Article - Plowing Over: Can Urban Farming Save Detroit and Other Declining Cities?

[Gannon]

What exactly do you miss about urban gardening being all about subplanting the marketplace by growing your own food?!

I cannot see why this short-term solution couldn't become a habit...and then a tradition. Any healthy urban area needs a good deal of greenspace...and having food production, for both commercial and personal use, along with inexpensive mass transit would insure that land values would remain stable. The population could be as spread out, with each locality having some form of community garden space along with parks and raw land.

No need to condense, or rush any collapse to the core. Maybe the Spokes and Mile Roads...

We need to value even personal food production for what it truly is...our most basic right. If there is abandoned land, a nearby neighbor should have the right to tend it...and then plant on it if they deem that appropriate. If sold commercially, 10% of their production could go back to the City as taxes, easily converted to cash at the next Saturday or Tuesday at Eastern Market. If it is all personal consumption, then tending the land balances off, since the city wouldn't have to mow it.

I think Detroit is unique in this regard...we have food production where the population lives. To heck with petroleum, in all it's forms. We'll walk our stuff to the market, or use a bike if need be.

It that too Capitalist for ya?! At least we'd get rid of the crude ones...


Cheers

[canuck]

Financially, it would make a lot more sense to develop a farm outside of city limits. Streets, sewer lines, and water lines would not have to be torn up to make way for a farm. The infra structure is a valuable asset.

I always draw flack when I mention this but it would make more sense to allow gated communities of perhaps up to 50,000 residents than to grow apple in the middle of the city. The gated communities should be expected to have twice as dense a population as Detroit once had with their own schools, basic shopping, and police services. The property tax raised on such gated communities could help fill the coffers of the city of Detroit and provide a range of jobs; something apple trees won't do.

I think somehow that the existing infrastructure is a valuable part of the equation. If you think of rebuilding residential hoods alongside greenhouse operations and the like, you will favor workplace proximity the way old cities used to be. Gated communities are at the tail end of all the insane efforts to keep the great unwashed out. This kind of idea is one that will keep the US running around in circles providing fodder for the hatred that gives rise to riots and the crime that plagues its cities. Detroit doesnt need another round of redlining and exclusion. It needs to coalesce and this means a regional solution is the only true possible way to rid Detroit of its insularity.

[Junkin4Life]

I'm thinking the same exact thing.

Urban farming will not save Detroit.

[Hypestyles]

[[offered without comment)
..in the recent Ebony magazine, extended features section on Detroit, Dennis Archer is quoted as being a skeptic of urban farming; instead he mentions that once "the economy recovers", that a developer could somehow coalesce 100 acres or so of land and create a gated community/golf course.

[oladub]

I think somehow that the existing infrastructure is a valuable part of the equation. If you think of rebuilding residential hoods alongside greenhouse operations and the like, you will favor workplace proximity the way old cities used to be. Gated communities are at the tail end of all the insane efforts to keep the great unwashed out. This kind of idea is one that will keep the US running around in circles providing fodder for the hatred that gives rise to riots and the crime that plagues its cities. Detroit doesnt need another round of redlining and exclusion. It needs to coalesce and this means a regional solution is the only true possible way to rid Detroit of its insularity.

Gates could come down when Detroit gets a handle on crime to the point that anyone can safely take a midnight stroll. Until then, the question is what best to do with huge amounts of vacant land with in place infrastructure. There is no money in farming except for tax benefits and subsidies set up for the rich.Greenhouses left Michigan when it became cheaper to truck in veggies and flowers than to heat a greenhouse. Developers, on the other hand, could offer the rebuilding of large sections of city without subsidies but no one will pay good money to live with crime. If a developer could guarantee good schools and safety to prospective buyers, purchasers would be lined up. Construction jobs would be replaced by the teachers, mechanics, restaurant workers and other new jobs. Taxes would flow from gated communities to help Detroit with the rest of it's needs.

I realize that there is the patina of exclusiveness that might be resented but apartment and condo buildings have indoor garages and keys to get in, Each and every one is a gated community. When the David Whitney building is refurbished, the residential floors with their meeting rooms, laundries, and exercise rooms won't be open to the unwashed masses either unless they buy a condo. The unwashed masses though would have more to gain from jobs and taxes gated communities could provide. It sure beats apple pickers getting assaulted on the back 40. Apple picking doesn't pay as good either.

