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Plant-filled amphitheater proposed for the HIgh Line’s final stretch. 

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The Beekeepers | Olivia Rae James Photography

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The strawberry organizer (a cloth shoe organizer with milk cartons inserts to try to preserve soil moisture) and the hanging succulent boxes I made last year are beginning to fill in/revive.

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Harvesting ants and trap-door spiders by BioDivLibrary on Flickr.

London,L. Reeve & co.,1873.. biodiversitylibrary.org/page/6290680

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The Armory’s Consulting Artistic Director Kristy Edmunds responded to the event of a thread with a question: “How to be within a poem and the recipient of its gift in one swing?”

Do you have an answer? Or is the beauty in the asking?

Photo: James Ewing.

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(Maps courtesy of USDA.)

Food Deserts Across America

A food desert is a low-income area that lacks access to fresh fruits and vegetables, and other foods that make up a heathy diet (limited or no access to supermarkets and grocery stores, sometimes coupled with limited to no transportation); instead, these areas are riddled with convenience stores and fast food restaurants.

The Food, Conservation, and Energy Act of 2008 required the USDA to study food deserts for one year.  In the study’s findings, some key points were:

About 2.3 million households (~2.2% of the population) live more than a mile from a supermarket and have no access to a vehicle.  Another 3.4 million households live between 1/2-1 mile from a supermarket and have no access to a vehicle.

Roughly 23.5 million people live in low-income areas that are more than 1 mile from a supermarket.  However, only 11.5 million (4.1% of the population) of these people are low-income.

Urban areas are more likely to suffer from limited food access due to racial segregation and income inequality.  In rural areas, it’s because of a lack of transportation infrastructure.

Shopping at small stores and convenience stores more likely to be found in food deserts is significantly more expensive than shopping at a large grocery store or supermarket.

While some researchers and their studies point towards lack of availability to nutritious foods as the reason for a lack of intake (and instead relying on the convenience stores and fast food restaurants), other researchers/studies prove otherwise. Either way, more research is needed in this area.

Dr. Eduardo Sanchez, vice President and chief medical officer of Blue Cross Shield Texas (not to mention former Texas commissioner of health and a national leader on childhood obesity) said:

The link between inequitable access to healthy, affordable food and chronic diseases is evident in every region of the country.  Low-income and being African-American, Latino, or American Indian increases the likelihood of poor access to good food and the prevalence of chronic diseases like type 2 diabetes.  From deep in the heart of Texas to the center of Midwest farm country, to President Obama’s hometown of Chicago, healthy food is not easily accessible to millions of Americans and people are sicker as a result.

Access to healthy, affordable food is a major public health problem and should be considered as important as affordable healthcare.  

While Alan Hunt, senior policy associate at the Wallace Center at Winrock International had this to say:

We thank the USDA for undertaking this thorough study.  Much of it verifies what we already knew - that for millions of people in low-income communities, access to fresh and healthy food is limited.  

Now it’s time for action.  What is needed is a set of coordinated, community based activities across the country, including outreach to existing corner stores, incentives for locating new retail stores, public transportation improvements, farmers’ markets development, nutrition education, and other activities to improve food access.

…

Supporting successful programs that address inequitable food access - from the development of a network of farmers’ markets that serves the nearly 80,000 mostly low-income residents of Camden, New Jersey, to the remarkable work in Black Hawk County, Iowa, where local producers work together to make fresh, healthy and local food available to restaurants, retirement homes, and universities while generating millions of dollars of sales - is the beginning.  Continuing efforts like these requires national support and leadership to ensure healthy food choices are accessible in all communities.

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This film tells the story of a South Los Angeles edible garden planted in a surprising spot. Ron Finley, its planter, constructed the garden the way he wishes his neighborhood could be. And his vision of repurposing unused open space, like that of many others working together on urban agriculture in our city, should inspire us all, and remind us of how, with a little creativity of vision, and willingness to get our hands dirty, we can remake spaces defined by asphalt and dead grass into productive places of beauty.

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John Taylor, a doctoral candidate in crop studies at University of Illinois, devised an ingenious scheme to pinpoint the extent of Chicago’s urban agriculture. Using Google Earth’s satellite imagery, Taylor determined that contrary to previous reports, Chicago’s South and West sides are teeming with privately managed gardens.

via The Atlantic Cities:

Of the 1,236 documented “community gardens,” recognized by various groups throughout the city, it turned out only 160 – or 13 percent – were really growing food (according to aerial images from June of 2010). But trolling over the city, frame by frame on Google Earth, Taylor found what looked like 4,494 possible sites of urban agriculture, many of which appeared to be small residential gardens. Their total mass adds up to 264,181 square meters of urban agriculture, much of it on the city’s South and West sides and far northwest where minority and immigrant communities are located.

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Infographic: Eat Local This Thanksgiving

When contemplating our menus for the upcoming holiday season, we wondering how much of the traditional Thanksgiving meal could be sourced from right here in Southern California.

As it turns out, almost the whole feast is covered! The one glaring omission is the cranberry, which doesn’t seem to be grown on a commercial level in California. (Though you don’t need a bog to grow your own. Just a potted cranberry shrub and a lot of patience.)

From humanely-raised heritage turkeys to pies made from local fruit in Santa Ynez, plus all the in-between vegetables, fruits, and nuts you need, you can gather your own Southern California cornucopia. Click through to visit the farms’ websites directly.

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Edible Spoon

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Metropolitan Agriculture at All Scales

S, M, L, or XL-sized metropolitan agriculture? Mia Lehrer, FASLA, Mia Lehrer + Associates, said it’s not just about one size, which definitely doesn’t fit all when it comes to cities,

Read full article here

Photo credits. (1) ASLA 2012 Professional Award Winner. Lafayette Greens. Kenneth Weikal Landscape Architecture / Beth Hagenbuch BLA

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Urban Trees: Let’s Grow Old Together - via @NextAmCity

When we talk about street trees and the urban forest, sometimes we miss an essential truth: Not all street trees are created equal. Mature trees are an order of magnitude more valuable to us than young, small ones.

There is no shortage of scientific evidence supporting the incredible benefits that mature trees provide to urban neighborhoods. Yet many local policies seem to focus only on the quantity of trees being planted rather than the quality. Let’s look at some of the ways mature urban trees provide incredible benefits to their communities. 

Continue reading here

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How To Compost In Your Apartment

Our Illustrated Guide For Beginners

More info here 

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Chicago’s City Hall  Roof Garden

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Ohio City Farm | Cleveland, OH

Ohio City Farm was once a sight that many urban dwellers are familiar with: a cordoned-off and vacant piece of land collecting debris and weeds. Thanks to the efforts of local organizations, however, six acres of once-unused land have been transformed into one of the country’s largest urban agricultural sites with tenants ranging from the Great Lakes Brewing Company to The Refugee Response.

And, as a business, Ohio City Farm proudly claims a triple bottom line: environmental, social, and economic prosperity.

More: Landscape Voice: Ohio City Farm

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Food for the City: A Future for the Metropolis In 2050 nine billion people will be living on earth, 75 percent of them in cities. If we continue along this trajectory, we will need several extra planets for the production of our food. Food for the City offers a catalogue of visions for the future of urban food systems, with contributions from a chef, an architect, a farmer, an artist, a philosopher, and others engaged in this global predicament.

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