This paper discusses the role of community gardens in building healthy and sustainable communities. Focussing on a large high-rise public housing estate in Sydney’s inner west, the community garden scheme studied was part of an urban renewal program designed to ameliorate ongoing social problems on the estate.

This paper will use a metaphor based on the ecological definition of the “ecotone” to examine the transition zones that occur around the edges of three of Sydney’s major parklands – Centennial Parklands (CP), the Sydney Olympic Parklands (SOP) and the Western Sydney Parklands (WSP).

The development of the Western Sydney Regional Parklands (WSRP) has been a component of the metropolitan area’s masterplan for many decades. With the residential ‘land creep’ now virtually on its doorstep, it is timely for the WSRP to be formally recognized and developed as Western Sydney’s major open space.