I used to be disgusted, and now I try to be amused.

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally Posted by Sidd Finch

Or bread, or rice, or apples, or carrots, or any of the other things that are grown on large-scale farms.

Carrots are one of the most bizarre mass-farmed things out there. You grow carrots and they don't look or taste anything like those long, thin, bunches. You have to grow those in a bed of sifted something (probably not soil in most cases) to get them to turn out like that.

I can only imagine the urban farmers pulling a blood-red stubby thing out of their urban oasis and saying, huh, mabel, what's this hear thing?

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally Posted by taxwonk

Well, then by all means, let them eat textured soy protein.

sorry, it's not gluten free.

[ThurgreedMarshall]

Originally Posted by taxwonk

The guerilla gardens only supply small amounts of fresh produce, but it's more than they had before. Think of them as demonstration project, proof of what can be done when people take more ownership of their lives. Now think of all the vacant lots, abandoned buildings, and rooftops that are being used for nothing but hang-outs used by people with far less positive influence on the community.

I think you have an idea of New York that doesn't quite fit with the current reality. There are very few vacant lots. Forget Manhattan. People are being pushed out of the boroughs as a result of gentrification. Places like South Bronx*, Flatbush, and even East New York--traditionally known as places white people drove around for fear of death--are currently in transition. The few vacant lots aren't going to be vacant for long. In fact, there have been numerous articles about long-standing community gardens being removed for developments. This isn't 80s New York.

Originally Posted by taxwonk

Take a look at Bronzeville, in Chicago. A renaissance in black-owned businesses initially drew almost exclusively black customers, but over time, Bronzeville has extended the overall economic growth and diversity of Chicago's South Loop. Another example is Savannah's Starland District, where a group of black owned businesses started out serving the black, mostly poor West Side. The area has grown into one of the fastest growing neighborhoods in Savannah, with restaurants, art galleries, and other retail shops are mixing with auto shops and antique stores that used to be salvage and junk furniture stores that used to provide furnishings and building materials for people who couldn't afford any better into thriving restoration and vintage materials sources for people doing rehabs in the Historic District.

I can't speak to your examples. But "fastest growing neighborhood" usually means "push out the locals who have lived there for generations." There is usually a honeymoon period that people tend to romanticize and remember (selectively) where it seems there is a great mix of long-time (poorer) residents and new and interesting cheese shops and bullshit art stores popping up alongside places whose leases aren't up yet. Seems to me, that's what you're describing.

TM

*(South, South Bronx.)

[Sidd Finch]

Originally Posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy

Carrots are one of the most bizarre mass-farmed things out there. You grow carrots and they don't look or taste anything like those long, thin, bunches. You have to grow those in a bed of sifted something (probably not soil in most cases) to get them to turn out like that.

I can only imagine the urban farmers pulling a blood-red stubby thing out of their urban oasis and saying, huh, mabel, what's this hear thing?

Urban farming is a very romantic notion, and like many such notions is largely bullshit. Yeah, you can grow some nice produce. But can you produce enough calories and enough variety on a hand-tended lot to provide a nutritious diet for the people working that lot? Highly doubtful, especially if it's just volunteers and activists doing the work.

And you are using a lot that could be used for a multi-family housing development, bringing people into a living situation where they consume vastly less energy per capita than they would elsewhere.

The real benefit of urban gardening projects is to get people used to growing -- and thus eating -- fresh produce, to move people away from prepackaged foods. That's a great goal, but it's not a method of replacing large-scale agriculture. And there are other ways to accomplish that, and to deal with the "food desert" issue. That same multi-family housing development can have a market on the ground floor that sells produce rather than the shit that some places sell, and that's a change I've been seeing all over.

I'm also skeptical of the health benefits of eating lettuce that has been breathing in the NYC air, but maybe that's just me.

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally Posted by Sidd Finch

Urban farming is a very romantic notion, and like many such notions is largely bullshit. Yeah, you can grow some nice produce. But can you produce enough calories and enough variety on a hand-tended lot to provide a nutritious diet for the people working that lot? Highly doubtful, especially if it's just volunteers and activists doing the work.

And you are using a lot that could be used for a multi-family housing development, bringing people into a living situation where they consume vastly less energy per capita than they would elsewhere.

