Community Gardens and Farms as Detroit Renewal Tools

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."