Community gardens raise property values

Wisconsin has been at the leading edge of the aquaponics movement for quite some time and their state's resume keeps getting more accomplished. The Aquaponics Innovation Center, is not even a year old, but they've received almost 3/4 of a million dollars to study aquaponic systems. 

-Ohio doesn't have the resume, Canton is hoping to change that. They have a $150 million dollar agri-business energy project design to bring 1,300, some of those in the aquaponics field.

-Over 1 million trees have been planted in New York City, more than any other city in the world. Here's how they did it.

-I haven't seen many articles of this type, but this landscape architect is wondering whether we need to start favoring xeriscapes and the "beauty of drought", or at least less water dependent creations, if landscape architecture is going to reflect the realities of a future, thirsty world.

-A fully automated growing system has just hit the market, on the low end the farm cube takes only 6 weeks to grow 200 pieces of your favorite vegetable.

-The UK has a brand new pop-up cafe, called Stroud Food Surplus Cafe, which sells "surplus food", food from restaurants that's perfectly fine, just past the expiration date.

-Two important studies came out last one. One quantifies how much land would be needed to feed Seattle, a city of about 650,000 people, 58 kilometers. Urban food crops, at the maximum, could fill 4% of the city's food needs.If you've been following the blog you know feelings towards community gardens have been changing, positively, over the last few years. Some towns/cities are still a bit reluctant. That should change with the first report indicating neighboring property values rise by as much as 9.4% points within five years of a garden's opening and the gardens can lead to increases in tax revenues of about half a million dollars per garden over 20 years.

GILA word of the week: Food Swamp

I have a bunch of things to mention which have slipped under the radar recently, for instance your GILA word of the week: Food Swamp. We've all heard the term food desert, well a food swamp has lots of food available and most of it is unhealthy.

-It's important that everyone is aware of the benefits of green infrastructure, especially green roofs. In Victoria, Australia, a local university, the city council and state government are trying to put a dollar figure on greening utilizing their own research and the country's Economic Framework for Green Infrastructure. Similarly, Mauritius is attempting to quantify how much green roofs would mean to them.

-The Dutch have taken urban agricultural to new heights, by creating a floating dairy platform making it one of the first urban aquatic agricultural operations.

-Follow a Kenyan family on the front line of climate change in the first episode of Al Jazeera's "The Climate Diaries".

-Speaking of pioneers, urban agricultural guru Will Allen may be in a jam of a different kind as an investor has sued him (and his partner) over the disputed mismanagement of their investment.

-Last week it was announced India is slated to get it's first horticultural therapy garden in 2016. While a new program is opening in India, sadly a popular one is being shut down in the UK.

-Let's end on a positive note, shall we? How about focusing on Detroit's intention to plant tens of thousands of trees on 1/2 square miles of vacant city space. Note, this is only a demonstration. There are over 20 miles of vacant land in the city...right now! Other lots will be filled eventually, whether it's with wildflowers or urban farms.

GILA words of the week: Pizza farm + mobile green wall filter

Before getting to the word of the week, here's the new title holder for the largest green wall.

A Taiwan based company built this nearly 2,600 square meter green wall, it beats the previous biggest in Singapore by more than 300 square meters.
An even bigger development may be the invention of a mobile green wall filter. Keep an eye on this company!

-On to the pizza farm! In Minnesota and Wisconsin agritourism is taking off and some farmers have cut out the middle man. Why not grow (or source locally) all of ingredients for a pizza, bake it and serve it up on a farm? You can't get much fresher!

Wisconsin wants more green roofs

-Last week plans for a potential urban farm in Battle Creek, Michigan, organized by several (eight, to be exact) churches, were potentially scuttled when neighbors complained that there would be too much traffic and a reduction in property values.
They were hoping the land would produce as much as 220,000 lbs of fruit and vegetables. The timing of this unfortunate disagreement is impeccable as Earth Island reports how cities across the US are struggling with how to amend its’ current laws and the disparate concerns of residents.

-Wisconsin’s Department of Natural Resources wanted Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District's to install 5 million gallons of rain collecting capacity by the end of 2017. Last year, alone, the City did 4 million! So the DNR may raise it’s bar. Here’s your stat for the day, digging more deep tunnels to store wastewater “would cost between two and six times more per gallon of capacity than the various types of green infrastructure” and "This is our lowest-cost approach."
The ultimate goal? 740 million gallons' worth of storage capacity by 2035. The district estimates it will distribute $1.3 billion over the next 20 years in grants to its green infrastructure partners.

-One city council candidate in Ottawa is suggesting adopting a green roof policy. It could have happened earlier, but the delay comes from the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing. A change has to be made at the provincial level to allow Ottawa to change its’ own laws.  The article references Toronto’s green roof bylaw which has been fantastic. Being one of the first has its advantages. It also has its' disadvantages, as now people seem to realize that the bylaw's emphasis on 90% coverage within 2 years does not help the urban agriculture movement at all. As you know most food we eat are annuals. How (and when) will this be changed? Good question.

-Istanbul has rolled out it’s own green roof bus. It’s called the “Botobüs,” a combination of “botanic” and “bus”.

GILA word of the week: Fruit activist

Whether you consider the installation and care of fruit trees as “art”, is another matter, but more fruit trees in the world, especially on city streets, is definitely a good thing.

-Well, that didn’t take long. Several parties are interested in what remains of the Sweet Water Organics facility, including some former employees and local professors and entrepreneurs. Their complete proposal hasn’t been released yet, however it includes a commercial kitchen which can serve the fish and vegetables processed in the adjoining facilities.

-In September I posted a story about an aquaponics operation in Abu Dhabi. The facility was quietly kept under wraps until it was up and running and very little information about the people behind the idea was ever released. This is the first article I have seen which talks about the manager and driving force behind the project, Jabber Al Mazroui. They even have been able to grow watermelon!

-Whenever I give a talk about living walls I reference on of the most well-known examples, the Hanging Gardens of Babylon. Now it seems the gardens were never in Babylon, but 300 miles further north in Ninevah.

28 activities and 18 benefits to urban agriculture

Do your friends want to know why they should support urban agriculture? Here's a fantastic metrics framework from the Design Trust for Public Space detailing 18 benefits and 28 activities. 

-Stat of the day: according to one calculation Beijing has 93 million square metres (23,000 acres) of green roof ready rooftops. Particle pollution could be reduced by as much as 880,000 kilograms every year, (equal to removing 730,000 cars from the road) and a reduction of 3.5 million cubic metres of stormwater.

-Back in July I first talked about the Bayview Compass' coverage of Sweet Water Organics, the Milwaukee based aquaponics organization. That article was perhaps the best one of the year, in the living architecture world. This follow-up one is not that bad either, SWO defaulted on a loan which could be renegotiated. For the life of me I don't know why SWO has such a spotlight on them, it seems organizations run into trouble all the time. Perhaps when you garner as much positive attention as they have, when something goes wrong, you get as much negative attention.

-Coming soon to Vancouver, a 1,000 tree urban agriculture orchard.