by the users. The locations of the allotment gardens are generally remote, especially the two allotment gardens in the northern BUA, which lie outside the north fifth ring road and near the north sixth ring road. Although it is technically within the border of the urban area, it is actually a suburban and rural area. For the southern Beijing city, the development condition lags far behind the northern Beijing city, and the south fourth ring actually lies in the rural area. However, the two allotment gardens in the southern BUA are located beyond the south fourth ring road. In addition, combined with the previous analysis of respondents’ use behaviors, the majority of respondents drive to allotment gardens, and 40% of the respondents have a trip lasting longer than one hour. Thus, it can be seen that these four allotment gardens have remote locations which are inconvenient for users to get to. Some respondents of Nanyuan Town Farm are also dissatisfied with the fact that there are no means of transportation linked between the nearest bus stop and the actual location of the allotment garden, making them reluctantly walk for 20 minutes in order to arrive at the allotment garden, which is a severe problem for the elderly because of fatigue. The top-rated items by respondents are as follows: public facilities/marks, infrastructure (irrigation/electricity), and the overall landscape environment, all of which are concentrated in the dimension of facilities and landscape. Through the survey, the authors found that each of these four allotment gardens had apparent public marks easily found, such as signboards with allotment gardens’ names. With regard to public facilities, some allotment gardens are equipped with rest pavilions, chairs, and tables, such as at Sanyuan Urban Farm and Nanyuan Town Farm. For the allotment gardens without a single rest pavilion, centralized rest facilities are available, such as at Little Donkey Farm and Nanyuan Peasant Commune Allotment. In addition, a faucet is equipped in a user’s small plot for water diversion irrigation, in spite of some complaints of waterlogging on rainy days, which mostly occurred at Sanyun Urban Farm. In terms of the overall landscape environment, allotment gardens present tidy planning, with the land divided into plots of equal area or a couple of unequal areas, with the plots of the same area arranged in the same region. Each user’s plot is encircled with a fence and a timber pile fixed in the front of the plot, showing the name of the plot. Most of the allotment gardens have locked doors except at Little Donkey Farm, where the stealing of vegetables sometimes takes place.

