To most of my readers a farm is not a strange or unusual sight. \u00a0Many readers live on farms. \u00a0But to most city dwellers, a farm is as mysterious and distant as a tropical rain forest is to us. \u00a0Many city kids have never seen how food is grown; they know only that it comes from a supermarket wrapped in plastic. \u00a0Some cities have started busing school kids out on field trips (literally) to nearby farms so they can get a look at what a field of produce looks like. \u00a0Many cities have parks, and maybe a horticultural garden, but not farm land. \u00a0I bet the last place you\u2019d think to look for farm land would be inside a major industrial city, such as\u2026 oh, say\u2026 Detroit. \u00a0The Motor City. \u00a0And you\u2019d be wrong!<\/p>\n
The city of Detroit has for years been the poster child for urban blight: having lost 25 percent of its population over the last decade and with roughly 40 of the city\u2019s 139 square miles vacant, according to\u00a0The Detroit Free Press<\/em>. \u00a0But the actions of some residents and organizations may be about to change all that.<\/p>\n In the wake of the largest municipal bankruptcy in U.S. history, Detroit is rebranding itself as The D.I.Y. City, with projects such as urban farms, encouraging small businesses selling locally made products, and residents pitching in to handle municipal upkeep.<\/p>\n Bands of citizen volunteers have been swarming into vacant properties, abandoned and neglected by their owners, to cut grass, clear brush and pick up litter and debris. \u00a0Many of the derelict homes are being razed by the city, but some feel there is a better way to go.<\/p>\n Read more:<\/a>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" To most of my readers a farm is not a strange or unusual sight. Many readers live on farms. But to most city dwellers, a farm is as mysterious and distant as a tropical rain forest is to us. Many city kids have never seen how food is grown; they know only that it comes … Continue reading “The Rise of Urban Farms”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[20,21,32],"class_list":["post-6954","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-educational","tag-economics","tag-land-maintenance","tag-marketing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6954","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6954"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6954\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21516,"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6954\/revisions\/21516"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6954"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6954"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6954"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}