Detroit is returning to its roots.
Soon after the French founded Detroit in 1701, they concluded that the city could best thrive as an agricultural community. Settlers were given long but narrow plots of land that fronted on the Detroit River, and extended two to three miles inland, what came to be called “ribbon farms.” They flourished for decades.
But in the automotive age, the mere idea of farming in the city sounded like something out of ancient Rome.
Then came Detroit’s long decline. Today a city that once had close to 2 million people has approximately 670,000.
Detroit, which is larger in physical size than Manhattan, Boston and Seattle combined, now has at least 30 square miles of vacant land. But it also has a movement to return some of it to agriculture, and this movement has been gathering momentum.
Urban farming in Detroit, just as is true in Toledo, can help fulfill a strong inner-city need for fresh produce.
There are now more than 1,500 urban gardens and farms of various sizes in Detroit. They have filled in much of the empty space created by depopulation of the once giant and mighty city, and by the removal of scores of abandoned houses.
All this is not really new to Detroit. Long after the early French settlers, in the 1890s, Mayor Hazen Pingree encouraged Detroiters to plant potatoes on empty or abandoned lots. And during the second world war, many in Detroit kept extensive gardens.
There are many practical aspects to urban farming. One is that poorer residents in Detroit, as is also true of Toledo, lack cars and live in so-called “food deserts.” There are no places to buy groceries other than so-called party stores or dollar stores. Urban gardens bring the possibility of decent, fresh food to the poor.
Care needs to be taken that crops aren’t planted in places where the ground is tainted by industrial pollution. But testing has shown that the extent of contamination is less than expected, and much land that has long been residential in Detroit is, in many cases, perfectly fine.
Detroit may never again be the rich industrial powerhouse it was when it was the Arsenal of Democracy during World War II. But maybe it can feed its most vulnerable citizens.
First Published December 2, 2018, 11:15 a.m.
