Gavin Newsom has announced a very intriguing plan: all city agencies in San Francisco must conduct an audit of wasted land and compile a list of places that could be used for community gardens. So, for instance, median strips and empty lots and myriad other municipley-owned wasted spaces might become places where local residents can grow cauliflower and snow peas.
According to the SF Chronicle:
It’s also unclear how much land could be converted into community farms. The Public Utilities Commission has thousands of acres outside San Francisco that could be used, and the Real Estate Division and the Recreation and Park Department own some unused parcels in the city. [...]
Newsom made the announcement Wednesday at a junkyard-turned-farm in West Oakland that could serve as a model for how land could be converted in San Francisco. A stone’s throw from BART, it used to be home to old cars and one angry dog, but now is run by the nonprofit City Slicker Farms.
We’ve looked at urban farming here at the Infrastructurist, and, frankly, some of the wilder schemes involving high-rise greenhouses and floating agri-colonies and so on are just stupid — mere catnip for “green” fantasies. (We’re not living in Hong Kong under some kind of war blockade. We do have ample land for growing food. Why pretend otherwise?)
But the kind of urban gardening that does make a lot sense involves using our spaces more efficiently. It’s not really an economic proposition. City Slicker Farms, for instance, grows 2,000 pounds of food a year, which is negligible amount. But you’d have to be a real jackass not to feel elevated by the sight of public land being used by the public for something that improves everybody’s health and quality of life and strengthens a sense of civic ownership of communal spaces.
And, yeah yeah, it’s San Francisco, which will cause at least half of America to roll its eyes. But at least it’s not Boulder or Berkeley!
July 10th, 2009 at 3:06 pm
They should use the highway medians for bike paths. We have one in Pittsburgh and it’s a surprisingly nice way to commute. Or how about rail tracks? They can’t think of anything more useful than a ‘community garden’?
July 10th, 2009 at 3:08 pm
Bike paths and gardens aren’t mutually exclusive, eh?
July 10th, 2009 at 3:17 pm
Mayor Press Release strikes again!
July 10th, 2009 at 3:24 pm
I’d be a little concerned about exhaust fumes and other air-borne particles getting on organic produce grown on a median…
July 10th, 2009 at 3:31 pm
I think I’ll pass on the lead-laden tomatoes, Gavin.
July 10th, 2009 at 3:52 pm
HHF3 -
The particulates in the air along a roadway are mostly just soot. Doesn’t seem troublesome. And if this were China or 1975 lead might be a concern.
As a New Yorker, this struck a chord because in much of the city we have a real dearth of space for growing things. The space that is available tends to be well utilized. There are plenty of reasons to be dubious about this proposal, of course; but I’d be curious what SF residents think about whether there currently unmet demand for places to grow things?
July 11th, 2009 at 12:48 am
nothing says organic like produce soaked in tailpipe emissions. i think i might just prefer my veggies to be soaked in pesticides.
i’m envisioning some clunker exhaust pipe 2-3 feet from some on the stalk tomatoes
July 11th, 2009 at 1:13 am
Living here in San Francisco I’d much rather see some kind of city support for backyard farms. There are a couple urban farm coops that will tend your garden and supply food for the other members. The problem is the initial installation of the garden is expensive. $1500 for my backyard plot of 20×10foot. I would have loved to participate but couldn’t afford it.
The other “shovel ready” projects would be to get a hold of all the community organizers who tend their neighborhood parks. The SF Parks Trust just granted us money to build redwood planter boxes for our nursery school coop. The city could ramp up park farms with the help of existing community organizations in partnership with the professional gardeners at Urban farm coops.
bob smolenski
president
Haight Ashbury Community Nursery School
July 11th, 2009 at 12:32 pm
Why do you have a picture of St. Louis Union Station for an article about San Francisco? Come on guys.
July 11th, 2009 at 3:00 pm
Roxy,
I think we were going for thematic more than literal representation here. I.e. highway signage and a garden.
-JR
July 11th, 2009 at 4:30 pm
“It’s not really an economic proposition”
It’s not really the point is it. And for some inner city families who do not have ready access to fresh vegetables it could be a life saver. Gardening is also good excercise. In Vancouver we have found that community gardens greatly increase neighborhood security - people actually get to talk to the people they live close to.
Increasingly “economic” agribusiness is going to find it difficult to operate on its present model. In California water shortages are already a huge issue for them - and shipping lettuce and cabbage across continents does not make a great deal of sense in a world running low on cheap oil and facing drastic climate changes.
