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A Garden in Motor City

Posted by: Tim Halbur
Thanks to: Akshali Gandhi
6 February 2010 - 11:00am

Detroit revitalizes urban farming to replace dying industry.

As a city still haunted by the death of its auto and manufacturing industries, Detroit is looking for any alternatives to help it regrow. The answer to its economic woes, however, may require a little digging into its agricultural past.

Before becoming the bustling Motown, Detroit was a stretch of farmland. Today, it hopes to trade in abandoned buildings for rich soil.

"There's so much land available, and it's begging to be used," said Michael Score, president of the Hantz Farms, which is buying up abandoned sections of the city's 139-square-mile landscape and plans to transform them into a large-scale commercial farm enterprise. "Farming is how Detroit started," Score said, "and farming is how Detroit can be saved."

Can urban gardening put Detroit back on the map?

Full Story: Detroit Cultivates Urban Farm Initiative
Source: Chicago Tribune, January 3, 2010
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One great asset of this part of town, and other older neighborhoods across America, is something as simple as sidewalks, which make it easier to break out of your private sphere by taking a walk and talking to neighbors. That's an impossible dream in many new subdivisions.
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