Agricultural Urbanism – Integrating Farming With The Built Environment
One of the founders of the New Urbanism movement, Andres Duany (author of Suburban Nation: The Rise Of Sprawl And The Decline Of The American Dream, one of the biggest documents of the movement), recently led a charrette (an intense group design session) that could serve as a blueprint for integrating agricultural activity back into a built urban environment. Duany and other urbanists worked with Michael Ableman, an organic farmer and author, to create a design for a 538-acre tract of land in Canada that could provide nearly 2,000 housing units while integrating a wide variety of food-producing activities.
The urban edge of Southlands, showing farmland weaving its way into the built environment.
Called “agricultural urbanism,” the approach weaves various food-related activities, such as small farms, shared gardens, farmers’ markets, and agricultural processing, into a walkable mixed-use traditional small town design.
As described by New Urban News:
“What’s unique about this project,” says Marina Khoury, director of town planning at Duany Plater-Zyberk & Co. (DPZ), “is that we’re trying to integrate agriculture and urbanism at all levels” – from high-density housing with window boxes, to somewhat less dense houses with kitchen gardens, to quarter-acre plots, 50-acre farms, and perhaps one 160-acre farm.
If the approach succeeds on the site just north of the US border, it could become an influential model, counteracting the interrelated problems of tightening world food supplies, surging energy prices, and rising transportation costs. A small number of agricultural and social reformers have argued for years that more of North America’s food should be produced close to where the consumers live; agricultural urbanism may be one way to accomplish that.
The charrette proposed four principal scales of agriculture at the development, called Southlands:
- Rural agriculture – farms of 20 to 160 acres.
- Small farms – 5 to 20 acres each.
- Specialty farms – 1 to 5 acres.
- Intraurban agriculture – things like community gardens of 50 to 5,000 square feet, front gardens and kitchen gardens for individual residences, and “container gardens” like roof gardens, balcony boxes, and window boxes.
A Transect diagram with added details of where the various kinds of agricultural urbanism fit into the urban fabric.
This is the sort of thing I could see elements of being adapted for use here in urban Fort Worth, especially in places like the Near Southside. Rowhouses with rooftop gardens, lofts with window boxes and shared garden space, garden spaces at restaurants and cafes, shared community gardens and “pocket farms” – it’s something worth investigating as a part of the redeveloping urban environment of central Fort Worth. I don’t expect to see it happen overnight, but I could imagine seeing it gradually becoming more popular.
Would be interesting to run some of these concepts by city planners and groups like Fort Worth South, Inc.
16 Responses to “Agricultural Urbanism – Integrating Farming With The Built Environment”
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I was just talking about this with some friends on Sunday evening. There seems to be alot of potential for a community garden in Museum Place and definitely the Southside. I was mentioning that near 4th street between Arch Adams and Boland is a theoretical spot for such an Agri-Urban project. Or closer to linwood area. To think about all that wasted real estate in the Super Target parking lot. Hmmmm. Of course, it will be cost prohibitive at first because a 50×135 lot is appraising for around $200,000. Thanks for mentioning this topic. I agree with you. Very important idea to get involved with. If there is any traction, keep us posted.
about how much area would be needed to support, lets say, 20% of one person’s food intake? i mean would a 5×10 plot provide a quarter of what a couple would eat in a year? could you plant a diverse enough portfolio of herbs, vegetables, etc. for it to be beneficial? it would be awesome to see some practical details for some fort worthians to start experimenting with. something like a grocery list, ie. 1 tomato plant, 2 pepper plants, your 4 favorite herbs, etc. and a plant time, how to care for them, etc.
maybe this list is out there and i am too lazy/not smart enough to find it. i am building a vegetable garden in the backyard right now that is about 40 square feet. what is the optimal mix of veggies and herbs? what grows best in texas? what is the vegetable that i could grow that would be the most beneficial (ie takes the most energy to get the vegetable to my table from a farm)?
sadly i dont know the answers to these questions. just throwing them out there.
Those are great questions, Chad. I am no gardener, so I am not much help. I am curious, though, same as you, and am considering doing some food growing in urban Fort Worth to see what it takes.
You should check out this site.
The principles would work well in an urban environment.
http://www.squarefootgardening.com/
interesting, i have a long 14 x 3 box, i may put some dividers in. i have no doubt it would make it look cleaner. i like the idea though.
We live in FW South and have a vegetable/herb garden. By no means are we able to support all of our vegetable needs (we’re still new at this), but is sure is great to walk out back and pick your own ingredients. This urban/farmland blend is ingenius. It seems so obvious…why hasn’t anyone come up with this before??Oh that’s right. They have. I presume this is how towns operated in the past.
Rochelle,
It is, indeed, more or less how towns worked in the past. New Urbanism higher-ups like Andres Duany often say that it’s not all new ideas – a lot of it is getting people (architects, planners, designers, developers, policy makers, the general public) to remember the way things used to work.
How does the funding on this work? Would it be paid for based on usage (like a farmer’s market)?
Our family did square foot gardening (even thought we live on 3 acres) this year—it could have been great but we neglected to get it watered enough–the concept is wonderful, though.
You all should check out agritopia.com. It is a community in Gilbert, AZ that is amazing–just like you stated–they grow crops in the development, have a farmer’s market, coffee shop and natural restaurant right there. The old farmhouse is part of the development—-our family considered moving there at one time—I am from AZ and every time we go back, I go to Agritopia—EVERY house even has a front porch!!!!
Though I like the agricultural–urbanism–etc….let’s face it—-NOT EVERYONE wants that lifestyle—some people simply need to be out in the country–we used to think we did—though not anymore!
Integration of agriculture is already being taken a step further by entrepreneurial backyard and front lawn and neighborhood lot SPIN farmers. Developed by Canadian farmer Wally Satzewich, SPIN-Farming is a franchise-ready vegetable farming system that makes it possible to earn significant income from growing vegetables on land bases under an acre in size. SPIN farmers utilize relay cropping to increase yield and achieve good economic returns by growing only the most profitable food crops tailored to local markets. SPIN’s growing techniques are not, in themselves, breakthrough. What is novel is the way a SPIN farm business is run. SPIN provides everything you’d expect from a good franchise: a business plan, marketing advice, and a detailed day-to-day workflow. In standardizing the system and creating a reproducible process it really isn’t any different from McDonalds. By offering a non-technical, easy-to-understand and inexpensive-to-implement farming system, it allows many more people to farm, wherever they live, as long as there are nearby markets to support them, and it removes the two big barriers to entry – sizeable acreage and significant start-up capital. This is recasting farming as a small business in cities and towns, “right sizing” agriculture for an urbanized century and helping to make local food production a viable business proposition once again. You can see SPIN farmers in action at http://www.spinfarming.com, and Ft. Worth could become the next SPIN city!
Visit the website posted for real life experiences and answers to your questions by someone who has been very successful practicing this for the past 20 years. I would also strongly recommend his book ‘On Good Land’.
For those of you wishing more information on the “Southlands site” and who are interested in video coverage of the Duany led Charrette, please take a look at Sthe Southlands in Transition website
We support the efforts of all small gardeners because even if they only have one tomato plant in a pot they are doing something that is beneficial to all of us. A few million people can make a difference.
leroyj
The Garden