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General Motors' Bust Turns Detroit Into Urban Farming Mecca
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by mtippett | December 15, 2008 at 01:24 pm
401 views | 21 Recommendations | 5 comments
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For some time now I have been advocating or writing about the need to re-think the role of food production in the context of the new, emerging economic realities. It seems that we have an early indication of where this all may go by looking at the center of the old economic model, Detroit.
General Motors Corp., Ford Motor Co., and Chrysler LLC are fighting for their lives. Large stretches of Detroit are already dead.With enough abandoned lots to fill the city of San Francisco, Motown is 138 square miles divided between expanses of decay and emptiness and tracts of still-functioning communities and commercial areas. Close to six barren acres of an estimated 17,000 have already been turned into 500 “mini- farms,” demonstrating the lengths to which planners will go to make land productive.
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Recommendations (21)
Uwe Paschen
Narita, Chiba, Japan
A. Tran
New York, New York, United States
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Lazylizards
Australia
Sputnic
London, United Kingdom
Mary Richard
Toronto, Canada
Rhonda J Mangus
North Tonawanda, New York, United States
SOLARLIFE
FRENCH RIVIERA MONACO LONDON, France
Most RecentMost Recommended Comments (5)
at 14:55 on December 15th, 2008
Currently, there are already many farmers who are losing their business or scaling downward due to the rising operational costs. I wonder about the longevity of these "mini-farms".
at 16:18 on December 15th, 2008
Turning the lawn into a Vegetable garden. Well, that is positive even though the push for it is negative.
at 16:47 on December 15th, 2008
Tomatoes instead of cars. Detroits urban soup kitchens like in 1985 crisis.
Congratulations to the new NP outfit, works best on firefox mozilla, great possibilites, to stay on same page, like it.
at 03:51 on December 16th, 2008
Shall we conclude then that land price should not always go up like it's always understood to?
Like any other resource, land is not scarce. As with any other resource, it's a matter of allocation.
at 15:44 on January 9th, 2009
More towards Lazylizards's comment.
Luckily, this day and age we've learned to grow all kinds of things in places that were never able to before. It's still new technology of course (Minus a Greenhouse), but there is hundreds of types of it in existence. Now this all goes for growing gardens and such in places other than say, farms. Here's a few examples of what I mean.
We grow of plant/food hydroponically. Meaning they are grown in "giant fish tanks".
We grow of plant/foods in buildings without natural sunlight. <~ plus we still use green houses.
Why are these two examples important? Because they can be used in cities. Depending the age and structure of a building, they can be converted into these "Growing Houses".
Example: Company goes out of business. 10 story building is empty. 10 story building is bought and converted into a "Growing House". Let's leave a few floorss for maintenance, equipment, etc. So let's say 8 stories are used to grow various types of plants.
What does that do? Let's see ... produces jobs, converts a non-used building into a useful building, brings fresh food more "local".
That's just a small example of what I mean. They're creating "floating" buildings on the ocean, not to mention corporations looking to make "Oil-Rig" styled buildings. So that helps to take away from "land loss".
A note on "Land Loss". This has always been considered as a "loss of useable land". Well, nowadays every type of land just about is "useable". Look at how Dubai was a desert beside the ocean. If you view Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, etc. There are thousands upon thousands of land not used at all. In New Mexico for example there are many acres of land the Gov paid farmers to not use long ago, many are just finally at the end of those governmental contracts. You have lots of scrub land, plains, etc which all are not used (Being nice to the mountain/forest lovers). The land might not be fit for growing food the old way, but that same land can be home to a building/complex which can grow the food. There is so much land wasted for "cattle grazing". There are a buncha people trying to reduce the amount of cattle being breed due to their "helping to cause man-made global warming" (Not my idea or opinion btw, merely repeating what has been said). So that helps solve some of the "land loss" thing.
Anyhow. Those are a few, I couldn't get too in detail due to time restraints. The things I mentioned you can find online not to mention shows on Discovery Channel & TLC.
There are solutions for a lot of things ... but will people use them? Who knows. Guess we'll find out.