July 12th, 2009 at 1:41 am
I believe this article title and the comments here have a sort of skewed focus and misinterpretation of the actual SF Chronicle article.
They don’t mention highway medians once in the article. They do mention “median strips” in the list of places to audit, but it sounds like they mean street medians.
Rooftops are definitely one of the best places to start, but that’s a private decision which needs incentive. Rooftop gardens provide numerous benefits, such as building temperature mediation, rain absorption, extending the life of the roof, reduced heat island effect, and more.
July 12th, 2009 at 1:52 pm
This is not my area of expertise, but here’s something I found with a quick search.
Here is a link to a technical report from a 2006 study of lead content of garden soils in urbanized areas (Roxbury & Dorchester) in Massachusetts. Conclusion: “anthropogenic Pb has a significant presence in the urban environment” primarily from two sources: past use of lead-based paint and past use of leaded gasoline. The good news is that plants vary in how much lead they accumulate. The bad news is that there’s no “magic bullet” plant you can use to first rid the soil of lead in a short time.
http://jeq.scijournals.org/cgi/content/full/35/6/2066
Here is more from a group mentioned in the technical report:
http://thefoodproject.org/soil-testing-and-remediation
July 12th, 2009 at 6:25 pm
No way that veggies grown in the middle of a freeway should qualify as “organic”. Who would certify that? (Well, maybe Quality Assurance International). Same goes for veggies grown in urban gardens on previous industrial sites.
July 12th, 2009 at 10:58 pm
first, the wonderful thing about plants is that they are, in general, incredibly picky about what they take up and what they don’t. Just because something is in the soil or air around a plant doesn’t mean it will wind up in your food. The problems that occur with conventional farming are because we deplete the soil and grow only one crop and then have to add in fertilizers and pesticides in unnatural amounts and ways to get any results. And yes, plants will sometimes pull up toxins, but generally only in the smallest of quantities and only if they don’t have their first preference available.
second, here in Arlington we have a great run of community gardens right along a road and a bike path, that produce well and healthily and are in high demand. http://www.arlingtonva.us/Departments/ParksRecreation/scripts/facilities/ParksRecreationScriptsFacilitiesCommunityGardens.aspx
and third, I think that it should be obvious that these gardens could never meet the stringent and on occasion counterproductive requirements of the current organic certification. Which isn’t to say this is not a good idea - its a great idea, I’d just like to see it paired with education and awareness campaigns on self, small and local versus organic and big organic and on the numerous benefits of growing vegetables and ties with sustainability.
July 13th, 2009 at 10:21 am
How about replacing the HIGHWAYS with organic gardens, make the medians bike paths, and just give up on the whole idea that it’s a good idea to keep spending tax money to subsidize the gross inefficiencies of personal automobiles and suburbanization.
Just a thought.
July 13th, 2009 at 2:15 pm
wouldn’t it be dangerous to harvest with cars flying by?
July 13th, 2009 at 2:23 pm
Aaron B.,
You might be right. My understanding was that the story was referring to road medians. Of which, highway medians are subset and I chose those for the headline because it seemed to me the most energetic image. I’ll put in call to Newsom’s office and check on it…
Jebediah
July 13th, 2009 at 3:35 pm
As admirable as this is, and I hope they find many safe places to grow food, I think the yard sharing idea works on a more feasible scale. Yard sharing is a group set up to grow food together. We all have things we bring to the table, some have a green thumb, some have unused yard shape, some have time, some have seeds or tools.
We’re all busy but this makes lots of sense to many people - It’s ground up and less beaurocratic and people can start up right now!
So please visit and share! hyperlocavore dot com a free yard sharing community.
July 13th, 2009 at 10:04 pm
I think it’s a sure bet that the city, nor anyone, will be sending people onto the 101 freeway to water the plants in the middle of it.
In fact, it’s questionable how long we’ll even still have freeways. The sentiment of the Freeway Revolt of the 60’s has never truly died, and since then the city has not only removed freeways (partly due to earthquakes), but I have heard rumors of removing parts of them further. In that respect SF is on a sort of upstream, progressive direction that I think is awesome - it’s just too bad the commuters of the other auto-centric towns in the Bay Area don’t feel the same way.
Either way, with the recent major approval of the Bike Plan, it looks like the tides are turning against car-oriented infrastructure in SF.
July 29th, 2009 at 5:33 pm
McLaren Farm anyone? Talk about under-utilized space…