The Feeding the City series is a string of articles appearing in Grist Magazine that will explore the many alternative food systems taking root in major cities around the country. Profiles of what is happening in New Orleans, Baltimore, Detroit, Oakland, Philadelphia, and Seattle will be highlighted. Pieces featured in the series include interviews with agriculture activists such as Annie Novak, who is farming a rooftop in Brooklyn, The series will present “painless” ways to compost, even if you live in a studio apartment, and some of the ingenious places that urbanites have found to grow food.
Public Produce Writers for the Grist Magazine series include author Darrin Nordahl, who will present a tour of towns that are growing food, not flowers, around public buildings, Kerry Trueman, who spotlights cities that are leading the way in agriculture-friendly policies, and Daniel Nairn, who explores the limits of “agricultural urbanism,” a city-planning model that urban activists believe is key to the livable cities of the future.
Public Produce Writers for the Grist Magazine series include author Darrin Nordahl, who will present a tour of towns that are growing food, not flowers, around public buildings, Kerry Trueman, who spotlights cities that are leading the way in agriculture-friendly policies, and Daniel Nairn, who explores the limits of “agricultural urbanism,” a city-planning model that urban activists believe is key to the livable cities of the future.
Series Intro
Brooklyn’s rooftop Eagle Street Farm has stunning views of the Manhattan skyline. (Michael Hanson)
As Tom Philpott explains in his introductory essay to this series, cities for centuries have played an integral part in producing food for their residents. Only recently did cars and trains replace horses—and garden-friendly horse poop—a switch that made possible the long-distance supply chain of big-farms-to-big-supermarkets that’s the foundation of the modern American urban food system.
Thanks to a confluence of pressures—rising fuel prices, a nostalgic desire to reconnect with our food sources, a new awareness of the environmental and moral costs of industrial agriculture—that model is losing ground. Not since the Victory Garden movement of World War II has America seen such an explosion of urban food-growing. Cities are once again green with lettuce and alive with the cackling of chickens.
Over the next few weeks and beyond, the Feeding the City series will explore the many alternative food systems taking root in major cities around the country, with profiles of New Orleans, Baltimore, Detroit, Oakland, Philadelphia, and Seattle. You’ll meet agtivists such as Annie Novak, who’s farming a rooftop in Brooklyn (above), and Gene Fredericks, who’s got a wildly ambitious plan for abandoned big-box retail stores in blighted urban neighborhoods. We’ll show you painless ways to compost, even if you live in a studio apartment, and some of the ingenious places that urbanites have found to grow food.
Feeding our cities requires more than urban farming, however. Stephanie Paige Ogburn will look at the thorny issue of “food justice,” or making sure low-income neighborhoods have access to healthy fresh food. Emily Gertz checks out the nouvelle food trucks—such as Let’s Be Frank, People’s Pops, and Primo’s Parilla—that are serving up Slow Food-esque fast food to middle-class, but budget-conscious hipsters.
And that’s not all. Public Produce author Darrin Nordahl takes you on a tour of towns that are growing food, not flowers, around public buildings; Kerry Trueman spotlights cities that are leading the way in agriculture-friendly policies; and Daniel Nairn explores the limits of “agricultural urbanism,” a city-planning model that evangelists believe is key to the livable cities of the future.
Even with the best agricultural policies in place, no U.S. city is capable of supplying more than a fraction of the food it needs. “Not even the most committed Brooklyn market gardener dreams of supplying the metropolis with flour from wheat grown on French-intensive plots,” Philpott writes in the introduction.
“Growing grain in the city makes no sense, and no one wants to see cows grazing on Central Park’s Great Lawn. Any realistic vision of ‘green cities’ sees them as consumption hubs within larger regional foodsheds.”
As the many pieces in this Feeding the Cities series will illustrate, that still leaves a lot of room in which to grow—and plenty of projects to be inspired by.
In this Series
- Series Intro
- The history of urban agriculture should inspire its future 11
- The New Agtivist: Urban farmer Annie Novak aims sky high 2
- Smart city governments grow produce for the people 6
- Urban farms around America are breaking through concrete and hitting sustainable paydirt [SLIDESHOW] 8
- Baltimore seeds city farms as path to sustainability, jobs 5
- Nouvelle food trucks make fast food with slow values 3
- New Orleans steps up its local-food game 3
- Composting 101 for citydwellers [SLIDESHOW] 15
- Seattle’s new urban-ag models are sprouting in friendly soil 11
- What U.S. citydwellers really spend on food and drink 5
- From Motown to Growtown: The greening of Detroit 9
- Three mobile vendors that are 'Feeding the City' one quick, guilt-free snack at a time 3
- Smart cities are (un)paving the way for urban farmers and locavores 11
- The New Agtivist: Gene Fredericks is thinking inside the city's big box 5
- Can Oakland plant a policy revolution to match its grassroots efforts? 1
- Three projects that are watering Detroit's ‘food desert' 11
- Colin McCrate wants you to eat your yard [AUDIO SLIDESHOW] 3
- Philadelphia's urban-farming roots go deep -- and are spreading wide 9
- Would a Walmart solve West Oakland's and Nashville's food problems? 5
- The future of urban agriculture is not about the 10-mile diet 15