The real benefit of urban gardening projects is to get people used to growing -- and thus eating -- fresh produce, to move people away from prepackaged foods. That's a great goal, but it's not a method of replacing large-scale agriculture. And there are other ways to accomplish that, and to deal with the "food desert" issue. That same multi-family housing development can have a market on the ground floor that sells produce rather than the shit that some places sell, and that's a change I've been seeing all over.

I'm also skeptical of the health benefits of eating lettuce that has been breathing in the NYC air, but maybe that's just me.

It's one of those things that is a nice thing, but just isn't going to make much of a dent in any real world problem.

However, if we could get Atticus to change the zoning so people can keep goats in the suburbs, and turn all those nice suburban lawns into goat pens, the world would be a better place and there would be goat cheese for all.

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Random observation: the Brocialists seem to be resisting the idea that they've become an irrelevant joke, thus making themselves even funnier.

[Snidely Condescending]

Originally Posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy

I'm all for community gardens in cities and using abandoned lots, but, ah, I'm also all for that really good smokey blue cheese I like on some rice crackers with a few dates and a glass of port. cheers!

Sigh. I miss me sometimes.

ETA: Especially my avatar. I really miss my avatar.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy

This one just completely dismays me. Pure tea partyesque move.

Perhaps. But she courts this response. It seems to be a Florida thing to be an unjustifiably arrogant, grating asshole. Alan Grayson, Rick Scott, Wassermen Schultz... You think the sun would make these miserable, coarse people happy.

Bernie gets another pass on this one. (Also because infighting within either party is welcomed. The GOP's already burned down. The last thing we should have in the absence of competition is a unified single party running this country. That's a true "move to Canada" situation.)

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Sidd Finch

Urban farming is a very romantic notion...

Any more romantic than, "We can fix all that ails us with education!"? At least with farming, you get something to eat. It's hard to get calories from non-dischargeable student debt. Even $1.2 trillion of it.

If you're a pundit or expert and you're going to say something like, "More education + ??????????? = Fixed economy! Yay!" publicly, pause, think, and perhaps refrain from doing that talk show. You're doing a lot more damage than good.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally Posted by Sidd Finch

I'm also skeptical of the health benefits of eating lettuce that has been breathing in the NYC air, but maybe that's just me.

Would you be willing to eat Flint radishes?

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

Perhaps. But she courts this response. It seems to be a Florida thing to be an unjustifiably arrogant, grating asshole. Alan Grayson, Rick Scott, Wassermen Schultz... You think the sun would make these miserable, coarse people happy.

Bernie gets another pass on this one. (Also because infighting within either party is welcomed. The GOP's already burned down. The last thing we should have in the absence of competition is a unified single party running this country. That's a true "move to Canada" situation.)

No pass from me. Bernie is a pitiful joke. A sort of half-wit Nader (maybe that makes him a quarter-wit?).

This is about his vanity, not his principles.

[Sidd Finch]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

Any more romantic than, "We can fix all that ails us with education!"? At least with farming, you get something to eat. It's hard to get calories from non-dischargeable student debt. Even $1.2 trillion of it.

If you're a pundit or expert and you're going to say something like, "More education + ??????????? = Fixed economy! Yay!" publicly, pause, think, and perhaps refrain from doing that talk show. You're doing a lot more damage than good.

To answer your first question: No, urban farming is not any more romantic than a whole lot of other things that no one here is talking about.

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Couldn't happen to a nicer guy

[Adder]

Originally Posted by taxwonk

That's a nice little bit of snark, but it in no way addresses the point I was making, which is that Hilary's big appeal is that she won't try to change things too drastically, so the sea change the author Thurgreed quoted as predicting is not likely to come.

Her appeal is that she will actually accomplish something.

[Adder]

Originally Posted by taxwonk

I think we need fewer people concentrating in urban areas that grow pockets of crime, poverty, malnutrition and poor health and sanitation.

I agree with much of what you say, but this is fundamentally, tragically, backward. We (especially the US) need far denser, more urban communities in which people can live almost entirely without cars. It's absolutely key to "saving" the planet.

Any relationship between density and crime, poverty, malnutrition is a fallacious relic of the white flight that decimated American cities as the direct result of public policies that subsidized unsustainable suburbanization.

I realize that change has to be somewhat incremental, but we've had five decades of incremental and we've made nearly no progress.

Nearly no? Not nearly enough, certainly, but I don't think it's nearly nothing. And I don't think tearing it down has ever helped at all.