Urban farming progress in Detroit

I have written before on this blog about the trend toward urban farming in cities around the country, where blighted neighborhoods would be converted to agricultural uses. Click here for stories related to such activity in Harrisburg, Pittsburgh , Detroit and elsewhere.

Surprisingly, progress has been made in Detroit, as a private company is spending $450,000 to purchase 1,500 parcels on 150 acres:

A private company is snapping up 150 acres on the Motor City's East End -- property where more than 1,000 homes once formed a gritty neighborhood -- and turning it into what is being billed as the world's largest urban farm. Hantz Woodlands plans to start by planting trees, but hopes to raise crops and even livestock in the future, right in the midst of the once-proud city.

Immediate plans are to demolish and clear 15 of those acres and plant 15,000 trees, with additional plans for orchards, crops and livestock in the future.

Hantz' plans on a larger scale have been stopped or delayed by municipal (and community) resistance. It is too early to tell whether environmental and title issues will delay plans for utilizing the 150 acres in this transaction.

Is this agricultural activity worth watching as a predictor of the future of Harrisburg?

Green Urban Initiative; Urban garden demolished in Harrisburg

Click here for previous posts on urban farming and here for a past story on urban farming on multiple lots in Harrisburg City. 

From Fox43 comes the story of Green Urban Initiative, an urban farming organization that leases and operates multiple lots in Harrisburg.  On Wednesday, the City demolished one of GUI's lots at 6th and Curtin streets due to allegations that the property had fallen into disrepair and was being used to hide contraband, an allegation that GUI disputes. 

Additional details have been reported on Pennlive.  GUI's website can be found here.

What is most significant about this story goes beyond the demolition of this one garden.  We are not talking about your average backyard vegetable garden with only a handful of various plants. Gardens of this type often encompass entire vacant lots - or even multiple contiguous lots.

GUI operates "multiple gardens throughout the City," according to the Fox-43 story.  GUI apparently leases vacant lots from the City for this purpose.  This practice provides further indication that gardening provides a more profitable use of certain vacant urban lots than traditional residential or commercial uses. That gardening is more profitable reflects not only increased prices in food and farm products, but also many obstacles to land development and investment, such as increased lending restrictions, real estate taxes, municipal regulations and fees, title defects due to prior tax sales and urban crime.  The demolished lot in this case was located in a high crime area. All of those obstacles, while preventing building, repair or other development, would not interfere with gardening on land leased from the City.

In some cities outside of Pennsylvania, the possibility of increased urban farming has played a key factor in municipal plans for urban consolidation and population relocation. 

Pittsburgh Urban Chicken Coop Tour

I have written previously about "urban farming" (especially in Pittsburgh) - the trend in many large cities to encourage farming of abandoned or empty lots and even to incorporate such plans into the larger goal of urban consolidation.

In Pittsburgh last week, hundreds attended the "Pittsburgh second annual chicken coop tours."
This story is more significant than it might appear. The City of Pittsburgh and local residents have made a concerted effort for several years to devote more space to urban farming. This trend may grow as more properties become abandoned due to tighter lending restrictions on investors, title defects resulting from tax sales, municipal regulations and fees, and the collapsing real estate bubble in general. We may see a time when the most profitable use of certain urban space will be agricultural.

The following video is from the 2011 Pittsburgh Urban Chicken Coop Tour (courtesy of Transition Pittsburgh).

Urban farming spreading in Pittsburgh; Green Up Pittsburgh; Pepsi Refresh Project; Andrew McCutchen

The nationwide trend toward urban consolidation and urban farming has intersected with Major League Baseball amd Pepsi.

Earlier this month I commented on the urban farming trend that is beginning to take hold in major cities across the country, especially Pittsburgh. The previous article listed numerous urban farms taking root in Pittsburgh.

A new initiative by the City seeks to take advantage of a grant competition sponsored by Pepsi for the purpose of creating another urban farm in the Homewood section:

The competition is sponsored by Pepsi, which is offering 15 Major League Baseball teams the opportunity to receive a $200,000 grant as part of the Pepsi Refresh Project, designed to help improve communities.

