Singlespeed & Fixed Gear - OT: Just for pwned by my professor

In the form of a C- on my essay about urban farming as a way of sustaining impoverished communities. Man do I feel like an ass.

post the essay? i'm curious.

Sounds plausible to me. I personally think that I could sustain myself with a roof garden, should it come to that. Why not on a larger scale? What was the premise of your paper, and how did you support it? What were his comments? Did he criticize your idea, or the formulation of your argument?

Perhaps the topic of this thread should have "OT" in front of it...

Perhaps the topic of this thread should have "OT" in front of it...


That's a good convention that I never see used here. Maybe we should start. If the OP is cool with it I'll edit the thread title.

The premise was that intensive subsistence agriculture on small plots of land could sustain a large population. His view was that most abandoned urban areas can not sustain agriculture because the soil is corrupted by pollutants. There really is not acedemic studies on community gardens--most books are written by people who want to idealize city spaces and really really like the people that visit their gardens-- thats where i failed, heh.

That's a good convention that I never see used here. Maybe we should start. If the OP is cool with it I'll edit the thread title.

do it

Yea you have to go in cold and analytical like. Just the facts. Now hydroponic and greenhouse/rooftop gardens all have incredible possibilities in the urban landscape. Abandoned areas I could see as having some pretty nasty crap in the soil. I like the idea , but to secure an urban farm would require some serious planning as well. WE could learn from busted grow op runners. :lol:

I give you a D for this thread. :)

you mean like what's found in this article, right?

http://nymag.com/news/features/30020/

i don't think it's all that far-fetched. honestly, i think more designers and engineers are trying to find ways of incorporating urban farming into their buildings and structures. even more so with the increase in buildings that are, essentially, there own little cities. i don't know how he could refute the idea, but i didn't really see your essay giving the argument. :)

post the essay!

According to wikipedia, 20M Americans planted victory gardens accounting for 40% of all fresh produce consumed in the US during WW II (doesn't say which year, but possibly 1944).


Victory gardens (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victory_garden) were planted in backyards and on apartment-building rooftops, with the occasional vacant lot "commandeered for the war effort!" and put to use as a cornfield or a squash patch. During World War II, sections of lawn were publicly plowed for plots in Hyde Park, London to publicize the movement. In New York City, the lawns around vacant "Riverside" were devoted to victory gardens, as were portions of San Francisco's Golden Gate Park.

His view was that most abandoned urban areas can not sustain agriculture because the soil is corrupted by pollutants. .

Hmm, any indication of what pollutants in particular would be the most common? There's a collective down here using Sunflowers to leach lead out of soil in areas flooded by K.

No serious person believes that a major city could grow enough food to support itself, within its borders. Cities have always existed to bring in raw materials (food) from the surrounding areas and turn those raw materials into work, allowing people to specialize in blacksmithing, pornography, literature, and drug dealing. Civilization at it's best. Why do you want your cities to be self-sufficient anyway?

But there are definitely arguments to be made that the availability of healthy food in major American cities is extremely poor. Low-income areas have <i>maybe</i> one grocery store near them, sometimes very far away. Many people (in Chicago at least) rely on corner stores (bodegas and their ilk) for all of their food. And getting fresh food into these stores is expensive and takes some investment. You should have made the case for buying refrigerators and refrigerated trucks for corner stores and their distributors, rather than some pie-in-the-sky plan to abolish both cities and farms in one fell swoop.

EDIT: except for the purpose of reducing the distance from farm to plate, and reducing emissions. Which is a valid concern.

essay essay essay

His view was that most abandoned urban areas can not sustain agriculture because the soil is corrupted by pollutants.

This is somewhat true, but not all unused urban space is brownfield (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brownfield_land)land. Rooftops, residential lots, backyards, and greenhouses are all good candidates for what you're talking about. I met a guy who grows 80% of what he eats on a 1/4 acre. This is in Utah where the growing season is shorter than other places. I'm not sure that it's possible to sustain a large population entirely with this type of agriculture, but it's a good start.

