Room to Grow: Participatory Landscapes and Urban Agriculture at New York University — City Farmer News: “A research paper Adam Brock wrote under supervision from NYU professor Natalie Jeremijenko in Summer 2008. The conclusion? It’s not lack of land that’s preventing us from growing food on campus – it’s the politics of centrally-controlled space.”
When I was doing my thesis, I ran across the same conclusion – for a city. In fact it turned out that Kingston (Ontario) had plenty of space (why, every urban city does – Toronto has 5000 ha of rooftop space my friends!). The problem was the mindset, the policies and the conservative culture (I’m not talking just Kingston here).
The urban planners were hesitant to introducing changes and so were the politicians. Sounds like they all need to take a page from Joel Makower’s Strategies for the Green Economy. (I’m putting up a post later on based on a Joel’s work in his honour – How to Create Change in a Conservative Culture)
PS. As of 2007 there was increasing support by the City of Kingston for urban agriculture. An acquaintance of mine, Mike Payne (also a member of Sunnyside Community Garden), a local district school board teacher was actually working on starting an urban farm on some land near the Loblaws at the Kingston Centre. Which reminds me – I should check in to see how everything is going.
Resources
Dow CL. 2006. Benefits and Barriers to Implementing and Managing Well Rooted Community Gardens in Waterloo Region, Ontario. A report submitted to the School of Urban and Regional Planning at Queen’s University in conformity with the requirements for the degree of Master of Urban and Regional Planning (M.Pl.). Queen’s University, Kingston, Ontario, Canada (Aug).
Lam S. 2007. Urban Agriculture in Kingston: Present and Future Potential for Re-localization and Sustainability. MES Thesis to fulfill the requirements for the Masters of Environmental Studies Degree. School of Environmental Studies, Queen’s University, Kingston, ON, Canada. <http://hdl.handle.net/1974/675>
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