Food: Urban Gardening

 Ron Finley: A guerrilla gardener in South Central LA

 

26.5 Million Americans live in a food desert. 

Wikipedia defines Food Desert as "a geographic area where affordable and nutritious food is difficult to obtain, particularly for those without access to an automobile."

This made me think: the year I spent in Duluth, I lived in a food desert, so I know what it's like. Yet there was an amaaaazing local restaurant a few blocks from me that was doing something different - being an early adopter of sustainability. Yesterday, my grandma reminded me about Duluth Grill after she caught the feature below on the local news. Through my Clover Valley farm internship I even got to meet the owner of Duluth Grill and work a bit with the urban garden manager, Francois. You can find the vinegar I helped start at the farm on the tables and shelves at the Grill too!

  Duluth Grill on the Food Network!

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RON FINLEY empowers through urban gardening!!!

Twin City Rapid Transit

Yesterday I returned to SF from a short stay at "home" in St. Paul, Minnesota. Being with my family and friends certainly makes me feel the love for where I was born and raised, but I can't help compare the two places. I love it here, and while it's not the place where my "people" happen to be, it is the place where I don't spend 25% or more of my time in a car getting around from place to place, person to person. 

In celebration of the Twin Cities, I'm sharing this map from 1913 showing the "Rapid Transit" streetcars of Minneapolis and St. Paul. 

Timeline
1872: The first streetcars were pulled by horses, starting off in St. Paul
1875: The city of Minneapolis joins in
1887: Upgrades to the system allowed the cars to be pulled by cable loops
1892: Cars hit the electric grid
1920: Peak ridership occurred, carrying an estimated 238 million people
1929 - 1930's: The Great Depression saw ridership leveling off
1939 - 1945: There was a climb in passengers as World War II brought gas rationing
1954: The Twin Cities had its last streetcar journey in Minneapolis

The system stretched from Stillwater to Lake Minnetonka, with a total of 523 miles of streetcar!

The pink pin is Excelsior, on Lake Minnetonka. Stillwater in the northeast corner, located on the St. Croix River which separates Minnesota and Wisconsin here.

Is it ironic that streetcars in cities today are tourist attractions; we get entertainment out of these transportation units that are a thing of the past, yet technically speaking, very efficient? And had all the routes lasted longer, without the interfering competition from automobiles, they could have been a huge factor in the continued creation of what I imagine to be extraordinary urban and inter-urban transportation, spaces, and places. 

For example, San Francisco is famous for having streetcars that tourists will wait hours to ride. San Franciscans don't ride them unless you hop on to hop off, or, you find yourself in these situations: 

"These situations," being visits from family, are the best, by the way!

Even in Minnesota, we have a museum dedicated to our historic streetcar. Though they are a thing of the past in terms of getting people from point A to point B on a daily basis, I believe they will make a comeback by influencing future transportation services of the future!

Today in SF you find a convergence of the historical streetcar and a modern US city's bus system: buses that are (typically) connected to above electricity. The buses run absolutely everywhere, and are pretty reliable. Technology has helped with that :)

I didn't want to find something off the web, so I looked out my window and took one for myself! Notice the electric wires across the image; buses connect to these. Although an extensive bus system requires lots of energy, transportation connected to electricity reduces pollution, which is a concern in terms of air quality in denser cities.

Sources & Links:
MN Historical Society YouTube video 
Top 10 Trolly Rides
Minnesota History Center 
Minnesota Streetcar Museum

Living Streets Part II

Among the dozens of pages I've bookmarked for conversations on my blog, I came across a page that has me thinking about Living Streets once again. I've been waiting to write about this topic for some time now, and since my most recent post, it keeps popping up; in my thoughts back to my own childhood (which I still plan to share), in the first few chapters of the Jane Jacobs classic The Death and Life of Great American Cities, and then stumbling upon this piece of research. So it was published almost 20 years ago, but in a journal entitled International Play... who doesn't think a research journal about playing is awesome?!

The research reinforces my personal feelings about residential streets loosing their function as social and play environments. It also, interestingly enough, mentions that Munich can be used as an existing model for reclaiming the streets for children, which I captured pictures of last fall. Not only that, but I spent my time in Munich as an Au Pair, taking care of 3 young girls aged 14 months to 6 years. Each day - weather permitting - we spent outside was spent doing some sort of activity in the street. I doubt there was a day that passed that I didn't see a group of kids playing in the "street," whether it was scootering and biking around or boys kicking a soccer ball (I bet this happened daily no matter what!). Even though our neighborhood was more suburban than urban, the streets played an important part in the way of life for people of all ages. It goes to show that "safer" streets with less or slower traffic are used for reasons other than driving or transport.

 From the publication:

"One should be able to play everywhere, easily, loosely, and not forced into a 'playground' or 'park'. The failure of an urban environment can be measured in direct proportion to the number of 'playgrounds.' 