The premise was that intensive subsistence agriculture on small plots of land could sustain a large population. His view was that most abandoned urban areas can not sustain agriculture because the soil is corrupted by pollutants. There really is not acedemic studies on community gardens--most books are written by people who want to idealize city spaces and really really like the people that visit their gardens-- thats where i failed, heh.

really? that's kind of interesting. your professor fails to consider bioremediating current toxins, developing new soil, and isolating toxins - growing things in bathtubs in the yard. or on the roof. or by a big ass set of windows. closed systems.

i think you're wrong, though, about there not being any academic studies on community gardens. i went to a lecture on community gardening in Cuba and its use as a grassroots food-delivery system that helped buffer against food shortages in the (i think) 80s and 90s.

also, www.rhizomecollective.org

No serious person believes that a major city could grow enough food to support itself, within its borders. Cities have always existed to bring in raw materials (food) from the surrounding areas and turn those raw materials into work, allowing people to specialize in blacksmithing, pornography, literature, and drug dealing. Civilization at it's best. Why do you want your cities to be self-sufficient anyway?

could, or would?

you'd have to change what a city looks like you. of course, i imagine block plots and rooftop gardens all over the damn place - which, incidentally, would also make it a hell of a lot cooler in the summer.

I want to say some big news-outfit recently did a story on locally grown urban produce, NPR, the BBC, or the times I'd guess... they were focused on the issue of the lack of availability of reasonably fresh produce in innercity areas; I'll try to take a look for that.

Shouldn't your teacher only give you a bad grade if there were more technical issues with your paper? Lack of supporting facts? Poor composition? I don't understand. What kind of class is this?

Not if his sources were of hearts and flowers "isn't it just so hippy and cool to garden" books about urban gardens as opposed to an more analytical source. Blow your source, and your whole piece is moot.

http://www.localburger.com/index.php

This is a locally-owned restaurant in the community in which I live. Most of their food is sourced within about a 20-25 mile radius of the location.

They serve locally-raised buffalo, elk, and lamb burgers as well as grass-fed beef. Produce is mostly organic. It's not EXACTLY on the topic of this thread, but it's closer to the topic of this thread than this thread is to the topic of the board.

Lawrence, KS is not an urban community, of course. But a creative entrepreneur has figured out a way to package locally-produced foods and give people a model for something that could potentially be pretty self-sustaining.

^^ that's cool^^
We have a burger place near us doing the local sourcing and organic beefs as well.
I think more urban food outlets (groceries) should do the 100mile thing.

How are you going to teach those in improvished areas how to garden intensively? How are you going to motivate them to do so? Toxicity in the land can be overcome with technology - but teaching people the technology and preserving it from being stolen is a challenge. Especially since the same technology does a great job in growing more profitable crops (though illegal). :rolleyes:

If you researched why they failed in the past and then tried to figure out if their were solutions, it might have been better. Just my opinion.

Many of the urban gardens faced problems in vandalism and of course, being evicted by those who wished to build something where there are. Acquistion of land for farming means that the land (or space) must be cheap. If 100 feet by 100 feet costs a million dollars, your ROI is going to be awful. As romantic as it may seem to use land for gardens - the land use has to compete with housing, etc.

There is lots of stories of community gardens which ended because someone wanted to build on top of that site.

think of somthing like expo 67. Relatively inexpensive housing where each "module" has a rooftop garden

granted they have all been turned into patios now

http://expo67.ncf.ca/bill_cotter_collection_53.jpg

In the form of a C- on my essay about urban farming as a way of sustaining impoverished communities. Man do I feel like an ass.

