As cities and towns offer more incentives and planning support for local agriculture, there is still plenty of education and learning to be done to create and sustain local food systems. Enter the Agricultural Urbanism Toolkit.
"A new Agricultural Urbanism Toolkit produced by the Iowa State University’s Community Design Lab offers communities the planning tools necessary to prioritize and ignite urban farming projects," reports Trish Popovitch, "the Toolkit includes process, practice and case studies to help jump-start local urban agriculture programs."
The article quotes Courtney Long, fellow for the Community Design Lab and facilitator of the urbanism toolkit program, in describing the toolkit further: "The toolkit is actually twofold. It’s a process that we go through with communities, and it’s also a research booklet on tactics of agricultural urbanism…"
The toolkit has been beta-tested in three communities of varying size and scale, and includes details for building facilities on both the retail and the production side of urban agriculture systems. The article includes a lot more detail about the toolkits and their application so far.
Depopulation Patterns Get Weird
A recent ranking of “declining” cities heavily features some of the most expensive cities in the country — including New York City and a half-dozen in the San Francisco Bay Area.
California Exodus: Population Drops Below 39 Million
Never mind the 40 million that demographers predicted the Golden State would reach by 2018. The state's population dipped below 39 million to 38.965 million last July, according to Census data released in March, the lowest since 2015.
Chicago to Turn High-Rise Offices into Housing
Four commercial buildings in the Chicago Loop have been approved for redevelopment into housing in a bid to revitalize the city’s downtown post-pandemic.
Ohio Lawmakers Propose Incentivizing Housing Production
A proposed bill would take a carrot approach to stimulating housing production through a grant program that would reward cities that implement pro-housing policies.
Chicago Awarded $2M Reconnecting Communities Grant
Community advocates say the city’s plan may not do enough to reverse the negative impacts of a major expressway.
New Park Opens in the Santa Clarita Valley
The City of Santa Clarita just celebrated the grand opening of its 38th park, the 10.5-acre Skyline Ranch Park.
City of Costa Mesa
Licking County
Barrett Planning Group LLC
HUD's Office of Policy Development and Research
Mpact Transit + Community
HUD's Office of Policy Development and Research
City of Universal City TX
ULI Northwest Arkansas
Town of Zionsville
Urban Design for Planners 1: Software Tools
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