The book attempts at exploring allotment gardens / garden colonies, a potent field of study for social scientists dealing with urban issues. Based on a qualitative field research, the book offers an insight into the world of allotment gardens in Prague, the capital of the Czech Republic, and by means of them maps the history and current situation of this specific form of urban nature in a post-socialist metropolis. Stretched between sociology, anthropology and social ecology, it emphasises the latter and aims at assessing the role of allotment gardens in and for the urban space from the point of view of sustainable development and its three main pillars – economic, societal, and environmental. The methodological grounding of the book, however, allows for a nuanced depiction of the life of allotment gardens and for presenting the emotional value gardens and colonies hold for their gardeners.

All the studied garden colonies represent spaces where community can thrive, where people can form emotional bonds towards (a part of) urban space and where society is based on solidarity and cooperation rather than market mechanisms. Though economic importance of allotment gardening for gardeners is negligible due to the leisurely nature of gardening, societal role of allotment gardens and their environmental function within the city proves noteworthy. The authors argue that with respect to their historical roles and values they can hold for both gardeners and wider urban (community) context, garden colonies could be a glimpse of the environment-friendly urban future. The pressure under which they have been put recently by the politics of contemporary urban development might however turn them into not only the shadows of the past but also the shadows of the future never to come.