Page 12 RAIN November/December 1985 ACCESS: Cities ----------------------------- ^_______ I__ Institute for Local Self-Reliance 242518th Street NW Washington, DC 20009 In addition to ILSR's work with the Homegrown Economy project in St. Paul, the institute works in several other program areas as well. The overall goal of these programs is to help make the city “an efficient and equitable system, one that extracts the maximum value from its human, material, and technological resources." ILSR provides information on the many aspects of local self-reliance in a variety of ways. Publications such as The New City States help bring the concept of the city as nation to a mass audience. ILSR has conducted seminars and training sessions on waste utilization and economic development all across the country. It has developed a computer network to disseminate information on model systems, new enterprises, contacts, and references. And ILSR staff helped KRMA-TV in Denver to develop A Community for All Seasons, a program aired over more than 50 public television stations. The institute also conducts technical research, the findings of which have been published in technical papers such as Waste to Wealth, Be Your Own Power Company, and Nutrient Flows in Metropolitan Areas. Institute staff also provide direct technical assistance to communities. Assistance in developing recycling programs and solid waste management plans has been provided to Cleveland, Philadelphia, Newark, and many other cities. ILSR staff have also worked with the Minnesota Department of Energy and Economic Development, the Missouri Cooperative Extension Service, and the Nebraska Energy Office to help develop energy and economic policy. In addition to all these far-flung operations, the institute has been working in its own neighborhood as well. ILSR has developed a youth leadership organization in the Adams-Morgan neighborhood of Washington, D.C. called Around the Comer to the World. The organization conducts training for local youths in administering youth councils, fundraising, newsletter production, and related skills. Enterprise development is stressed as well, and three businesses have been created: a rehabilitation and weatheriza- tion service, a compost enterprise, and a clean-up service. —FLS Strugglefor Space: The Greening ofNew York City 1970-1984, by Tom Fox, Ian Koeppel, and Susan Kellam, 1985,165 pp., $15 from: Neighborhood Open Space Coalition, Inc. 72 Reade Street New York, NY 10007 In the early 1970s, it was illegal for a private citizen in New York City to care for a street tree or have a compost pile on an open lot. Now, about 450 community- based gardens bring life to formerly vacant lots there. These gardens occupy over 150 acres of land, involve 11,000 people, and represent nearly 34 million dollars of investment—80 percent of which is donated labor. That turnaround, as described in a new book entitled Strugglefor Space: The Greening of New York City 1970-1984, has resulted from a blend of causes, such as market conditions, idealism, fiscal crises, and grassroots activism. The 1950s and 1960s saw a drastic increase in disinvestment—abandonment, arson, and demolition—in NYC. Many concerned and skilled people began to see that something needed to be done about these urban wastes, and the recession of the early 1970s gave some of them the leisure time to pursue their concerns. In the mid-1970s, NYC nearly went bankrupt, which caused severe cutbacks in services such as parks and recreation. The city's residents had to learn to provide more for themselves, and were more than willing to do so. The combination of all these factors provided ample opportunity for the development of community gardens. Urban gardening was not a new idea. Back when many New Yorkers were recent immigrants, small gardens allowed both cheap food and a sense of cultural continuity to newly arrived groups. During World War II, Victory Cardens supplied food and proof of patriotism. After the war, though, the idea withered, leading to the abandonment of land so in evidence by the 1950s. The community gardens of today, which primarily serve the needs of lower- income neighborhoods, are more than food and flower baskets. They include trees, painted wall murals, barbeque pits, benches, and play equipment, making them year-round attractions, even for those too young or old to participate in gardening. And, these gardens are resistant to the twin blights of vandalism and neglect, largely because they are developed by local people who watch out for them. When this greening of NYC was beginning, city officials were slow to approve. One group that came to be known as the Green Guerillas planted their first garden area in a rubble-strewn lot, only to have it bulldozed away. A few years later, after the gardens became more common, other problems cropped up. For one thing, most community gardeners are technically squatting on the land, and have no legal right to it. They can be evicted on very short notice. Under Operation Green Thumb, begun in 1978, gardeners began getting one- year leases on the lots, for a dollar a year. Still, it was very easy to get rid of a garden after the growing season. Two more methods have been developed to deal with this: some groups have gotten long-term leases, and other have bought their land outright with help from the Trust for Public Land. Now, the story comes full circle, with market conditions again presenting a challenge and an opportunity to city residents. In the 1980s, disinvestment has been replaced by upwardly spriraling land values, especially in the NYC borough of Manhattan. For example, a community garden space that has been producing several hundred bushels of vegetables yearly has recently been reassessed at 10 million dollars—giving its tomatoes an equivalent value of 1,000 dollars each. This kind of economic pressure has caused Manhattan to lose about 10 pecent of its community garden space during the 1980s. But there is hope here, too. In the last couple of years, community gardeners have begun negotiating with developers and the city to maintain green spaces when garden land is sold for development. Frequently, space for gardens is being retained, which makes the developments more attractive, and hence more salable. Everyone benefits. Viewed citywide, the movement toward community-based, community-controlled, and community-benefitting gardens in New York City is growing. While Strugglefor Space is not particularly well-written, its story is valuable, and the details of how the Neighborhood Open Space Coalition gathered data to make the case for community gardens, and the resources and bibliography provided could guide similar groups nationwide to begin, better maintain or improve their efforts at greening their cities. —RC
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