It’s Time to Make Cities More Rural
Sourced from Wired
JENNIFER BOUSSELOT HAS had one hell of a summer harvest. On a 576-square-foot plot of land, she’s pulled up over 200 pounds of produce—cucumbers, peppers, tomatoes, and basil, among other goodies—and the growing season isn’t anywhere close to done. Despite that resounding success, Bousselot is no farmer; she’s a horticulturist at Colorado State University, and that plot of land is actually up in the sky. The garden, atop a building near the Denver Coliseum, was purpose-built for Bousselot’s brand of research in an up-and-coming scientific field: rooftop farming.
As more people pour into metropolises—urban populations are projected to double in the next three decades, according to the World Bank—scientists like Bousselot are investigating how designers and planners can ruralize cities, greening roofs, and empty lots. The concept is known as “rurbanization,” and it could have all kinds of knock-on benefits for ballooning populations, from beautifying blocks to producing food more locally. It dispenses with the “city versus country” binary and instead blends the two in deliberate, meaningful ways. “You don’t have to set this up as a dichotomy between urban and rural, really,” says Bousselot. “What we should probably focus on is resilience overall.”
“The rurbanization idea is: OK, if we mix this up a bit, maybe we can create benefits on both sides,” adds Jessica Davies, principal investigator of Lancaster University’s Rurban Revolution project, a scientific investigation of the concept. “So if we bring some of what we grow nearer to where we live, can we enhance our connection with food? Can we make food more accessible? Can we improve local ecosystems?”
Recent research has begun to provide data on how well urban agriculture actually works if you’re planning to, you know, eat. A review paper published last month by researchers working on the Rurban Revolution project surveyed previous studies and determined that on average, urban agricultural yields (including both outdoor and indoor growing operations) were on par or higher than those of typical farms. But certain crops, like lettuces, tubers, and cucumbers, had yields up to four times higher when grown in cities. A separate team of scientists in Australia looked at 13 urban community farms for a year and found their yields to be twice that of typical commercial vegetable farms.
From the Living Architecture Monitor
