Urban agriculture. Is it possible? Parking garages turned greenhouses are probably not going to be the next big thing, but traditional farming in abandoned urban land has already taken hold.
Detroit is probably the best example. Residential vacancy rates in 2009 were 28%, up from 10% in 2000. This year the city is tearing down empty homes (up to 10,000 of them) while considering whether or not to shrink the city limits by as much as 50%. It’s currently 150 square miles and the population decline has left municipal services struggling, spurning a rise in private alternatives. The current population of 910k is almost half of the 1950 peak (1.85 million), although it’s worth noting that over the same period the greater metropolitan population has steadily increased from 3.2 million to 4.4 million.
Detroit’s downtown is in crisis, and as a result is has attracted international attention and inadvertently become a laboratory for 21st century redevelopment tactics. Urban agriculture is a big one. It’s a cheap and fast way to turn derelict eyesores into “productive” gardens. It’s also politically digestible for almost everyone, as it’s Green in a John Deere sort of way that prevents conservatives from objecting.
The movement is certainly getting a lot of attention. Federal money, several prominent national organizations and positive journalistic coverage. Even Silicon Valley wants in. But is it a solution?
Urban farming will not be the solution, or even a major component of a solution. Ignoring some bureaucratic hick-ups, the numbers just don’t add up. Urban gardens have always had their place in cities, but they have never sustained a city. If Detroit’s urban farms are fully realized, it will become a pseudo-city with patches of dense populations intermingled with patches of large (but not large enough) farmland. All of the current issues will still exist. Economic vitality needs to return, and urban farming cannot compete with rural mega-farms. Economically, it will never do more than supply local farmers markets and augment household groceries. Unemployment will not be significantly reduced and tax revenue will not go up.
Urban farming is great, and cannot hurt. But I don’t think it is the silver bullet. Urban farming strikes me as parallel (but NOT identical) to mural painting as a solution to urban blight. Murals spruce up a neighborhood and involve community members, but their lasting success is unclear.
Palimpsest City 