Notwithstanding research which suggests that parks and playgrounds are highly valued by children (Homel and Burns, 1986, 109), perhaps this argument is not as absurd as it seems. It helps us to realise that the way we have been seeing 'children's spaces' is "culturally constructed". This quote is highlighting the possibility that parks and playgrounds are among the few places left for children in our cities. It is saying that a truly child friendly city should be one big playground. Cities in the developed world can hardly be described in such terms, mainly because of the way in which streets are seen as barriers for children, rather than as a useful resource for play.

No doubt circumstances are changing ever-more rapidly, with the automobile as the main culprit. Car dependency creates more dangerous streets, leading to more parental supervision for child safety, more formal/supervised play, less freedom and independence for children, and ultimately less ability for spontaneity and creativity in children. All of which can play a major role in the development, socialization, and sense of community for children.

This is where Living Streets come in. The publication reviews "traffic calming" in countries that have had success in reclaiming the streets as social space - not surprising that the Netherlands, Germany, and Denmark are mentioned here. Munich is highlighted:

One European city which is developing a reputation for being a "playful city" is Munich. Since the early 1970s, the combined efforts of play organisations and city authorities has led to Munich evolving as a model playful city. The key aspect of the approach taken is the realisation that children need time and space for open, non structured play, and that such play is a crucial part of a child's positive development (Zacharias and Zacharias, 1993). It is argued that playing should be allowed and possible in all the everyday environments of the city, rather than simply in specific playgrounds. There should be a "playable city" where the entire environment is conducive to children's play. In many parts of Munich, the streets are seen as appropriate places for children to play (Moore, 1993).

To support the ability of children to play in the streets, a number of "verkehrsberuhigter Bereich" have been developed. Many of these are similar to woonerven, and they have a special sign that says: "children can play in this street". Cars must travel very slowly (5 -7 km/h) and they can only park in marked areas. Knecht (1995, pers. comm.) has recently conducted a project in Munich called "Play in the streets and yards". His observations were that children do in fact play in such verkehrsberuhigter Bereich where they cover a large area, as in an area of Munich called Moosach. In one street in Knecht's study, Hirschstrasse, children painted a mini golf course with chalk on the street. They made 20 stations with wooden material and toys and other material. A huge number of children from the neighbourhood streets (also verkehrsberihigt) come to Hirschstrasse to join the game. Children also play tennis, roller skate, play ball games and so on. One of the most important findings of Knecht's study was that if there are a lot of children playing in the street, the car drivers proceed very slowly. Sometimes they even turn around and look for another route. Thus, children have been able to successfully reclaim the street!

While I feel relief to know that my inclination is actually backed up by research, it's disheartening to see the place I knew as a playground growing up disappear. But progress is being made with like Living Streets and traffic calming. Such strategies can be thought of as a piece to the puzzle or possibly even a catalyst to transform streets away from exclusive automobile use and back to communities that actually bring value and life to the veins of a city. The authors of the research couldn't sum it up better:

Making provision for children's play throughout a city's public spaces, including its residential streets, will not only be of great benefit for children, it will create a physical and social environment of superior quality for all the city's residents. If we can encourage more people to use residential streets for walking, cycling, social interaction and playing, then cities will become more sociable, more livable places for all city residents. Cities will once again become places which facilitate exchanges between people of all ages.  

Sources: 
http://www.ecoplan.org/children/general/tranter.htm
http://www.ncsu.edu/www/ncsu/design/sod5/phd/resources/Streets_as_Playgrounds.pdf

The "Living Street"

The following pictures were taken in Baldham and Vaterstetten, small suburbs of Munich, Germany:

I was familiar with these blue signs, likely from the year I spent living in Germany as a younger girl, but never really took a moment to think about what they actually meant, legal implications and all. After walking through a part of my neighborhood I'd never walked before and seeing a number of these signs, I decided to dig deeper. I was happy to find an entire Wikipedia page dedicated to the "Living Street." The German legislation is as follows: "Vehicles should not travel faster than a pedestrian speed. If not same grade then street usable by pedestrians. Parking is only allowed in marked places. Pedestrians, including children, may use the entire street and children are permitted to play in the street."  

I grew up on what would definitely be considered a "living street." And not because a sign was posted determining a maximum car speed, but because the 80-some kids on my block made it a living street. So, I have a very personal perception of the function of a street, or what its function should be. Importantly, I believe - because I've witnessed it - the way people think about and act around streets has drastically changed in my lifetime and even since I was schoolkid.

This concept of a designated multi-functional street is relatively new, being introduced in the 1970s in the Netherlands and spreading to over a dozen countries since. And while I feel a very personal and direct connection to the idea of the living street, I nonetheless think these signs accompanied by laws are a fantastic idea! I grew up with our street as a play place, and the fact that streets (especially city streets) have become car-dominated and dangerous is quite frankly saddening to me. 

My wish would be to create more "living streets" in cities and bring back the street as a fun and safe social place and multi-use playground.

More pictures of multi-use streets in full effect in the downtown area of Passau, Germany:

It's starting to happen:
Copenhagen has done it (what city is leading, as always ;)
New York City is doing it (click on the "Renderings" image!)





More on this topic to come...