Posts Tagged ‘planning’

In recent years, the concept of “Blueprinting” has gained traction with various communities, including urban planning.  For example, many cities and regions in California are now producing bluprints in response to SB375 (including the of-cited Sacramento Blueprint that relates to land use, energy consumption and climate change.)  The Iowa Food Systems Council recently released their food systems blueprint.  The report was authored by Angela M. Tagtow, MS, RD, LD and Susan L. Roberts, JD, MS, RD, with consultation and input from over 50 stakeholder organizations.   The stakeholders represented the private sector, NGOs, and government organizations, but I only saw two county planning departments on the list (Linn and Story), and no major city planning departments (although, the City of Des Moines was listed, it did not mention of this was a specific department or a representative from the Mayor’s Office).  It would have been nice to see additional representation from city and

As I may have mentioned, my friend, colleague, and sometime Grown in the City contributor Kimberley Hodgson, AICP has been working long and hard on a comprehensive new report on planning for urban agriculture.  It’s finally here, and it is worth the wait. Urban Agriculture: Growing Healthy, Sustainable Places (click the link to order a copy from Amazon.com), is one of the first comprehensive reports that collects the best practices for integrated urban agriculture – in all of its forms – into planning practice.  If you are interested in food systems planning, this is a good place to start.  For full disclosure, I served as one of the reviewers, and even have quite a few infographics and photos in the book! From the description: Urban agriculture is rising steadily in popularity in the United States and Canada-there are stories in the popular press, it has an increasingly central place in the growing local

Courtesy of Treehugger, check out this beautiful vertical garden in Getafe, Spain.  When I was in graduate school, we explored the possibility of using vertical gardens or “living walls” to spruce up alleyways and shade parking garages (for both natural cooling on the inside and beauty for those looking at the garage from the outside), but we really couldn’t find very many good case studies to sell our idea.  So, it’s good to see that this “ugly cooling tower” will host “2,500 types of ferns, herbs and perennials will supply enough oxygen for 128 people in a year.” Granted, they faced many design challenges, as we would have in Philadelphia.  The article discusses how they overcame many of them: “One of the most important factors when selecting the different specimens of species to use, was one hand the orientation of each side as the sun shines differently on each of

Nicole Norfleet tackles one of the defining aspects of most small non-profits: the sustainability of funding streams.  In this story, she looks at urban farming and non-profit gardens. Katie Aldworth used Kickstarter to find funding for her organization, Beet Street Gardens.  Kickstarter is a web 2.0 site that connects small funders with good ideas.  With 121 funders, she surpassed her goal of $5,500 by raising $6,121.  That’s an average of $50.58 per donation.  Not that bad when you consider how much you can spend on a nice dinner out. Has anyone else found interesting funding sources for urban gardening projects beyond the traditional grant writing?

Kim Hodgson, manager of APA’s Planning and Community Health Research Center, collaborated with the Food Policy Advisory Committee of New Orleans to provide information about the New Orleans Food System for participants of the National Planning Conference.  A similar guide was produced last year for Minneapolis. From APA:To learn more about some of the city’s food related organizations, community gardens, farmers’ markets, food stores, restaurants and breweries, see the full guide at http://www.planning.org/conference/neworleans/pdf/FoodSystemGuide.pdf.

The American Planning Association’s National Planning Conference is taking place in New Orleans from April 10-13, 2010.  APA’s Planning and Community Health Research Center is partnering with the New Orleans Food & Farm Network and the New Orleans Food Policy Advisory Committee to host a screening of Big River.  From APA: Date: Saturday, April 10, 2010 Time: 6:30pm-9:30pm Location: Southern Food & Beverage Museum, New Orleans Louisiana (http://www.southernfood.org/) In coordination with the New Orleans Food & Farm Network and the New Orleans Food Policy Advisory Committee, APA’s Planning & Community Health Research Center and Food systems planning Interest Group (FIG) is hosting a 3 hour social and educational event for APA conference participants.   The event will start with a social hour (beverages, hors d’oeuvres, and a light-fare will be provided), which will provide members a chance to mix and mingle. Following the social hour, we will screen: Big River