By 2030, with the current trends of population influx into cities, the share of the urban population on planet Earth will rise to 60% of the urban population and according to many predictions will continue to grow, therefore urban areas are increasingly becoming both a problem and a solution to sustainable development in the world. Due to the unfavorable relationship between the urban and rural population, and more pronounced climate changes affecting agricultural crops, the trend of the difference between the nominal and real value of food is marked by an upward trajectory. One of the possible risk reduction strategies for the city or urban population, in terms of food availability, as well as a general positive impact on reducing the ecological footprint of cities, could be provided by urban agriculture, specifically one of its forms - urban gardening. The work deals with the research of civic initiatives for the creation of urban gardens in Split, the general goal of the research is to establish and define the groups of people who engage in urban gardening and what their motivations are. Two civic initiatives were defined in Split, the RU:RBAN project, URBACT, which is an example of a civic initiative "from above" and the "Citizen Initiative Particle" which is an example of "from below" and which was the subject, or sample, of this research. The main results of the research refer to the observed high motivation of the members of the urban gardening initiative that we investigated, their concern for the usefulness of the space as well as for the aesthetics and the preservation of the public good and the potential of such activities in relation to the preservation of the space as a public good