esprit de l'escalier

Urban farming

(Editor's note: I'm trying to get myself back into the swing of blogging, but I'm feeling very rusty. Instead of constantly blogging in my head, I've been having a hard time starting anything. So, while I think I'll continue to share some photos from my trips to Seattle and Philly, and hopefully get some stories in there too, here's something to tide us all over.)

The Greater Ohio blog pointed me to this article about a model of urban farming that is actually profitable. Short digression: When I started my master's degree two years ago, one of the first subjects to whip me into an excited frenzy was urban farming. Our current food system - with food being carted so far and farmland being paved for subdivisions that would end up costing municipalities more than their taxes and our complete disconnection from what we eat and where it comes from - concerns me. (Who knew the idea of people eating fresh veggies could be so exciting?) To me there is such a strong connection between how and what we eat, land use, and public health, and I see urban farming as helping untangle that knot.

The article over at Governing discusses Roxanne Christensen and her mission to try and make a half-acre plot in Philadelphia profitable through urban farming (by at least $50,000). By the fourth year, her gross profits were $68,000. They quote Christensen saying, "The only way for urban agriculture to establish itself on any scale is to be a viable business proposition," which I think is true. And I think her venture is really exciting. (Greater Ohio also points to Christensen's organization, Small Plot Intensive Farming or SPIN-farming. I find it all rather fascinating. Check it out.)

Other related links: Farm City: The Education of an Urban Farmer is currently waiting for me at the library. I heard about it on NPR back in July, and my turn on the reserve list has finally come. Time timing is perfect.

Also, Greater Ohio was connecting urban farming with shrinking cities. Metroblossom, one of my favorite flickrites, spent the summer in Detroit, the poster child for shrinking cities. It's fascinating to see its decay through his sociologist lens. Check out his set here.

Fighting sprawl

Sorry for the lack of posts - I've been having quandaries - about blogging in general and also about the cookie contest. (Only one group has submitted. It seems the cookie contest is DOA this year.)  Here's something I meant to post about last week.

I just finished a project about creating walkable communities for a class on urban design and public health.  The idea behind the assignment was to research some aspect of "healthy" cities, find a case study, and then apply it in some way to Columbus.  I did a case study on an existing project to create a "main street" in Arlington, VA, specifically the Columbia Pike Corridor.  Basically, using form-based code, they are changing 3.5 miles of sprawly, car-oriented stretch of roadway to a dense, walkable, mixed use environment, that is designed to be public transit ready.  The goal is not to gentrify, but to create a vibrant, urban environment.  (Of course whether it will push out completely is still yet to be seen.  A lot of projects say they aren't going to do that but then only build expensive housing - and even if they do build mixed income housing, some people always get pushed out.  I am very curious to see or to know of projects that don't just gentrify.)

Anyhow, as you might guess from the long paragraph above, I have become an urban planning nerd.  I love to talk about things like form-based code, new solar technologies, using wetlands for water treatment, etc.  The reason I chose this topic was that the suburb I intern with is writing a new plan for one its neighborhoods, and I helped at a community meeting.  Also, one of the other interns and I like to have lunch and discuss what we think would strengthen and make this area better.  I saw this project as an excuse to put these ideas to paper, and to think about them more critically.  It was fun - my friend and I did our own mini walking audit, and I think I came up with some sensible suggestions and shared them with the city's planner.

Last week, after I had given my final presentation for class and turned in my papers, I heard this piece on Morning Edition, about Tyson's Corners in N.  Virginia.  (I'm also a huge Morning Edition nerd.)  Over the next thirty years, Tyson's Corners is going to try and change from a sprawled edge city that has a day time population (ie: workers) that more than dwarfs the  number of actual residents (117,000 workers to 17,000 residents - can you imagine the congestion?).  This is a feat that has never been done before.  A lot of the literature I read seemed to suggest that a project like this would be something of a fool's errand - massively expensive and difficult from a legal perspective.  It will be very interesting to follow this project's progress, because I think other cities like Tyson's Corners are going to looking to change their modus operandis, especially if they can't  count on building (and filling) new spec office  parks.

Soggy thoughts on what I want to be when I grow up

Today started off a bit soggy. It started raining yesterday evening and did not stop until this evening. Thus my trip to the polls early this morning was fairly wet, and my galoshes got a work out. I found something amusing with voting today. It must be that Ohioans aren't used to voting in primary elections, because I saw two people have mini tantrums about having to choose one ballot over another. I think it's because they were Republican and only wanted to vote on the Democratic ticket for president. Frankly I didn't have a lot of sympathy.

I am currently coming off the giddiness that follows public speaking. I just gave my final presentation for my "Where Do I Fit?" class, in which I had to describe what kind of planner I want to be when I get done with my master's program. We had to have one slide with an image that would serve as our inspiration. I chose this photo of the Urban Planning Exhibition Hall in Shanghai. When I saw it, I thought about the mass of humanity that would be living in such a dense urban area, and how nature and community could possibly be balanced. My interests in planning are related to design, community and sustainable living. In a perfect world I'd be able combine these three interests in a job to make urban living better in America in places like Columbus, Ohio. I'd also like to be able to write about it. (Have I told you how Dwell magazine influenced two major life decisions last year, including getting a master's in urban planning? I'd love to be published by them one day.)

I'm writing about this now partially to start forming more coherent thoughts for myself (and my final paper for that class). It's funny how this assignment has been both difficult and easy. I know what sparks my interests and passions, but it's hard to consolidate those interests into goals. Part of the assignment entails writing a "perfect future resume" - which I haven't yet started. It's exciting and scary to dream, especially when there are real life implications (even if they are good implications).

Anyhow, sorry for the navel gazing, though that's what this space is often for. I just got two rolls of film back today and have some great photos to share this week. Stay tuned! (Below is a shot of the main drag in town, taken Sunday during our short bit of beautiful weather.)

Dense humanity

My big joke when people are asking about how my trip was is to retort, "There are a lot of people in China!" Which isn't very funny, but it was something I thought about a lot while I was there, beyond just the crowds. Part of my interest in traveling to Shanghai was its growth and to see in person what that meant.

I had an abbreviated conversation with my mom tonight while waiting for the L this evening about China and urban planning. I was telling her about my visit to the Shanghai Urban Planning Exhibition Hall. Its main feature being a huge scale model of the master plan of Shanghai. My guidebook joked that it's where the old Shanghaiese go to see what is going to be built over their old homesteads. I was interested to see it because I'm interested in urban planning and was curious to see what the plans were like. How do you accomodate for hyper-dense populations? I'm not sure if the overly optimistic signage has the answers. It seems like the planners of the future Shanghai are trying to find a balance between urban and nature, with lots of different levels of parkland spread throughout the city. Because can you imagine the heat of hyper-cities if some amount of greenspace didn't exist? I can't imagine how people could live in the heat and the smog.

Can we balance such a large growth of dense population and nature? Is it possible on that scale? I guess time will tell, but it seems like such a delicate balancing act, one I'm unsure that government can make. Is there the political will to see through the difficult decisions that need to be made?

Being in Shanghai also made me think a lot about how necessary sustainable architecture is, especially with the growth of huge cities and dense populations. The smog was terrible in Shanghai. I wondered if they ever had blue skies there. One day would have been clear, and there was the faintest blue beneath the gray sheen. I bought a book about the environmental hurdles in China, ironically called The Greening of China by Geoffrey Murray and Ian G. Cook. It looks interesting and (according to the back flap) doesn't discount the enormous hurdles China faces.

Anyhow, this post does not fulfill the photos and/or stories requirement that has been requested, but I'm getting there. I promise.