Urban Agriculture
Food Trends
A comment I hear frequently from planners is that the focus on food and planning is “trendy”. I must admit that this puzzles me quite a bit. Professional planners in rural areas have concentrated on planning for agriculture – food planning – for decades. Before we had professional planners, human populations planned their communities around food, whether they were planning how best to follow herds for hunting, structuring early agricultural societies, or developing the first cities where food proximity and trade were central considerations.
Community Gardens and Farms as Detroit Renewal Tools
As the city of Detroit struggles with population loss and dwindling industrial jobs, farms and community gardens offer the city a positive nudge.
Pittsburgh Puts Urban Agriculture On The Books
Pittsburgh Mayor Luke Ravenstahl is promoting a number of green initiatives for the city, including new guidelines for the raising of chickens and honeybees in urban areas. The City Council approved the guidelines last week.
'Urban Farming 2.0' Takes Off
CNN looks at the next wave in urban agriculture: commercial-scale indoor farms that are hydroponic, climate controlled, and LED-lit.
Urban Agriculture Craze Boon to Farmers in Japan
Japan's yard-less city dwellers are increasingly drawn to "weekend farming" plots rented from commercial farmers on the urban fringe. Could it help the country's struggling agriculture sector? Kenji Hall reports.
Rethinking Detroit
Detroit reporter John Gallagher's new book "Reimagining Detroit" considers what it will take to remake The Motor City into a model that will work for the future.
Urban Agriculture Program Gets Boost in Oakland
A small-scale urban agriculture project in Oakland, California is set to receive a $4 million grant to expand its work.
What Urban Agriculture Means for Urban Design
Charles Waldheim examines the current trend's roots in design and architectural history and how it might alter city form.
Warehouses to Urban Farms
Yesterday's infrastructure can become tomorrow's agriculture, says Ed Harwood, by converting underused industrial warehouses and factories to hydroponic and aeroponic growing.
The Local Food Movement Goes Online
Online tools designed to connect local farmers with consumers are helping sustain the local food and urban agriculture movements.
The Past and Future of Urban Agriculture
Urban agriculture is not a new idea. Grist's Tom Philpott says the renewed interest in the idea should look for good ideas from its past.
Eating a "Town Meal" With Local Food
To publicize an urban agriculture project in Middlesbrough, England, organizers threw a town meal for 8,000 people sharing the food grown by the gardens. The growing experiment was so popular that many locals don't want it to stop.
Urban Farming Rising
Urban agriculture is becoming a well-known idea all around the world. Most of it is done at the small-scale, but there's still the idea of creating large skyscraper farms to feed our cities. Smithsonian takes a look at the idea.
Innovative Ideas for Urban Agriculture
Non-profit TerraformOne held a design contest for ideas for creating productive green spaces in cities. Winners include plans to put seniors to work as farmers and a global system of levees.
Stackable Agriculture
Famed architect Richard Meier was commissioned by Wallpaper Magazine to design a model for raising animals in an urban environment. The result is a design with agriculture stacked up on different planes of a skyscraper.
A New Direction for New Urbanists
At the 18th Annual Congress for New Urbanists, Andres Duany announced 'Agrarian Urbanism' as his new planning emphasis. He believes that the success of New Urbanism has stultified its progress and reduced its potential.
Locavore Movement, Ecological Concerns Spur Urban Apiaries
In an effort to help rebuild bee populations and support healthy diets and urban ecosystems, more cities are encouraging efforts at urban beekeeping.
Could Detroit Feed Itself?
It may be one of the worst food deserts in the country, but Detroit has enough open land in the city's 103,000 vacant lots to become self-sufficient in terms of food production, argues Mark Dowie.
A Self-Sustaining Urban Fish Farm
The Massachusetts Avenue Project in Buffalo's West Side is an urban fish farm designed to be a completely self-sustaining ecosystem, with food for the fish grown on the premises.
Subdivisions Built Around Agriculture
This article from GOOD wonders whether farms could become the new cornerstone amenity in suburban residential communities.
FREE Course: Walkable City 1: Why Walkability?
After describing his path towards focusing on walkability as the essence of good planning, Jeff Speck marches through his five principal reasons for making more walkable places.
Reinventing Malls: Planning Alchemy—Turning Gray Fields Into Gold
The course focuses on the opportunities and imperatives that shape reinvention of mall sites.
City of Rosemead
Rutgers University, Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy
One Hundred Miles
Hunter College, City University of New York (CUNY)
The Architects Foundation
University of Cincinnati Online
City of Cambridge
Montrose County
The Pocatello Development Authority
