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Technological, schmecknological. City folks grow crops in their backyards or even on their mow strips already. It's a cute idea, but it makes more sense to me to grow crops on farmland instead of building suburbs on them. But it's a potential option for reusing large vacant suburban subdivisions!
Technological, schmecknological. City folks grow crops in their backyards or even on their mow strips already. It's a cute idea, but it makes more sense to me to grow crops on farmland instead of building suburbs on them. But it's a potential option for reusing large vacant suburban subdivisions!
Never underestimate the potential for urban farming.
Although the focus is on Russian dachas, as you can see from the first picture in the following link, it is much like many of the first suburban (now inner-city) neighbourhoods in this country, so the same concept applies. Although the amount of land in our pre-WW2 neighbourhoods is less in many cities people could still manage to plant some fruit trees that would produce more than enough fruit for much of the summer, as well as tomatoes, potatoes, cabbage, and other things that are easy to grow.
From what I am gathering, this will create jobs which will be good. More people will be employed. We need that and we would be doing something really productive. In the city, it looks good, but also be a good idea to build farms where they plan to build more suburbs too. How about both? SEVERAL jobs can be created here if they build them in the suburbs AND build these farms in the city like suggested like say some run down part of St Louis or Detroit. This way people will have jobs in the suburbs AND new jobs created in the cities too. I am a fan of the idea so far.
I guess it has some potential to create jobs. I don't look at urban farming as an economic activity, but rather a type of self-sufficiency. I also think more of backyard family plots where people trade different types of fruits and vegetables with others in the neighbourhood based on what they have an excess of, more than shared community gardens. I guess both could have similar end results.
I also see other benefits to it. It is local, so things aren't shipped from elsewhere, reducing the amount of oil consumption. It shouldn't be too hard to get at least a few people in those wrecked neighbourhoods interested in it, which would familiarize others in those communities to garden if they see the benefits (free food for a few hours of work). It would give them something constructive to do which could potentially distract a few of them from peeing on things, spray-painting traffic signs, smoking weed, drinking 40-ouncers and many other things they do out of boredom.
I also see other benefits to it. It is local, so things aren't shipped from elsewhere, reducing the amount of oil consumption. It shouldn't be too hard to get at least a few people in those wrecked neighbourhoods interested in it, which would familiarize others in those communities to garden if they see the benefits (free food for a few hours of work). It would give them something constructive to do which could potentially distract a few of them from peeing on things, spray-painting traffic signs, smoking weed, drinking 40-ouncers and many other things they do out of boredom.
We've got two urban farms run by the city school system here. It's teaching the kids 1) where there food comes from 2) how to eat better - lots of the food gets used in the cafeterias 3)trade-worthy horticlutre skills 4)lessons in economics, as produce is sold at local farmers markets and in CSA shares.
I've volunteered at both - lots of very interested teens working hard who would not have had a chance to be exposed to something like this otherwise.
I really like vertical farms. I think that cities should definitely have them, and they should be community owned and not corporate owned. Maybe those big skyscraper ones can be corporate owned, but I think they should be community ones in backyards and such, and on top of roofs of large buildings like apartment buildings. Like I can imagine many of them being on top of roofs in Brooklyn and they can provide jobs like someone here said. I think that when they do that, any food left over that isn't sold can either be used as fertilizer or should be given free to the workers/employees themselves or to homeless people who need it.
I don't underestimate the potential of urban farming at all, but those small plots are typically in the ground, not vertical farms. I have a backyard garden myself, not huge (currently less than 100 square feet of plants) but enough that I didn't have to buy one tomato between May and November last year, plus plenty of other fruit and vegetables over the course of the year--enough to save some money and supplement my diet, although not enough to replace trips to the farmer's market. Something expensive as a high-rise building is difficult to justify for agricultural use unless food has become far, far more expensive than it is now.
This does seem like a pretty good idea, and it would be ideal if not for the price. I can see rooftop gardens and such being built on existing buildings in some large urban centers like New York, Tokyo, etc. but building new high-rise buildings just dedicated to agriculture it would take a really long time and a lot of buildings to become worthwhile. Maybe in some countries like Iceland and Japan where there is not much land to farm on, it could become the future of agriculture. However, in the US it would really be pointless since we have so much space and it's just more profitable and practical to keep using our current system.
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