4. Impact of Specific Evaluation on Overall Evaluation

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The third part of the questionnaire is the Likert 5 scale evaluation. The reliability and validity of the scale was tested first. The scale passed Cronbach’s Alpha reliability test with an alpha coefficient of 0.913, indicating a very high reliability. In addition, the scale also passed the KMO and Bartlett’s tests, with a KMO value of 0.86, greater than 0.6, and the p-value of Bartlett’s was less than 0.001, demonstrating a strong validity of scale. Based on the test of reliability and validity above, the authors used a categorical regression prior to other statistical approaches to evaluate the Likert 5 scale in order to further explore the impact of 15 specific evaluations on the overall evaluation of allotment garden, for the following reasons: Many experts affirmed that parametric tests can not only be used with ordinal data, but they are also generally more robust than nonparametric tests (Sullivan & Artino, 201336); Carifio & Perla, 200837); Wadgave & Khairnar, 201638); Knapp, 201639)). Parametric approaches are acceptable for aggregated rating scales like the Likert-type Scale because the measure of an underlying latent variable is created for categorical variables, which are considered continuous variables (Harpe, 201540); De Vellis, 200341); Johnson & Christensen, 200842)). Categorical regression (also known by the acronym CATREG) quantifies categorical data by assigning numerical values to the categories, resulting in an optimal linear regression equation for the transformed variables (Meulman & Heiser, 200143); Ishimura et al., 201344)) and optimal quantifications for the ordinal category levels, while also preserving the categories’ ordering without a requirement of equal distances between consecutive category levels (Wilems et al., 2017).45) In this case, the overall evaluation as the dependent variable—as well as specific evaluations as independent variables—are all ordinal data. Therefore, categorical regression can find the best-fitting model. The exact results were shown in Table-4, Table-5, and Table-6. Through categorical Table-4 Model Summary of Categorical Regression regression, the adjusted R2 was 0.653 in Table-4, and the p-value in Table-5 was 0.000, less than 0.05, indicating that there were statistically significant associations among specific evaluations and the overall evaluation, and that at least one specific evaluation had a Table-5 ANOVA of Categorical Regression significant impact on the overall evaluation. As shown in Table-6, the p- value of provision of tools, seeds, and fertilizers was significant at the 0.01 level, and p-value of sanitary facilities was significant at the 0.05 level. These two variables also had stronger Beta-values compared with other items, with a respective Beta-value of 0.519, and 0.369. It implied that these two independent variables had statistically significant positive impacts on overall evaluation, which also indicated that users would give a stronger overall evaluation under circumstances in which allotment gardens were equipped with a sufficient provision of farm tools, seeds, and fertilizers, as well as clean Urban and Regional Planning Review Vol. 6, 2019 | 13 sanitary facilities. Table-6 Coefficients of Categorical Regression However, agricultural festival activities, convenience of arrival/transportation, and overall landscape environment had the most negative impact on overall evaluation, with respective Beta-values of -0.246, -0.217, and - 0.203. The reasons for this phenomenon were correlated to the current status of these three aspects. Based on interviews with respondents, most users seldom mentioned the demand for agricultural festival activities, and some of them even considered such activities unnecessary, because the activities currently provided were aimed at an outside group rather than the users of allotment gardens, or the fact that these activities were not designed specifically for the users, as explained earlier. Moreover, the main purpose of utilizing allotment gardens was to obtain physical exercise—and pesticide-free vegetables—for relaxation and entertainment. Therefore, users cared less about whether there were agriculture-related activities at the allotment gardens, since they often communicated privately with each other through social media regarding their cultivation experience. Second, users were generally satisfied with the current landscape environment of these four allotment gardens. The internal planning was relatively reasonable and orderly, with diverse functional areas, such as a picking area, a planting area, a popular science promenade, a rest area, etc. Consequently, there was no need for improvement of the overall landscape environment, which had less significant impact on the overall evaluation of allotment gardens. Last but not least, since 56.25% of the respondents visited allotment gardens by private car, as mentioned earlier, which was a comfortable way to commute between one’s dwelling and the allotment gardens, these respondents did not really mind whether the transportation was convenient or not, and thus the convenience of arrival/transportation also had less influence on users’ overall evaluation of allotment gardens.

5. Differences in Overall Evaluation of Various Allotment Gardens

5.1 Differences in Overall Evaluation of Northern and Southern Allotment Gardens Pearson’s chi-squared test (χ2) is a statistical test applied to sets of categorical data in order to evaluate how likely it is that any observed difference between the sets arose by chance (Gosall

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& Gosall, 201246)). The chi-squared test is usually used to determine whether there is a significant difference between the expected frequencies and the observed frequencies in one or more categories (Greenwood & Nikulin, 199647); Bagdonavicius & Nikulin, 201148)). In this context, there are two groups—namely, evaluations of northern allotment gardens and evaluations of southern allotment gardens—with a sample size of 40 for each group. The chi- squared test was used to determine whether the distribution of allotment gardens’ overall evaluation for the northern and southern groups was equal, or whether there were differences in the overall evaluation between Table-7 Chi-Squared Test of Overall Evaluation of the allotment gardens in the north and the south. The result Allotment Gardens with Different Locations shown in Table-7 is that the p- Location North South value of Pearson Chi-square Overall Evaluation was 0.023, less than 0.05, from Very Good 3 (7.5%) 0 which we can concluded that Good 28 (70.0%) 21(52.5%) there was a statistically General 9 (22.5%) 15 (37.5%) significant difference between Bad 0 4 (10.0%) Very Bad 0 0 the overall evaluations of the Pearson Chi-Square: 0.023 [Asymp. Sig. (2-sided)] northern and southern allotment gardens. The specific differences were also listed in Table-7. Among the 40 respondents using the northern allotment gardens, 70% gave a positive overall evaluation of the allotment gardens being used currently, and 7.5% even gave the highest overall evaluation of “very good”, and there was no generally negative overall evaluation. In contrast, among the same quantity of respondents in southern allotment gardens, only 52.5% gave a positive overall evaluation, which was the highest overall evaluation of the southern allotment gardens. Moreover, 10% of the respondents rated southern allotment gardens as “bad”. On the whole, the overall evaluations of the northern allotment gardens and southern allotment gardens were statistically significantly different, and the northern allotment gardens had a higher overall evaluation than that of the southern allotment gardens. In this study, location of allotment gardens not only represents their geographical location, but also symbolizes the economic development level of the region where allotment gardens are located. As this study mentioned earlier, in BUA, residents concentrated in Haidian District have better income conditions compared with residents living in Fengtai District, which implies that the overall development status of northern BUA, especially from the economic level, is better than that of southern BUA. This can also indirectly affect the discrepancy of quality between the northern and southern allotment gardens. Based on field surveys and interviews, allotment gardens of southern BUA have weakness, such as unsatisfactory surroundings and backward management concepts, which results in the negative evaluations of users.

