I need another zone

I would like to see a new permaculture zone in our discourse.

I garden on a small lot in the city, so most of my yard is zone 1.

But a large portion of the place is neither 0 nor 1, despite proximity to my door.

I feel the front yard, and especially the parking strip, is another zone entirely. Yes, it's close by, and maybe some of my daily-interaction plants are there, but the real defining factor of this zone is its interface with community.

I make our street more green, cool, and beautiful. (At least I think it's beautiful. That might be debatable, but at least we can say diverse or interesting.) I help clean the air we all breathe, and ameliorate the urban heat island effect. I create habitat for the birds we watch that allow us to feel we are part of our earthly community. I help to baffle noise that keeps our school children from concentrating on their homework, and visual motion that helps us rest our eyes and minds. People in areas with a good tree canopy are shown to experience one third less psychological stress. If we provide this for the people around us, they reciprocate by being more pleasant to us in the streets.

Much of it is a poor location for growing food for myself, despite its proximity to my kitchen. I certainly don't want to put low-growing food plants in an area of high lead and pet excrement. And the predation pressure from passers-by is high. However, I can use the area to set an example of urban food-growing possibilities. Tree fruits are not affected by yesteryear's leaded gasoline or paint, and even if most of them are unintentionally shared, enough remain to show what can be grown here. Flowers for cutting can be a good choice, as they are a crop with a very high carbon footprint, often imported by plane from foreign countries. They get foraged also, but usually enough remain for me to enjoy them.

I provide a wall to sit and rest on. I'm sometimes there working if people want to talk, which helps build community, and there are things passers-by can ask questions about if they want to start a conversation.

I feel that the expanse of yards around the sidewalk is a collective work that people engage with while being mindful of their neighbors, even if they're not directly working together in time & space. We make public space hospitable, so it can sustain the sense of community that makes public space meaningful. Public space that feels welcoming is both created by community and sustains it.

I have become very aware that when someone puts a new building abutting to the street or builds a fence around their yard they are impoverishing our shared space, narrowing our vision of the world, making the street feel more like a gauntlet to be run, a place of exposure and less like the place people inhabit.

I feel a responsibility to make the neighborhood a place where we residents are comfortable so we spend time there, get acquainted, get a sense of shared interdependence.
What zone is space that is designed not only for the gardener or farmer but also for the community she is embedded in?

This is an interesting article that might help:

Permaculture Zones of Human Use in a Permaculture System



https://www.freepermaculture.com/permaculture-zones/

Maybe someone might call your zone:  Zone 1.01 or something like that...

Or maybe Social Permaculture Zone 1.01 ...

This bit of edge between your space and the community space can certainly prove that, "the edge is where the action is."

If I were in your shoes, I would define it by how frequently I visit it, and how much care I put into it.  It could be anything!  I think every zone can be appropriate to use as an interface with a community.  

I live in a city on 1/5th of an acre, and I define my permaculture zones based on how often I visit them and how much time I put into them.  For me, this loosely shakes out to:

In summer:
Zone 1: Whichever part of my garden is currently growing seeds I'm trying to germinate or mature plants ready to harvest.
Zone 2: The rest of my garden.
Zone 3: My front yard, which is xeriscaped with fruit trees.
Zone 4: My lawn.  I mostly ignore it, except when I chop it to use as mulch.  I also pull out anything thorny or bindweed.  I don't water it or mow it, and I welcome as many pleasant-to-walk-on, non-invasive species as want to grow in it.
Zone 5: Public parks.


In winter:
Zone 1: The plants inside under my grow light.
Zone 2: The plants under a greenhouse near my front door.
Zone 3: Any plants under a greenhouse further away than that.
Zone 4: Overwintering plants that have no winter protection.
Zone 5: Sidewalks that I know I'll have to shovel if the snow gets really deep.

I see zone definitions vary a great deal more than I had realized.
I surely have zones 1 & 2, and thank goodness a little zone 5. I'm not sure I have 3 & 4, but there may be a few spots that could be so defined.
I never would have thought of parks as zone 5. National parks, maybe, but city parks, with their watering and mowing and imported species and promenades and ...
But maybe what I'm thinking about is zone 00. My big home. The answer I give when someone asks me where I live. The human element, neighbors, the body politic.
That works for me.
In a way, it's all made up of edges, especially here in the city where it's smooshed together so much.
Is zone 5 the crack in the sidewalk where a volunteer plant comes up? Maybe 4 is the city park where people forage branches for decorations after a big windstorm.
Now I'm stumped by 3.

The way I see it, the permaculture zones are not specific for only yourself (or your family), they can be for the community around you too. I think the zones have more to do with how often you garden (or 'do something') there.

In my life the zones are:
Zone 00 = inside myself (my thoughts, emotions, opinions, etc.)
Zone 0  = inside my house (also inside my garden shed)
Zone 1  = part of the garden where I grow (annual) herbs and veggies I often pick for kitchen use
Zone 2  = where perennial edibles are growing in my garden
Zone 3  = the fruit trees and shrubs growing in my garden
Zone 4  = my 'wild plant garden' (not all edible)
Zone 5  = natural spots inside my garden (some would call this 'weedy') or in my surroundings (I live in a town, but nature parcs are surrounding at all sides of town, that's why I love living here).

btw. my 'garden' is at two different places: the front and back yard of my house AND the allotment garden I rent (5 minutes bicycle ride from here).

I do not feel the need for more zones.