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2007/04/skyfarming_new.php

My girlfriend in Chicago worked for an org that used empty plots of land in the city as gardens run by the homeless. They'd be paid with the money earned from selling the produce to local restaurants, and they could eat the food too, obviously. Great concept.

http://my.stratos.net/~mmoss/public%20health%20implications%20of%20urban%20agriculture.pdf

"In this article we examine trends in urban agriculture in the United States with a particular focus on the public health potential and pitfalls of urban agriculture. We explore the role of urban agriculture for nutritional health and food security, personal wellness and community betterment, and environmental health. And we suggest policy changes that could favorably advance the potential of urban agriculture for public health benefits in these areas."

City farming can't provide a very large portion of people's diets on a % of calories basis, there just isn't enough land even if you use rooftops and whatnot. However, urban and peri-urban farming can provide a huge portion (like 50%+) of people's fresh fruit and vegetable needs, which is especially helpful because these foods are the most expensive to transport and are otherwise difficult to obtain for poorer people. In eastern Europe people never really stopped growing food in the course of urbanization, and even today there is a substantial amount of food grown in or near the city almost everywhere except in western Europe and the US/Canada.

#1 saying that a city couldn't provide enough food to support its own population based on land space alone is like saying a city couldn't support its population in jobs by not having enough office space. there is absolutely a possibility that a city COULD if they in fact wanted to, be self sufficient with farming. Its just a matter of feasability.

#2 If your professor truly graded you the way that you said they did, they're an idiot. If a student is allowed to choose a topic for a paper and writes the paper using proper english and uses credible sources to support their data and ideas, and the professor grades it based on the fact that THEY believe its unfeasable is ridiculous.

I recommend having a talk with the professor to see how they graded it and on what criteria. If it was for a specific purpose or something and you went out on a limb then thats one thing, but if they gave you a crappy grade because they don't think your idea would work theyre morons. If the wright brothers never ran off that hill, no one would've believed that some huge contraption could fly.

#1 saying that a city couldn't provide enough food to support its own population based on land space alone is like saying a city couldn't support its population in jobs by not having enough office space. there is absolutely a possibility that a city COULD if they in fact wanted to, be self sufficient with farming. Its just a matter of feasability.


Not really. If you plant corn, a relatively efficient crop, wall to wall, you can feed about 10,000 people who only want to eat corn all day off of a square mile of good land. That's about as dense as Chicago, which ain't exactly all high rises (though it's twice as dense as LA and 3x as dense as Portland; bet all you Portland lovers didn't realize you were living in worse sprawl than LA itself). Start throwing in some crop diversity, maybe some fruit trees or god forbid egg or dairy production, and the numbers just don't work for a city to feed itself, especially if you're going to set aside some of the land for purposes other than food production (this being a city and all). You can grow a lot of food in a city, but you still need grain crops and protein producers that eat grain crops (you're dreaming if you think everyone will just decide to be vegan) outside of the urban area providing the majority of the calories to support anything like urban density. Of course there is some potential for doing thoroughly ridiculous stuff like building farm towers as proposed above, but I don't think anyone with a serious grip on reality and the ability to use a calculator thinks something like that is practical.

I give you a D for this thread. :)

+1

Strange coincidence (in my head) but my horticulture professor was just mentioning how it is a shame that most American cities are built upon some of the higher quality crop-land, (near rivers or other water, (at least originally) great soil, flat ground, transportation etc.) and how it is a shame we build buildings on top of such great land. Of course each geographic area would have a varying degree of resources and pollution, so these generalizations do not amount to much. Just a thought, but maybe your professor was saying that if you do not spend time on research he doesn't have to either, so he says, bah bad soil pollution, and bad grade?

Or it could be something else entirely, on some bike forum, and as I know nothing about your paper or anything about the situation I couldn't say. If you are serious about improving your grade maybe you could talk to him about a re-write?

One developing area that is really interesting to me is phytoremediation, which uses plants to suck the heavy metals and other pollutants out of the soil. The plants (which become storage for the pollution) can be properly disposed of and the land is left clean. Then we have tons of places to plant food =)

this thread is worthless without the essay.