5.2 Differences in Overall Evaluation of Allotment Gardens with Different Modes of Operation Among the allotment gardens that the authors surveyed, there are four different modes of operation, as shown in Table-8. Little Donkey Farm operates in a consortium mode, which means that it was jointly established and managed by mixed entities, including the Haidian District Government, Renmin University of China, and a company named Guoren Science and Technology Development Center. Sanyuan Urban Allotment operates in an enterprise mode, a

Urban and Regional Planning Review Vol. 6, 2019 | 15 branch business of Sanyuan Table-8 Operation Mode of Allotment Garden Agriculture Co., Ltd., while Operation Mode Name of Allotment Garden Nanyuan Town Farm is under Consortium Mode Little Donkey Farm individual management. Enterprise Mode Sanyuan Urban Allotment Village Collective is Individual Mode Nanyuan Town Farm responsible for the operation Village Collective Mode Nanyuan Peasant Commune Allotment of the Nanyuan Peasant Commune Allotment. A chi-squared test was likewise Table-9 Chi-Squared Test of Overall Evaluation of Allotment Gardens in run in order to Different Operation Modes determine Operation Mode Consortium Enterprise Individual Village Collective whether there Overall Evaluation were differences Very Good 3 (15.0%) 0 0 0 in the overall Good 16 (80.0%) 12 (60.0%) 5 (25.0%) 16 (80.0%) evaluations General 1 (5.0%) 8 (40.0%) 11(55.0%) 4 (20.0%) among the Bad 0 0 4 (20.0%) 0 allotment Very Bad 0 0 0 0 gardens with these four modes Pearson Chi-Square: 0.000 [Asymp. Sig. (2-sided)] of operation mentioned above. The result was shown in Table-9. The p-value of Pearson Chi- Square was 0.000, less than 0.05, implying that the overall evaluations of allotment gardens in these four operation modes were statistically significantly different. The specific differences were also displayed in Table-9. Allotment gardens of the consortium mode and the village collective mode had the most positive overall evaluation, with an 80%-respondents’ good evaluation. 15% of the respondents regarded the consortium mode as “very good”, and only 5% thought it was “general”, whereas the percentage of the general overall evaluation of the village collective mode was 20%, indicating that the consortium mode was perceived better than the village collective mode. By comparison, only 60% and 25% of the respondents, respectively, gave a positive overall evaluation of the enterprise mode and the individual mode. More seriously, 20% deemed the individual mode as “bad”. In summary, allotment gardens of the consortium mode won the statistically significantly highest overall evaluation, followed by the village collective mode, the enterprise mode, and, finally, the individual mode, which received the worst overall evaluation.

6. Conclusions and Recommendations

(1) From the perspective of users’ charateristics: Conclusion 1: Allotment gardens in China—especially in the first-tier cities and coastal developed areas, such as Beijing—have shown a trend of civilian development. Users of allotment gardens are principally middle-aged and elderly married male retirees or administrators of enterprises and institutions, with a medium or high level of education (above junior college), and a medium-to-high monthly income. Recommendation 1: The future targeted group should be orientated into two groups, one being retirees or people who are about to retire, and the other being middle-aged managers of