[canuck]

Gates could come down when Detroit gets a handle on crime to the point that anyone can safely take a midnight stroll. Until then, the question is what best to do with huge amounts of vacant land with in place infrastructure. There is no money in farming except for tax benefits and subsidies set up for the rich.Greenhouses left Michigan when it became cheaper to truck in veggies and flowers than to heat a greenhouse. Developers, on the other hand, could offer the rebuilding of large sections of city without subsidies but no one will pay good money to live with crime. If a developer could guarantee good schools and safety to prospective buyers, purchasers would be lined up. Construction jobs would be replaced by the teachers, mechanics, restaurant workers and other new jobs. Taxes would flow from gated communities to help Detroit with the rest of it's needs.

I realize that there is the patina of exclusiveness that might be resented but apartment and condo buildings have indoor garages and keys to get in, Each and every one is a gated community. When the David Whitney building is refurbished, the residential floors with their meeting rooms, laundries, and exercise rooms won't be open to the unwashed masses either unless they buy a condo. The unwashed masses though would have more to gain from jobs and taxes gated communities could provide. It sure beats apple pickers getting assaulted on the back 40. Apple picking doesn't pay as good either.

You make some good strong points oladub. I'm just less impressed by the need to reconstruct swaths of the city in gated communities. First off, I may be mistaken but, what is the incentive to build viable streetlevel businesses in a gated community, unless of course it is a whopping 50000 in population; in which case it becomes absurd in the extreme. If the city needs to facilitate small businesses with increased proximity to populations; the gated model is not an alternative.

There is a medieval stance in the multiplication of these gated places that degrades the effort at building communities at large.

[Detroitnerd]

[[offered without comment)
..in the recent Ebony magazine, extended features section on Detroit, Dennis Archer is quoted as being a skeptic of urban farming; instead he mentions that once "the economy recovers", that a developer could somehow coalesce 100 acres or so of land and create a gated community/golf course.

On one end of the spectrum are those whose imagination is perhaps a bit feverish, if they really believe urban farming will "save" the city. [[Though it's nice, I agree.)

On the other end of the spectrum are folks like Archer, Jackson, etc., whose imagination went stale in the mid-1960s. Seriously? What Detroit needs is gated communities and golf courses? No wonder Detroiters resist land grabs from the likes of these fools.

[Detroitnerd]

Here's what I don't understand:

When people outside Detroit say, "We'd love to help Detroit, but we won't help until Detroit gets a handle on crime, its bad schools, its infrastructure problems and tackles its culture of corruption."

It sounds nice, right? It sounds caring but cautious.

The only thing is, Detroit doesn't have the resources to take care of its ills. And without intelligent voters and diligent citizens, corruption will never be dealt with.

So, what is being said here is that we all know there are enough resources to handle the problems in Detroit, but we will never help. Because Detroit will, in all likelihood, without assistance, never, ever get it together.

See why I'm confused?

[SWMAP]

You maybe don't know , but traditionally Detroit has rejected outsider help because most of the offers are from the counties [[governments) or suburban white potential helpers. Those offers almost always rejected.

[Detroitnerd]

You maybe don't know , but traditionally Detroit has rejected outsider help because most of the offers are from the counties [[governments) or suburban white potential helpers. Those offers almost always rejected.

Ah, so it's black-on-white racism that is responsible for the state of things? Well, then fuck the city. It's its own fault. Once they get rid of their racist leaders, then we'll help. But until then ...

repeat ad infinitum ad abusurdam

[oladub]

You make some good strong points oladub. I'm just less impressed by the need to reconstruct swaths of the city in gated communities. First off, I may be mistaken but, what is the incentive to build viable streetlevel businesses in a gated community, unless of course it is a whopping 50000 in population; in which case it becomes absurd in the extreme. If the city needs to facilitate small businesses with increased proximity to populations; the gated model is not an alternative.

There is a medieval stance in the multiplication of these gated places that degrades the effort at building communities at large.

I'm also thinking of the medieval solution to crime ridden streets as illustrated in Zefferneli's Romeo and Juliet in which walled blocks were essentially gated communities. Near the end of Romeo and Juliet, the Prince laments,

"And I for winking at your discords too
Have lost a brace of kinsmen: all are punish'd."

The Prince recognized that his toleration of discord resulted in disaster. So sure, if our society wants to get tough, really tough, on crime, it would end and there would be no demand for gated communities. That probably won't happen though because of our history, laws, tolerance, and budget shortcomings. I'm not advocating suppression of crime though so much as working around it so that, at least, there are new taxes and jobs in Detroit.

Even as few as 5,000 people could support a grocery, a pharmacy, doctors offices and all the things one sees in a village that size.

Gannon's post #21 has a link about a guy who lives in Detroit and has a 'gated driveway'. The article says he has $30m he is considering spending farming in Detroit. More power to him but I don't understand how he expects to get a worthwhile return on farming. I hope he succeeds but I also hope someone will get a chance to experiment with my gated community concept.