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Is Urban Gardening The Best Option?

  • Antonio Evans
  • August 15, 2011

Cleveland stands to profit economically and socially with the implementation of a study entitled “Can Cities Become Self-Reliant in Food?” Co-authored by Parwinder Grewal, the study was published in Cities on July 20. In the study, it has strongly recommended backyard gardening to boost the city’s economic and social conditions and become sustainable in food. Positively, this has opened a lot of minds in the city to bring in fresh produce all year round as well as secure the society’s food requirements.

The city of Cleveland has a growing number of vacant lots, due to a decreasing population attributed to population movement to other cities and states in the US. Internal migration is one of the effects of post-industrialization where cities face plagues of pollution, environmental degradation and threats of food security caused by unproductive and idle lands for food production purposes. Crime incidents likewise increased due to issues associated with vacant lots, alongside the target of goons in utilizing idle lots for their malicious intents.  With the study of Grewal, the notion of urban gardening will address the issues of food sustainability and health improvement, as well as improve the social conditions in the city.

Planting food crops and other food products in urban dwellings is ultimately seen a solution to economic and social problems that permeate the city of Cleveland. However, the idea remains quite far from realization due to declining labor force in the city brought about by residents migrating to other US cities. Admittedly, labor is a force to reckon with for any economic sector to induce productivity and sustainability. If this remains a hindrance, Cleveland would lose its bright future of being self-reliant in food. A bright idea such as this requires massive information and education campaign among residents to reshape the mindsets of people that urban gardening will ultimately benefit them, in particular, and Cleveland in general.

Accordingly, urban gardening will only happen once the local government can push for conversion of idle lands into gardens where benefits trickle to the citizenry, rather than just a one time activity. The support from government, particularly the technocrats and urban land use planners undauntedly will encourage residents to engage in urban gardening to suit their personal purposes. This will be a good start towards food sustainability and environmental protection. Social and economic conditions in Cleveland should likewise improve with the magnanimous cooperation of the city’s policy makers and implementers. Valuable studies such as Grewal’s are just models waiting for the right attitude, time and people to move forward.

Is Urban Gardening The Best Option?

It has been five to ten years now that the technocrats of Cleveland have encouraged urban gardening. The direction has not changed much after all these years that the visionary in Grewal remains to be considered as a vision. This negativism should not be taken lightly and its reversal is critical. Kit Scott, an urban gardener himself and Cleveland City Planner, expressed his agreement with Grewal on the matter of addressing the barriers to achieve food security and sustainability through urban gardening. However, both have reservations on the matter of increasing the awareness of local citizens on the benefits of urban gardening and mounting the labor force challenge.

As post-industrial cities like Cleveland have started urban gardening in their communities, there is still much to do in renewing the mindset of residents. Much to the chagrin of many urban gardeners in the area, farming is one economic sector that needs to catch the attention of urban planners, government policy makers and urban dwellers. The struggle is in its infancy stage but it may be worth the try to gather more residents, communities, businessmen and other sectors to be involved. If the reason to engage in urban gardening is at a personal level, time will come that it will reach a citywide scale. Cleveland will have a community of healthy citizens, ecologically-sound environment and food security. This is not destiny. This is a muscle-flexing activity with an objective.

By the way, urban gardening is not restricted to vacant lots only. Anything where green life can begin is good enough to start with.

About the Author:

Antonio Evans is an entrepreneur/speaker/researcher who specializes in the intersection of Artificial Intelligence and the culinary world. More from Antonio Evans

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