Detroit Urban Farm Combine Meets Neighborhood Resistance

Commercial urban farming in Detroit certainly sounds like a good long-term solution for the problems of empty land among dwindling neighborhoods.  The dilemma is that many residents are suspicious.  What could be the intent of a big money combine sweeping through their neighborhoods like a tsunami?  Given the past history of such urban renewals, they have a right to be.  Christine MacDonald sums up the situation in today's Detroit News.

The nonprofit SHAR Foundation wants to provide another path: an elaborate, $220-million farming project that would bring fresh food, thousands of jobs, dozens of small businesses and hope to a neighborhood where that's been rare for a while. 

But despite optimism that urban farming could be one answer to Detroit's ills, many neighbors aren't embracing the project known as RecoveryPark. In fact, they're skeptical and often scornful, with some calling it a glorified sharecropping operation that could force out longtime residents; one neighbor referred to it as a "plantation."

Apparently Gary Wozniak, one of visionaries behind the urban farm project, perceives a number of 30-acre farms integrated with an existing neighborhood of about 6000 residents. The farms would occupy about 600 acres of a 2,400-acre project area.  

Sounds like big business to me, even though the Foundation is non-profit. Somebody wanted to come in and do something like that around my house, I'd be suspicious too. 

Seems to me that the strategy is all wrong. It's based upon the American credo that "BIG" is good. But to the average Joe, "BIG" is a bulldozer rolling over and crushing your house. "BIG" is awesome.

Carolyn Leadley, 28, relocated from Detroit to the area two years ago to join other grassroots gardeners — unrelated to SHAR's proposal — whose crops include heirloom tomatoes. She said RecoveryPark officials haven't done a good job communicating their intentions.

"It's very intimidating for such a large organization coming in and making decisions on how my neighborhood looks," Leadley said.

Why not start small? Come in and plant a few lots. Invite some folks in the neighborhood to help out for free fresh grown food. Have a neighborhood harvest festival with a feast made from the local produce. I'm sure that's being done in other urban neighborhoods without the benefit of huge corporate funding.

Then, instead of one gigantic corporate farm that makes the residents feel like sharecroppers, add more small garden plots as time goes by. Start by giving the neighborhood folks an active share in the work and the proceeds. The neighborhood should become more livable with each garden and certainly the resulting cash in hand will likely help spread some encouraging words around the area for further development.