The New York Times' food writer Mark Bittman travels to Detroit to see how food and farming are changing the city for the better.
"Food is central. Justice, security, a sense of community, and more intelligent land use have become integral to the food system. Here, local food isn't just hip, it's a unifying factor not only among African-Americans and whites but between them. Food is an issue on which it seems everyone can agree, and this is a lesson for all of us.
'The idea,' says Malik Yakini, a school principal who runs the two-acre D-Town Farm, 'is to help black people stand up, to demonstrate that creating reality is not the exclusive domain of white people - without pointing fingers at white people.' The farm, located in Rouge Park - the city's biggest - will soon double in size."
