Causecast

by CLAIRE DALTON, Contributing Writer

Though urban farming has been around since the days of Machu Picchu, urban gardens are only recently becoming popular in U.S. cities. To make you immediately nostalgic for those quickly disappearing summer days, Causecast wanted to take a look at the five American cities with the best urban gardening track record. Anyone can plant a garden with the right inspiration, however, so read up and consider what you can do in your community.

Detroit’s recent media attention has focused on the struggling auto industry and rampant house foreclosures, but a great urban farming initiative has been growing in Detroit. The National Urban Farming organization originated in Detroit and has spread to cities including Los Angeles, Chicago, Minneapolis, St. Louis, and more. The organization optimizes unused land and materials in cities to provide produce to the hungry. The Farming Food Chain Project, imagined by the minds in Detroit, has been enacted in Los Angeles, putting vertical farms on the walls of downtown buildings. Working hand in hand with The Greening of Detroit, The Garden Resource Program, and the Earthworks Urban Farm of Capuchin Soup Kitchen, Detroit has made a huge impact building national momentum for urban farming, guiding some of the other top five cities in their efforts.

Philadelphia has a thriving urban farming community, with Philadelphia Green leading the charge. They worked to create the Philadelphia Horticulture Society’s City Harvest project, allowing urban gardeners from over 400 community gardens in the city to share their crops. GREENSGROW has also played a large role in the community (and was named one of the top 10 urban farms in America); in addition to being home to many local farms, they’ve created a number of programs, such as the Neighborhood Urban Agriculture Coalition (NUAC), setting up food stands in the city to educate locals about the need to re-green abandoned land, as well as sell local crops. For those new to the area or to urban farming, Weavers Way Co-op brings together a number of different urban farms through bike tours and has been expanding into new neighborhoods to foster the growing urban farming community. Even Penn State has gotten in on it, creating an Urban Gardening Program. Philly, you make me proud.

Chicago has long held the title of American city with the most rooftop greenery, but it seems many don’t realize how much of that greenery is actually cucumber and lettuce plants. Resource Center, a city mainstay in environmental education, has helped launch City Farm, an organization built upon a specific plot of land between two diverse neighborhoods: Cabrini-Green and the Gold Coast. This movable feast has then been replanted in vacant lots all over Chicago, providing both local eats and job opportunities. It has since been named one of the top 10 urban farms in America, joined by their fellow Chicagoans’ Green Youth Farm. One of City Farm’s recent projects, Green Boxes, provided an entire salad’s worth of crops all conveniently packed in a 2’x3’ box, suitable for porches, rooftops, and terraces all around the city. Mayor Richard Daley is working to make Chicago the greenest city in the U.S. and has long been an activist for urban farming; in fact, he created a roof-top garden on City Hall. In conjunction with the passionate inhabitants of the city, creating compost programs and supporting non-profits like the Institute for Community Resource Development, it seems Mayor Daley and Chicago are well on their way toward their goal.

New York City has a number of local and national-based initiatives in Manhattan, Brooklyn, and beyond, most notably the rooftop gardens that are sprouting up all over the city. Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s goal of making NYC green by 2030 and the Department of Housing Preservation and Development have helped spur on these projects, such as the East New York Farms and Added Value. In Brooklyn, the Brooklyn Rescue Mission transformed a garbage dump into a lush urban farm with free, organic produce for those at-risk of going hungry. The city’s vertical farming in particular has been on the rise through perpetual innovation, becoming a fast-growing local industry that is inspiring innovations across the country. Awesome installations, like those by Public Farm 1, have merged the concepts of city and country, bringing beautiful landscapes into city spaces and giving New Yorkers a momentary break from the urban jungle.

Austin‘s urban farming is just one of its many sustainability and environmentally-based initiatives. Boggy Creek Farm began in 1981, becoming one of the first true urban farms in the US in 1992 when they acquired their space in East Austin. Since then, a number of programs have cropped up (and I’m sorry to say that’s not my first intentional pun in this article) in the area, including YouthLaunch’s Urban Roots, which produced over 20,000 pounds of produce this year, donating thousands to pantries and shelters. The Sustainable Food Center has also worked to build and connect the urban farming community in Austin with a number of other food-based initiatives. Much like Philly, Austin also hosts annual bicycle tours to showcase their many urban farms.

If you can stand just a little more local praise, a few cities deserve honorable mention:

Carrboro, North Carolina hosts an annual bike tour of urban farms, sponsored by Carrboro Greenspace, educating and inspiring locals through hands-on workshops and raising money for a farm tools lending library.

Denver is always trying to keep up with Boulder, don’t you think? Oh well, this is still pretty cool.

Kansas City has created the Center for Urban Agriculture, helping sprout farms all around the area.

New Orleans‘s citizens have introduced urban farming into their city’s re-building efforts, creating organizations such as the New Orleans Farm and Food Network and the Lower Ninth Ward Urban Farming Coalition.

Juneau, well, at least one of Juneau’s citizen, gets my vote for her great innovation, gutter gardens.

Photo by mskogly, flickr.