On Tue, Apr 19, 2011 at 3:56 AM, Michel Bauwens <[email protected]> wrote:
this is from our companion list on urbanism, and seems to me, a too simplistic take on the issue,
what kind of arguments can be brought to bear on such a hostile attitude to urban farming?
my own intuitive sense is that, though certainly by no means a panacea, regrowing food is part of regreening of the city, sustainability, autonomous production, community formation, and the like, and therefore, overall, a positive development, certain in the context of possible future food shortages,
Michel
---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Jan Wiklund <[email protected]> Date: Tue, Apr 19, 2011 at 2:00 PM Subject: SV: [P2P-URBANISM WA] a debate on country-city (dis)urbanism, moscow 1930 To: "[email protected]" <[email protected]>
And for my part, I don’t se the point of all this talk about food production in towns.
Well...while this person is busy not seeing the point, there are many that are actively doing urban Agriculture, not just talking about it.
The point of towns is to keep down the distances between people and all the millions of activities you need in a complicated economy. Preferably, people should be able to communicate mostly by foot. Bulky kinds of production should be kept out of towns. Von Thünen’s scheme, constructed before the fossil age, still holds good. People in the middle, gardening just outside, and even more spacy activities even farther away.
Ok, but in collapsed cities, with miles and miles and miles of sprawling vancant land long abandoned, sorry, but we are going to put it to use and grow food. Most of the people left in these cities are happy with that.
Keeping spaces in towns to grow vegetables on means longer distances, means more fuel.
What?!?! Longer distances for whom? if I grow food here where I live, it is less distance and fuel than food grown thousands of miles away (which is what is sold in my grocery store now. I can buy grow apples here in Michigan or buy apples from New Zealand, which should I do?). I am sorry but this is just so utterly wrong I don't know where to begin...
We can’t afford that, except, of course, in small towns where the distances are small anyhow.
But we can afford to truck everything in, refigerate it and throw out heaps of waste when people won't buy all of it? Sounds like a great plan!
Jan
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