Simulation of Behavioural Dynamics Within Urban Gardening Communities

Abstract

In order to better understand the mechanisms leading to resilient urban gardening systems, we revisit Ostrom’s institutional design principles with an agent-based model (ABM) and implement behavioural dynamics as structured by the theory of reasoned action. Our experiments show that sanctioning bad behaviour in general increases the group cohesion and leads to longer collective action. Higher success rates occur for cases in which volunteers join for socialising rather than just taking crop yield. However, the design principles are not blueprints leading de facto to robust gardening systems: the combination of these principles is instead determining.