Urban Farming in Detroit

Found an interesting article on Utne’s website today entitled “Detroit: Farming Paradise?“. I have long wondered about the potential of turning an increasingly abandoned urban environment into a vital, producing, self-sustaining environment. Not surprisingly, it looks like a number of smart people have been thinking about this same thing for years already. From the article:

If thinking about Detroit conjures up depressing images of battle-scarred landscapes, you must read Mark Dowie’s proposal to turn the city into an “agrarian paradise.” Writing for Guernica, Dowie lays out an ambitious argument for why this maligned city—which is home to zero grocery chains or big-box stores and is very nearly a complete food desert—“may be best positioned to become the world’s first 100 percent food self-sufficient city.”

Some other interesting articles on this topic can be found here and here.