Posts Tagged ‘economics’

There’s an inherent tension in the local food system movement: what is the proper scale? Some, for example, promote the radical home economics approach, encouraging hyper-local, backyard farming for self-sufficiency. Others advocate for the Community Supported Agriculture model, which begins to use economies of scale to spread the risk and reward involved in local production and consumption while still maintaining personal connections to the farmer. More recently, however, there’s been a shift toward examining the possibility of local food production as a viable job training and economic growth tool in places with large swaths of vacant urban land and high unemployment such as Detroit, Philadelphia, and Milwaukee. Milwaukee has long been at the forefront of the local food movement, with McArthur Genius Grant winner Will Allen’s Growing Power leading the way. The organization “develops Community Food Centers, as a key component of Community Food Systems, through training, active demonstration, outreach,

I attended the National Capitol Planning Commission’s speaker series, Seven Minutes & Change Toward a Better Region, and it was an urban planner’s geek heaven!  9 presentations, and the best part is – they were all distilled down to their core, as participants only had 7 minutes to get their point across.   Several people echoed my sentiments that there is a lot of filler in most presentations, and “all should be limited to 7 minutes.” While they were all fascinating, the one that was most applicable to this blog was a presentation by Gül Güleryüz (Prince George’s County) entitled: Urban Agriculture: It’s Good Food, it’s Jobs, and it’s Fun! I learned a few interesting facts in the seven minutes, the most interesting being: Will Allen’s Growing Power is working with  a farm in Prince George’s county on gardening as an economic development strategy.  They have three hoop houses, vermiculture, and

Some interesting articles from around the country: Getting the Lead Out:  The Hazards of Urban Farming Reduced with Simple Solutions - Cleveland.com Pay Dirt - Maggie Ginsburg-Schultz, Madison Magazine Cultivating Healthy Living - The Salem News

This photo of Greensgrow farms comes from Flickr user David Barrie. I heard much about this farm in graduate school, but I didn’t get the opportunity to visit. I hope to check it out on my next trip to Philly. David writes: Experimental urban farm in Kensington, Philadelphia: intended to be a prototype of urban agriculture that can be replicated by others. A combination of straight urban farming and community-supported agriculture (CSA). Check out David’s photostream for more great photos.

At some point, most people have the idea of opening a small business – perhaps a little B&B with fresh baked scones every morning; or a neighborhood bar that serves microbrews you craft yourself; or maybe even a small bake shop.  Tara Kolla, a resident of Silver Lake in Los Angeles, decided to sell bouquets of organic flowers, cut from the garden on her 21,000 square foot lot. That’s when the neighbors got involved. In graduate school, we learned about the NIMBY (envision a curmudgeonly old man or woman at a community meeting who cries “Not in my back yard!”)  In Tara’s case, the neighbors decided they didn’t want her business in the front yard. “They’re trying to grow it into something bigger than what should be in a small neighborhood,” said Frank San Juan, who lives across the street from Kolla. “When she started having these gardening workshops without

This came across my email box – it looks like a fantastic panel. What: “Food Access Solutions: Urban Agriculture, Local Food & Community Development” When: Friday April 16, 2010 from 10 am to 2 – pm;  Post-panel reception begins at 1:15, appetizers will be served! Where: THEARC, 1901 Mississippi Avenue, SE, Washington, DC 20020 How: Registration required – Click to register. Issues to be discussed: Food access in low-income DC neighborhoods, acknowledging work being done under the radar, the dire health consequences of failing to act, community food security trends nationally, the difficulties in bridging cultures, and the possible creation of a DC food policy council. Event Description: An umbrella group of urban gardening activists (Rooting DC and DC’s Field to Fork Network) will be convening a community food security panel discussion East of the River in Washington, DC on April 16th from 10 to 2.  This location was chosen

In an earlier post, I touched on urban greening and gardening as a key component of a livable community strategy.  From the urban planning perspective (by nature a comprehensive one) any sort of “sustainability strategy” should focus on the triple bottom line of economics, environment, and equity (social justice).  However, it should come as no surprise that in our country we often place the most weight on the first “e” – economics.  And some “down-and-out” communities are using urban greening as an economic development opportunity. In the current economic downturn, and certainly, during the economic restructuring of the past decades, Flint, Michigan has certainly been hard hit.  Beata Mostafi from the Flint Journal tells the tale of the synergy between urban greening and economic development in an article entitled “Project envisions turning urban lot into greenhouse for Hoffman’s deli”. The University of Michigan-Flint is incorporating food systems planning into their revitalization of an historic