Urban and Regional Planning Review Vol. 6, 2019 | 16 enterprises and institutions with a relatively good income condition. In view of the increasing numbers of elderly users, the recreational and social need for urban green spaces should be considered in an aging society,(5) including clean restrooms, sufficient seating, and other infrastructural amenities which foster easily accessible communication zones (Kabischa & Haasea, 2014).1) Since an allotment garden is an urban green space in China, policy makers can learn from this experience in order to preserve recreational facilities such as the seating, pavilions, and tables, and keep improving continuously. (2) From the perspective of users’ use evaluations: Conclusion 2: The overall evaluation of allotment gardens given by users is between good and general, which implies that there is still room for improvement. High evaluations are given to the dimension of landscape and facilities, especially public facilities/marks, infrastructures, and the overall landscape environment, whereas low evaluations are given to the dimension of service and guidance, agricultural festival activities, rent, sanitary facilities, and skilled labor. Based on categorical regression, the provision of farm tools, seeds, and fertilizers, as well as sanitary facilities have a statistically significantly positive impact on the overall evaluation of allotment gardens, which plays an influential and decisive role in the success of allotment gardens’ continuous operation. Recommendation 2: No matter who the present operators of the allotment garden are— enterprise, individual and university, or the forthcoming proprietors of governments at all levels—it is far-reaching to pay great attention to factors that have a relatively low level of evaluation but have a significant impact on the overall evaluation, which is the allotment garden’s service and guidance, especially the provision of farm tools, seeds, and fertilizers, as well as sanitary facilities. First, provide sufficient and premium farm tools, seeds, and fertilizers to solve the problems of dosage restriction on fertilizers and the sometimes-poor quality of seeds. Second, the current situation of sanitary facilities ought to be upgraded as soon as possible so as to provide users with satisfactory and clean bathrooms. It is also necessary to set up new bathrooms on Sanyuan Urban Allotment, where the current bathrooms are relatively far for the elderly, and Nanyuan Town Farm, where there is no farm-exclusive bathroom, approaching a state of affairs in which one small allotment garden is at least being equipped with one bathroom, with two bathrooms for larger allotment gardens. Meanwhile, garden and toilet rubbish should be cleaned away regularly, especially in the summer. Third, since some users are dissatisfied with the current situation of skilled labor, special trainings for skilled labor should be conducted in advance in order to encourage them to offer proactive and motivated help or at least daily greetings to the users. In addition, it is better to allocate adequate skilled workers to ensure that users’ demand for technical guidance can be fully satisfied, such as two or three for small allotment gardens, and four or five for large allotment gardens. Fourth, since there are complaints about rent fluctuation, rent adjustment measures should be taken. On one hand, allotment gardens can try to attract the high-income group with a higher affordability, because that group is more satisfied with the current rent compared to low-income group; but on the other hand, gardens can make users feel “good value for money” by providing good service, so that users are willing to pay the higher rent. Disparate rents can be implemented tentatively so that rent should be increased or decreased based on the use period. For example, users who have already used the allotment garden for more than three or five years should be given discounts differently. In this way, allotment gardens can not only attract the new high-income group but can also retain the old users. Finally, it is reasonable to gradually cancel the agricultural festival

