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. 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. Keeping spaces in towns to grow vegetables on means longer distances, means more fuel. We can’t afford that, except, of course, in small towns where the distances are small anyhow. Jan
there is a difference between a city farm and a farm city a city farm is an island of agrarianism in a sea of urbanity a farm city is a urban ecological environment with mixed agroforestry making pure cities or pure farms leads is machine thinking which leads to monoculture decay On Tue, Apr 19, 2011 at 12:56 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. 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.
Keeping spaces in towns to grow vegetables on means longer distances, means more fuel. We can’t afford that, except, of course, in small towns where the distances are small anyhow.
Jan
Hello all, given the current condition of urban environment (mainly air pollution) i'm not sure how healthy would it be to grow food in big cities. for smaller cities, where the air pollution is not a problem, people can grow food on the rooftops of their houses <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_roof>. Thus "wasted" space becomes useful again. On the other hand, if ever cities try to adopt Transit Oriented Development<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transit-oriented_development>and more specifically Crawford's topological model <http://www.carfree.com/draw/clover.gif> for car-free cities, a lot of space will be created for agriculture in the centre of those "lobes". Moreover, Von Thunen<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johann_Heinrich_von_Th%C3%BCnen>'s model talks about accessibility and land prices and is drawing heavily from Adam Smith's ideas while treating the city as monocentric. Currently, cities are conceptualized as being polycentric and discussions have started about network cities. In our search for the future city, I'm not sure how relevant are Von Thunen's ideas anymore. On 19 April 2011 09:56, 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. 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.
Keeping spaces in towns to grow vegetables on means longer distances, means more fuel. We can’t afford that, except, of course, in small towns where the distances are small anyhow.
Jan
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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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participants (4)
-
Evangelos Vafeiadis -
Michel Bauwens -
Nicholas Roberts -
Samuel Rose