Re: A City Looks Toward Defining Its Future

Roxanne Christensen — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 16:39:38 -0000

Don’t forget to include the growing corps of sub-acre commercial farmers in your local food economy. As co-author of SPIN-Farming, what I see every day are more and more first generation farmers throughout the U.S. using SPIN’s franchise-ready system to take the task of relocalizing food production into their own hands, wherever they happen to live. This is happening without policy changes or government supports; it is entirely citizen-driven. These citizen-farmers are using front lawns and backyards and neighborhood lots as their land base and recasting farming as a small business in cities and towns, "right sizing" agriculture for an urbanized century. SPIN provides a replicable model for an appropriately-scaled and economically viable post-industrial agriculture that is less energy and capital intensive, more easily monitored and controlled and that produces safe, healthy food. Not only is SPIN starting to be used as a "force multiplier" to re-establish locally-based food systems, it is also serving as a catalyst for inventive activity by designers, planners and developers. By utilizing the best of the three assets we have -urbanized landscapes, technological agility and an environmental ethos - rather than pitting one against the other, we can create the best of all possible worlds.

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Re: A City Looks Toward Defining Its Future