The proposed initiative will fund the education, tools and support to cultivate an urban garden, which would be used to grow fruits and vegetables that would be donated to various nonprofit organizations to feed the hungry, including the youths participating in various programs at the Homewood-Brushton YMCA.

The idea was supported at a press conference yesterday featuring Mayor Ravenstahl and Pittsburgh Pirate center fielder Andrew McCutchen. The competition is clearly not intended to be an isolated event:

The urban garden idea is an extension of the Green Up Pittsburgh program that was introduced in 2007 to combat the increasing problem of overgrown vacant and abandoned lots in city neighborhoods.

While there is no guarantee that Pittsburgh will win the competition and be the recipient of Pepsi's grant money, 15 different cities are competing and the urban farming concept will advance a little further in one of those cities.

The competition is to be decided by online vote. The Post-Gazette article contains information on how to vote.
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update

The other cities competing for the Pepsi grant have proposed ideas unrelated to urban farming.

Here is Andrew McCutchen's promotional video.









The video and the press conference did not make clear how big the garden/farm would be, but at a cost of $200,000, it had better be a very big garden.

Urban farming in Pittsburgh; Grow Pittsburgh; Urban farming as a motivator for urban relocation/consolidation.

From today's Pittsburgh Post-Gazette comes a story that might predict the future of urban planning across the country:

The urban farm -- a novel, even whimsical, idea a few years ago in Pittsburgh -- is now a movement so fully fledged that a neighborhood without one seems almost an anomaly.

The movement has gone beyond mere small backyard gardens:

Grow Pittsburgh's sites include the Larimer Farm and Gardens, a quarter acre at Larimer Avenue and Mayflower Street; Lawrenceville Gardens at Allegheny Cemetery, about 150 square feet; and a garden the size of four city lots on Lincoln Avenue in Lemington called Higher Ground Community Garden.

The above list is in addition to a 3/4 acre lot in Braddock and others throughout Pittsburgh. What makes this trend significant is the nationwide nature of the movement and the near-utopian vision of its proponents (as I noted in March):

Near downtown, fruit trees and vegetable farms would replace neighborhoods that are an eerie landscape of empty buildings and vacant lots. Suburban commuters heading into the city center might pass through what looks like the countryside to get there. Surviving neighborhoods in the birthplace of the auto industry would become pockets in expanses of green.

(citing the Washington Times discussing Detroit)

The Post-Gazette article cites examples in other major cities.

The urban farming movement is rapidly taking shape as the motivator behind the urban relocation/consolidation movement nationwide. If urban farming takes root in conjunction with municipal efforts to destroy rundown neighborhoods and relocate (and consolidate) residents, the movement will be one of many factors at the center of legal battles over eminent domain, title and environmental issues. Food crops will not be the only things growing out of the ground in urban areas.

Detroit consolidation update.

Last week's story of the City of Detroit being "downsized" has been updated in The Washington Times:

Operating on a scale never before attempted in this country, the city would demolish houses in some of the most desolate sections of Detroit and move residents into stronger neighborhoods. Roughly a quarter of the 139-square-mile city could go from urban to semi-rural.

Near downtown, fruit trees and vegetable farms would replace neighborhoods that are an eerie landscape of empty buildings and vacant lots. Suburban commuters heading into the city center might pass through what looks like the countryside to get there. Surviving neighborhoods in the birthplace of the auto industry would become pockets in expanses of green.

This ongoing story is worth watching by everyone in the Eastern United States for the following reasons:

• Detroit's deterioration has advanced beyond that of other cities (including Pennsylvania cities) only by a matter of degree.
• City planners are going to make a serious attempt to implement this plan, but the result will not be picturesque farms where once stood blight.
• At some point this decade, Detroit will be mired in lawsuits related to eminent domain and the validity of disputed title claims (as well as protests, demonstrations and civil unrest resulting from forced relocations).
• It is likely that clouded title resulting from a history of tax sales has created uncertainty as to the true ownership of so much Detroit real estate (sound familiar?) and worsened the blight that this proposal is attempting to remedy.

Wherever blight and depopulation exists on a large scale, forced relocation, consolidation (and resulting litigation) will become an option for city planners.