The premise was that intensive subsistence agriculture on small plots of land could sustain a large population. His view was that most abandoned urban areas can not sustain agriculture because the soil is corrupted by pollutants. There really is not acedemic studies on community gardens--most books are written by people who want to idealize city spaces and really really like the people that visit their gardens-- thats where i failed, heh.

There's a heavily polluted (as in never going to be cleaned up) brownfield in north philly where they simply put the crops in boxes elevated from the ground with clean soil.

Not really. If you plant corn, a relatively efficient crop, wall to wall, you can feed about 10,000 people who only want to eat corn all day off of a square mile of good land. That's about as dense as Chicago, which ain't exactly all high rises (though it's twice as dense as LA and 3x as dense as Portland; bet all you Portland lovers didn't realize you were living in worse sprawl than LA itself). Start throwing in some crop diversity, maybe some fruit trees or god forbid egg or dairy production, and the numbers just don't work for a city to feed itself, especially if you're going to set aside some of the land for purposes other than food production (this being a city and all). You can grow a lot of food in a city, but you still need grain crops and protein producers that eat grain crops (you're dreaming if you think everyone will just decide to be vegan) outside of the urban area providing the majority of the calories to support anything like urban density. Of course there is some potential for doing thoroughly ridiculous stuff like building farm towers as proposed above, but I don't think anyone with a serious grip on reality and the ability to use a calculator thinks something like that is practical.

Corn is also one of the worse crops in terms of nutrient leaching, hardly sustainable.

I remember talking to KRS-One about a year ago and his suggestion was to put apple trees downtown, so if you were hungry you could just pluck an apple... very pleasant dude, not unlike his raps as of the last few years.

that is really similar to something snoop dog said to me in a conversation once

think of somthing like expo 67. Relatively inexpensive housing where each "module" has a rooftop garden

granted they have all been turned into patios now

http://expo67.ncf.ca/bill_cotter_collection_53.jpg

where is this pile of cool looking boxes

That's the island city of Montreal. Ils St. Helen I believe. It was the site for the '67 expo.... It quickly became a very sought after residence complex.

that is really similar to something snoop dog said to me in a conversation once

Grow some sticky-icky-icky trees downtown?

like a few years back on germantown avenue?

Grow some sticky-icky-icky trees downtown?

:roflmao:

LOL @ KRS-One and Snoop!

really? that's kind of interesting. your professor fails to consider bioremediating current toxins, developing new soil, and isolating toxins - growing things in bathtubs in the yard. or on the roof. or by a big ass set of windows. closed systems.

i think you're wrong, though, about there not being any academic studies on community gardens. i went to a lecture on community gardening in Cuba and its use as a grassroots food-delivery system that helped buffer against food shortages in the (i think) 80s and 90s.

also, www.rhizomecollective.org

Since the withdrawal of Soviet support in the 90s, Cuba has had to do all sorts of things to keep the people fed. One of these was planting lots of urban gardens everywhere, and getting ordinary people, as well as the military, involved in tending them. There is a great movie out there called "the greening of cuba" for anyone who is interested in learning more about this.

His view was that most abandoned urban areas can not sustain agriculture because the soil is corrupted by pollutants.

I don't know about abandoned, but close to high-traffic roads, the soil is, indeed polluted and food grown there is generally deemed unhealthy at best, and highly carcinogenic at worst.

http://www.localburger.com/index.php

This is a locally-owned restaurant in the community in which I live. Most of their food is sourced within about a 20-25 mile radius of the location.

They serve locally-raised buffalo, elk, and lamb burgers as well as grass-fed beef. Produce is mostly organic. It's not EXACTLY on the topic of this thread, but it's closer to the topic of this thread than this thread is to the topic of the board.

Lawrence, KS is not an urban community, of course. But a creative entrepreneur has figured out a way to package locally-produced foods and give people a model for something that could potentially be pretty self-sustaining.

The elk burger is soo tasty.