Agriculture's Renaissance... in the CITY

We are very cyclical people it seems, always returning back to our roots.

Passé fashion trends become chic. Old cars become valuable collectibles. Previously owned items become priceless antiques. Derelict neighborhoods become nuclei of important development.

But nowhere is this human nature better demonstrated than in our patterns of settlement. First, we lived in the countryside where agricultural land was utilized as a source of shelter, nutrition, and income. Next, we decided to build cities, eventually leading to the rise of an urban lifestyle, which was soon after superseded by the suburban revolution. Now, with a re-influx of people into the city, its capacity to sustain such a growing population is nearing its threshold. Cities are beginning to expand exponentially into previously rural land.

SO, we have started to bring the country to the city, which marks a sort of return to (at least some aspects of) the country lifestyle we began with.

Urban agriculture is on the rise, shepherding (pun intended!) an agricultural resurgence not in the country, but in the city. Using the minimal space available in the city, urban agriculture has found innovative ways (e.g. Symbiotics, companion planting, vertical gardens, etc.) to produce small amounts of food for personal and community consumption. In so doing, it has brought back significant, and beneficial, aspects of country life to the urban condition - e.g. better nutrition from greater vegetable/fruit consumption; a more active lifestyle attributed to working the land; and greater self-sufficiency, enabling improved social and financial security.

Here are a few pictures of Foodshare's urban garden that I work at. We have been growing a wide variety of plants, vegetables and fruits, including celery, carrots, corn, potatoes, herbs, peppers, cabbage, beans, etc.



Beet root


Rainbow Swiss Chard


Tomatoes


Pumpkin/squash (not really sure what it is!)



PURPLE String Beans (much better than their yellow and green counterparts!)

Is it just nostalgia... that we like to maintain some sort of a connection to our history? Or, have the last few decades of change wronged everything that we got right the first time around?

Inventive Uses of Space

When people are not given the necessary infrastructure to meet their needs, they resolve to find alternative ways to satisfy those needs. For the most part, these new uses of space are surprisingly inventive.

But sometimes unsightly...

This is a picture of a public housing project in Alexandria, Egypt. What originated as a large, plain building comprised of tiny studio apartments for families was later adapted by residents to suit their growing needs. As shown above, residents literally expanded their spaces beyond the building's walls by destroying exterior walls and building small balconies with whatever locally available materials they could get their hands on.

And sometimes brilliant...

New York came up with a creative, vertical response to its growing parking demands. By parking cars atop one another, space is best conserved more efficiently and cheaply than constructing parking garages, which require heavy input costs related to excavating and construction.

And sometimes even comical...

This is a picture of cars parked on a tennis court adjacent to a series of residential high-rise buildings in Montreal's Cote-St-Luc neighborhood. This photo sort of sums up how indolent the urban dweller and lifestyle has grown - taking over unused places of healthy activity like tennis courts and using them to park our cars, which only encourage sedentary living. So typical!

Most importantly, I think that these cases demonstrate how truly resilient urban dwellers can be!

A Pioneering Park: High Line Park in New York's Meatpacking District

Originally constructed in the 1930s to lift dangerous freight trains off Manhattan's streets, the High Line has been re- vitalized, -designed, and -discovered as a trendy, innovative park in New York City's rejuvenated Meatpacking District. Section 1 of the High Line is now open as a public park, owned and operated by the City of New York but maintained by Friends of the High Line conservancy.

Upon the completion of the project, the High Line will be a mile-and-a-half-long elevated park, spanning across the West Side neighborhoods of the Meatpacking District, West Chelsea and Clinton/Hell's Kitchen. The innovative, and certainly unique, park design perfectly integrates meandering concrete pathways with understated, whimsical flora.

Access points from street level will be constructed every two to three blocks, many of which will have elevators (all entrances will include stairs, as shown below).


In the midst of a truly 'concrete jungle', High Line Park reconciles this seemingly paradoxical aesthetic of steel railways yards and a public green space. Beyond its utility as a great public space, High Line Park should be considered an icon of innovative urban design. High Line Park not only provides great recreational public space for New Yorkers, but also provides other cities with a model for rejuvenating urban pockets of decay, preserving historic sites, finding inventive ways to make better use of space and integrating green space.

Mid-late 1900's: an unused railway yard



June 2010: a pioneering public green space