As the city of Detroit struggles with population loss and dwindling industrial jobs, farms and community gardens offer the city a positive nudge.
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."
FULL STORY: Imagining Detroit
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Research from late 2021 documented the footprint of urban gardens in Detroit, finding evidence of inequities but not gentrification.
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Development Boom Threatens Philadelphia’s Urban Agriculture
As land values rise, more than 200 community gardens in Philadelphia could be lost to redevelopment.
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Planetizen Federal Action Tracker
A weekly monitor of how Trump’s orders and actions are impacting planners and planning in America.
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Congress Moves to End Reconnecting Communities and Related Grants
The House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee moved to rescind funding for the Neighborhood Equity and Access program, which funds highway removals, freeway caps, transit projects, pedestrian infrastructure, and more.
From Throughway to Public Space: Taking Back the American Street
How the Covid-19 pandemic taught us new ways to reclaim city streets from cars.
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