Urban and Regional Planning Review Vol. 6, 2019 | 17 activities on allotment gardens because of their negative impacts on the overall evaluation, as well as users’ weak demands. (3) From the perspective of differences in the overall evaluation: Conclusion 3: Overall evaluations of the northern allotment gardens and the southern allotment gardens are statistically significantly different, and the northern allotment gardens are better evaluated than the southern allotment gardens. There is also a statistically significant discrepancy of the allotment gardens’ overall evaluation among the four modes of operation. Allotment gardens of the consortium mode have the highest overall evaluation, followed by the village collective mode, the enterprise mode, and the individual mode, which has the worst evaluation. Recommendation 3: Current operators should be committed to improving the quality of the southern allotment gardens based on aspects of service, guidance, seed provisions, and skilled labor, particularly for Nanyuan Town Farm, which has the lowest evaluation. Southern Beijing belongs to the economically underdeveloped region and is mainly dominated by individual or household-run allotment gardens with small-scale operations and backward management levels. In the course of construction, insufficient capital investment and inadequate management concepts restrict the future development of these allotment gardens. The operators should strive to change their current role as landlords into new roles as service providers, improving service awareness, offering a good service attitude, creating a comfortable farm environment for users, and maintaining the cleanliness of public toilets. In the future, the government should vigorously promote two operation modes—the consortium mode and the village collective mode. These two operation modes have advantages in terms of uniting the power of governments, universities, village collectives, and enterprises, and giving full play to their social resources advantage and the purpose of benefiting people, thereby offsetting the capital shortage of the individual mode and the excessive profit- orientation of the enterprise mode. As for allotment gardens in the individual mode and the enterprise mode, on one hand, the relevant government departments should provide support to the individual mode from capital and preferential policies; but on the other hand, also progressively incorporate these two modes into the consortium mode and the village collective mode. (4) From the perspective of governments: Conclusion 4: At present, Beijing’s allotment gardens are still in the early stage of development, where some problems such as non-standard operation, lack of funds, insufficient infrastructure construction, traffic inconvenience, and laggard management levels greatly restrict its development, which needs policy support from the relevant government departments. Recommendation 4: First, relevant laws and regulations on allotment gardens should be enacted in order to clarify the status of allotment gardens and to standardize their operation, drawing on the experience of Japan’s Act on Special Provision of the Farmland Act, etc. in Relation to Lease of Specified Farmland (No. 58),(6) and Act on Promotion of Development of Community Farms,(7) as well as German legislation and their amendments on allotment gardens (Cai & Yang, 2008).49) Second, the government should provide preferential policies on tax and financing for allotment gardens, encourage private investment, make use of agricultural development funds and supporting funds to give direct backing for allotment gardens, and organize experts and scholars to conduct business counseling and technical training for

Urban and Regional Planning Review Vol. 6, 2019 | 18 allotment gardens’ operators in order to strengthen the exchange between operators and to improve the awareness and ability of standard management. Third, as in the practices of Japan and other developed countries, sub-governments such as municipal governments or township governments should consider initiating allotment gardens, which have different objectives from the enterprise or individual-run allotment gardens, in order to make it more affordable and able to benefit a wider audience.

Notes

(1) European Environment Agency. “Land Take”. https://www.eea.europa.eu/downloads/d4fc0c5e3e294f5e8226d2b7abde738e/1508945223/asse ssment-1.pdf, (accessed 2018-01-05). (2) Beijing Municipal Bureau of Statistics & Beijing National Bureau of Investigation Corps. “Beijing Regional Statistical Yearbook 2016”. http://www.bjstats.gov.cn/nj/qxnj/2016/zk/indexce.htm, (accessed 2018-01-05). ×() (3) Efficient sample size: � = , � = () where: t is the t-value for the desired confidence level � is a proportion of the sample te is the tolerable error N is the population size n’ is the sample size without the finite population correction n is the sample size with the finite population correction N = 475; � = 0.5 when maximum variance occurs, and the product of �(1–�) in this case is 0.25, the largest possible product of a proportion or a worst-case scenario; t = 1.96 when choosing a 95%-confidence level; te = 0.1, which is the standard error times the t-value for the selected confidence level. (4) IBM Knowledge Center. “Categorical Regression (CATREG)”. https://www.ibm.com/support/knowledgecenter/en/SSLVMB_24.0.0/spss/categories/idh_catr. html, (accessed 2018-11-30). (5) World Health Organization. “Global age-friendly cities: A guide”. Ageing and Life Course, Family and Community Health. http://www.who.int/ageing/publications/Global_age_friendly_cities_Guide_English.pdf, (accessed 2018-01-05). (6) MAFF. “「特定農地貸付けに関する農地法等の特例に関する法律」の概要”. MAFF. http://www.maff.go.jp/j/nousin/nougyou/simin_noen/s_kaisetu/pdf/26_tokutei_hou.pdf, (accessed 2018-01-05). (7) MAFF, “「市民農園整備促進法」の概要”. MAFF. http://www.maff.go.jp/j/nousin/nougyou/simin_noen/s_kaisetu/pdf/26simin_hou.pdf, (accessed 2018-01-05).

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