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Meet the Tenacious Gardeners Putting Down Roots in "America's Most Desperate Town"
They're not always optimistic about the future of Camden, N.J. But they're committed to it anyway, and they've created one of the nation's fastest growing networks of urban farms.
These are Pedro Rodriguezs chickens, in alphabetical order: Bella, Blanche, Dominique, Flo, Flossie, Lucy, Pauline, Una, and Victoria. Their coop occupies one corner of a vacant-lot-turned-garden in Camden, New Jersey. Its an oasis of abundance and order in a city of abandoned buildings, street trash, and drug deals that few attempt to hide. Since 2010, the number of community gardens has more than doubled to roughly 130.
Rodriguez, 50, grew up down the street. Near the chickens, he has planted neat raised beds of corn, tomatoes, cabbage, kale, asparagus, eggplant, onion, 20 varieties of hot peppers, and broccoli. Fruit trees (cherry, apple, peach, and pear) line the perimeter of the lot, as well as two beehives. Hes considering getting a goat.
To say that Camden has a bad reputation would be an understatement. Indeed, Camden, just across the Delaware River from Philadelphia, has about the worst of any city in America. Its been ranked at various times as both the poorest and the most dangerous. In 2012, it ranked as the number-one most dangerous city in the country.
Not surprisingly, Camden also gets a ton of bad press. In 2010 The Nation called it a City of Ruins where those discarded as human refuse are dumped. Last year, Rolling Stone ran a devastating article by Matt Taibbi under the headline Apocalypse, New Jersey: A Dispatch from Americas Most Desperate Town, calling it a city run by armed teenagers, an un-Fantasy Island of extreme poverty and violence.
Its also one of the worst urban food deserts in the country. In September of 2013, the last centrally located grocery store closed its doors, leaving the city to feed itself on Crown Chicken and junk from the corner bodegas. One supermarket remains, at the very edge of Camden's city limitsbut most residents would have to cross a river and travel along a major highway to get therea difficulty in a city where many can't afford a car. Like in many other low-income areas, obesity is an epidemic.
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http://www.yesmagazine.org/planet/meet-the-tenacious-gardeners-putting-down-roots-in-america-s-most-desperate-town?utm_source=YTW&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=20140613
MADem
(135,425 posts)Blanks
(4,835 posts)MADem
(135,425 posts)JNelson6563
(28,151 posts)Glad to see Camden getting this! Would love to see this go on everywhere!
Julie
mopinko
(70,215 posts)it is SO hot in chicago.
sadly for du, i must give rahm huge, huge points for everything that is happening here. he has latched on to the green agenda in any way possible.
he is turning over city property in the bombed out parts of town as fast as he can.
he rewrote the ordinances on community gardens and farms.
cook county is doing the same.
we do it right where it is blue.
Blanks
(4,835 posts)mopinko
(70,215 posts)one of the first in the country.
we have such great human capital here. one woman's company did a WHOLE lot of chicago's fantastic landscaping. they are planting an edible garden in millennium park.
daley was at the forefront of taking local action on climate change, and rahm is way out there now too.
the man listens to ideas, and makes the good ones happen.
i have a real soft spot for him.
Blanks
(4,835 posts)There seems to be a few vocal folks bitching about Rahm.
I saw a documentary about the green roof and it's pretty neat. Apparently it's developed an ecosystem even beyond what they were hoping for.
mopinko
(70,215 posts)basically sticking up for rahm and charter schools. 13 candidates for 12 seat. 2 irish names at the top of the ballot, me #2. who could imagine.
its a badge of honor, tho. i'm good with it.
Blanks
(4,835 posts)mopinko
(70,215 posts)that is for sure.
Duppers
(28,127 posts)More great pics at OP's link.
Uncle Joe
(58,417 posts)Thanks for the thread, niyad.
locks
(2,012 posts)BlancheSplanchnik
(20,219 posts)A bright spot!
A great human revolution in just a single individual will help achieve a change in the destiny of a nation and, further, will enable a change in the destiny of all humankind.-- Daisaku Ikeda
dixiegrrrrl
(60,010 posts)Our lil town actually allows chickens..and ducks and geese, in city limits.
We have chickens.
they give us delicious large eggs.
and I cannot get anyone to take them!
Damn things are selling for 8.00 a doz. in SF, I am out here giving them away, no one wants them.
too much trouble to come over and get them, I guess.
mopinko
(70,215 posts)and old artist's trick- if you cant sell your work, double the price.
if you give them value, they will. i get $4, tho i have a few folks who insist on paying $5.
TuxedoKat
(3,818 posts)I'd take some. Seriously though, free has no value to some people, so try selling them.
LuvNewcastle
(16,856 posts)I eat lots of eggs, and I'd love free ones! I'd be baking cakes, cooking omelettes, making quiches, doing all sorts of things. Some people just refuse to be thrifty with their money. If I had a yard, I'd be growing all sorts of veggies, and I'd definitely own some chickens. Maybe when people realize that our economy is in a rather permanent slump and food isn't going to get any cheaper, I think they might start appreciating home-grown meals a lot more.