New York City law makes green roofs, urban gardens and greenhouses easier, other cities make it harder

Big news this week out of New York City, as City Council passed giving access to more land for urban gardens and to make it easier to build rooftop greenhouses.

Is New York now in the lead for greenest city in North America? We know they take their green seriously, they take it even more seriously in Uganda. How about a fine or imprisonment if you don't report how many animals you own?

Detroit's first commercial farm is finally getting started! It's 1/1000 of the size they wanted, but it's a start. The law needs to be changed to allow more farming in Detroit, Philly and elsewhere. And this article outlines some of the challenges.

Hydroponic farming in Mexico and the USA

-A planning high school! How incredible is this? Required reading will no doubt include this bareknuckled Duany vs Krieger aka New Urbanism vs Ecological Urbanism dispute. Okay, slight exaggeration. These gentleman disagree a little, but "bareknuckled" really got your attention, didn't it?

Switching coasts, there's a nifty hydroponic set-up at a NYC school scheduled to open up in a week, but it's startling the difference in price versus what Sembradores Urbanos is doing in Mexico City, demonstrating simple, economical replicable urban agriculture projects.

-The Brooklyn Queens Expressway has a few green options , my personal favorite is green canopy...naturally!

-Won't be heading to Vancouver for the Cities Alive conference. I am a little bummed, but with everything happening here it makes sense to focus! Hopefully they'll be a post soon announcing some big stuff. 2011 looks like it's going to be a fantastic year for verticiel!

City watch

D.C. is trying to up their urban agriculture cred by creating a College of Urban Agriculture (at the University of the District of Columbia).

N.Y.C., on the other hand, seems to be making things more difficult, don't worry Bloomberg will get things together.

Oakland has a new hydroponic superstore, it opened a few days ago. Technicians at the store will even show you how to set stuff up, for a fee, but still, how many times have you bought something at IKEA and wished you'd talked to someone first?

Kwantlen Polytechnic University in British Columbia is opening a lab to develop insect-and microbe-based pest control systems. After researching the technologies, they will bring them to market.

Hopping across the ocean, the UN has a position open for a senior level Urban Agriculture Expert in Monrovia.

Interesting article about how to use permaculture principles to grow a sustainable company. I hope there's a company out there willing to give this a try, it would be a fantastic experiment.

Groundhog joke of the day: What is a laughing groundhog called? A grinhog. Admit it, you at least groaned.