Urban agriculture in Detroit: Scattering vs. clustering and the prospects for scaling up

“Studies indicate that UA benefits are often localized, and some evidence suggests that it can lead to gentrification, so scaling up will need to be implemented in a manner that does not exacerbate environmental injustice,” the researchers wrote.

By James Erickson
Univ of Michigan
Source: Michigan News
Apr 4, 2022

Excerpt:

Despite Detroit’s reputation as a mecca for urban agriculture, a new University of Michigan-led analysis of the city’s Lower Eastside, which covers 15 square miles, found that community and private gardens occupy less than 1% of the vacant land.

Even so, gardens on Detroit’s Lower Eastside, which has one of the city’s highest vacancy levels, play an important role in reducing neighborhood blight and have the potential to provide other significant benefits to residents in the future, according to the new study.

To maximize those benefits—which include improved access to fresh food, increased community cohesion and reduced stormwater runoff—the new study recommends scattering future gardens across the landscape, rather than clustering them in a few places.

“Despite the abundance of vacant land and Detroit’s media image as a hub of urban agriculture, we were surprised to find a relatively low level of private and community gardens in the Lower Eastside,” said study lead author Joshua Newell, an urban geographer at U-M’s School for Environment and Sustainability.

Read the complete article here.