Communtiy Gardens: Saving Detroit Once Again

In 1894, during the second summer of the Great Depression, Detroit Mayor Hazen Pingree purposed the Potato Patch Plan to help feed the city's less fortunate through the cultivation of vacant lots. Since the city's funds were scarce he called upon local churches and the wealthy to donate money to purchase hoes, seeds, and other necessary supplies. His request was responded with mocking and skepticism. Critics believed that the jobless would be too lazy to farm the empty lots and would just steal food from each other. Pingree disagreed and was determined to get the project going. He laid another levy on municipal employees and set up several public auctions where he even sold a few of his own prize possessions to raise money. Eventually enough money was raised and 3000 families applied for a plot of land but only 945 were able to get a spot in 1894. The Potato Patch Plan enrolled 1,546 families in 1895 and 1,701 in 1896. Needless to say his plan was a great success. It provided the people of Detroit with food as well as a sense of purpose and community in a time of economic destitution. Soon after the plan's success cities such as New York, Denver, Seattle, and Minneapolis began their own P-Patch programs.

Once again community gardens are playing a significant roll in improving the lives of impoverish people in Detroit. Deindustrialization brought with it a wake of abandoned lots, poverty, and crime transforming it into the nations "Murder Capital". The Detroit Agriculture Network, Earthworks Garden/Capuchin Soup Kitchen, The Greening of Detroit, and Michigan State University, as well as many other smaller organizations, have come together to transform many of Detroit's vacant lots into community gardens where citizens can learn, grow food, and feel pride. Turning some of Detroit's 400,000 vacant lots into urban farmland has saved the city money that it was costing them to keep up the lots and fight crime that was becoming an increasing problem in these abandoned sections of the city. It is also a more positive solutions than relocating citizens to more dense areas of Detroit which was being considered. The gardens have also become the solution to their "food desert" problem. Unless one has a car it can be near to impossible for many Detroit citizens to purchase fresh food of any kind, especially in the more impoverish areas. Detroit's local food movement, just as it did in 1894, is providing people with food and a sense of belonging or connectedness to those around them as well as the earth. School's are being linked up to many of the gardens providing children and teens with after school alternatives that keeps them away from crime and gives them a sense of purpose. Hundreds of community gardens are popping up all over Detroit and even more backyard gardens exist or are being developed. Bringing people back to their roots and connecting them to the land is saving the community and transforming the city.