Category — Planning

“Amy Franceschini is trying to nurture the victory garden concept back to prominence – this time with a 21st-century agenda. Ms. Franceschini, 37, is the architect of a San Francisco pilot project to revive victory gardens here and beyond. She recently secured $60,000 in seed money from the San Francisco government to pay for 15 backyard plots, with the hope of expanding the effort dramatically after 2008.

“In the next two years, Ms. Franceschini and Mr. Randall will hand-pick 15 people to be the initial victory gardeners. In keeping with San Francisco’s commitment to diversity, the gardeners will mirror the city’s ethnic, geographic and economic spectrum.”

Link to article by Scott Lindlaw of The Associated Press in the Dallas Morning News February 29, 2008.

Link to “Victory Gardens 2007+ ” a concept currently being developed by Garden for the Environment and the City of San Francisco’s Department for the Environment.

This month’s issue of ‘Planning’, a magazine produced by the American Planning Association, has an article that touches briefly on urban agriculture under the title ‘food security’. (page 32) The article is ‘Saving the World Through Zoning - the sustainable community development code comes to the rescue.’

“…The vast expanses of vacant lots in cities also have enormous potential for urban gardens. Surveys show that Chicago has over 70,000 vacant lots and Detroit 60,000. Not only can these lots help provide healthy food at low cost to city dwellers, but as the national Urban Agriculture Report observed, urban agriculture has a regenerative effect … when vacant lots are transformed from eyesores – weedy, trash-ridden dangerous gathering places – into bountiful beautiful, and safe gardens that feed people’s bodies and souls.” Zoning regulations can help push this transformation…”

Link to Planning magazine. The article is available to subscribers only.

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