Farming the city.

A mega-rich Detroit libertarian is considering intense urban farming as a solution to his city's woes. I wonder what it could do for other depressed post-industrial cities?



The article (Fortune via cnn) suggests that many view Detroit citizens see the proposal as a selfish land-grab by an untrustworthy 'invader'. I'd have to agree that in this case, it probably is.

Detroit has learned (and I think other cities should take note,) that large corporate entities are not good investments.-- They exploit city space and resources until it becomes no-longer profitable to do so. Then they leave us with the bag in one hand and a dysfunctional landscape in the other.

A few statements in the interview raise red flags for me:

"What if we had seven lakes in the city?" [the millionaire] wonder[s]. "Would people develop around those lakes?"
"It all sounds very exciting," [responds] the DEGC's Jackson, whose agency is working on assembling a package of incentives for Hantz, including free city land. "We hope it works."

Hope it works? I don't know what the outcome will be, but I surely hope that Detroit's citizens get more than such a weak assurance before they consent to let their landscape be used for a for-private-profit experiment.

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All these Detroit problems aside, I am interested in thinking about ethical large scale public farming could do for other cities.

For a program to be ethical and useful, I think the following guidelines are required:

• Land to be redeveloped into farm must be land that the neighborhood democratically chooses to be re-purposed.
• The new farm must be community owned in perpetuity.
• Farms, if chosen to be run as for-profit by their communities, must return their profits to the farm's home community.
• Coterminosity is not important--neighborhood integration is important.
  

Despite it's problems the now-defunct South Central Farm in LA seems to be a good model for how larger urban farms can enrich a city.


(photo:Jonathan McIntosh, South Central Farm, L.A.)

Why raze thousands of acres indiscriminately, as is proposed in Detroit? (at 14 acres, South Central was the largest urban farm in America at the time.)
It seems like the kind of broad stoke that a city or community could regret later, if not well considered.

Hopefully it will be the people, and not just a rich individual or private corporation, that make this call.

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Also, shout out to archipreneur , an interesting architecture blog, that mentions this story here.

My Neighborhood's got a hole in it!

The Charles Village neighborhood in Baltimore is a dense, older residential neighborhood circa 1910's, highly walkable with moderate mixed-use zoning.

It's the kind of neighborhood that can make even suburbanites reconsider living in the city. This is a little ironic considering Charles Village itself was established as a streetcar suburb--I believe a car ran up and down St. Paul street before being torn out in the middle of the century.

Today the low 3000's blocks of St. Paul street are the commercial hub of the neighborhood. There's a small grocery, restaurants, coffee shops--and -sigh- new modern condominiums. All in all its an interesting, useful, part of the neighborhood

To some it may even sound like a new-urban paradise--but there is something strange happening here too.
In the heart of this very valuable area is a large field of weeds. Its empty, fenced-off, and it's been this way for years.



Why?

According to a very informative article in the Johns Hopkins Newsletter, a row of turn-of-the-century row homes being used as JHU frat houses and a convenience store were demolished in 2006 to make way for a supposed new block of condos.

'The Olmstead' as it was to be called, has failed to materialize. In the mean time, where there once were people and businesses there is now nothing.


View Larger Map

The developer, Struever Brothers, Eccles & Rouse, had already built another block of ugly, boring, could-have-been-built-anywhere condos across the street. They didn't sell so well, and now it seems that The Olmstead is on hold until the market picks back up.
The bad news is, this is what they said in 2007--that's BEFORE the "credit-crunch" hit the fan!
I guess we could all be waiting a while.

I laughed when I visited the Streuver Bro's website--they claim to be "transforming America's cities." I may just be a cynic, but I think its fair to say that in this case they are transforming my neighborhood into a wasteland.

The sad part , in my opinion, is that the only thing this neighborhood can look forward to someday, is the arrival of another profit-extracting monstrosity when the yuppies finally feel like their portfolios have recovered.

I realize that developers are a fact of life. Private property is good. My only question is this: Should a neighborhood as a community have any say in the evolution of their built environment?

I wish that beautiful old buildings didn't have to be demolished.

I wish they didn't have to be replaced by bland, hulking, over-sized, cynically 'modern' buildings. And furthermore, I wish that 'mixed use' didn't have to mean chain stores. Isn't that what the suburbs are for?

I wish that a lovely neighborhood in a city generally plagued by decay didn't have to be exploited to grow.

I'll be very interested to see what ever becomes of the Olmstead.
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-finally posting again after a LONG summer vacation!
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UPDATED: here. Feb 2010.