Believelander

As for Ohio city and Detroit Shoreway, there a both many community gardens, and perhaps more importantly, home gardens. I can name at least 30 families (some older established residents as well as younger and more recent transplants) who have rather extensive gardens, both flower and vegetable with many orchards among them. Many of the residents of Detroit Shoreway were of Italian and Romanian decent and tended towards the old world philosophy of eat what you grow. My neighbor as a child on Franklin Blvd across from Joseph Gallagher Jr. High School grew plums (for schlivovitz) pears, and cherries while maintaining a healthy vegetable garden in the rear of his yard. As the immigrant families passed or moved away, the new residents seem to have taken over where they left off. It doesn't hurt that many of the homes are century Victorians and are prime locations for limousine liberal transplants, but generally speaking I have not seen much of a difference in continuation based on annual household income. The truth is that urban agriculture is relatively easy with a little bit of up front energy investment and can often feed a small family if properly maintained/organized. I am currently growing beets, radishes, potatoes; several types of greens, tomatoes, and peppers; eggplants, etc on a total area of about 70 sq. ft of plots near the top of Edgewater park in the back yard of a triple. As long as you follow some basic principles you will be giving away food because of your bounty. Jon Jeavons wrote an excellent book on utilizing space and organic gardening made simple called HOW TO GROW MORE VEGETABLES which includes charts for starting seeds, planting schedules, and myriad other quick-reference subjects. Not only are gardens good for your belly, but they also attract a variety of wildlife and can allow you to have a real Walden in the city instead of living in a cookie cutter development called Walden. There are organization that have formed such as Gang Green that hold informational sessions and workshops on everyday things one can do to cut down on their eco-footprint. Vermiculture (known as worm composting to most), briars, envelope sealing (houses not letters), rain-barrels, etc. have all been discussed within the last year and these neighborhoods are experiencing revitalizations based mostly around friendly neighbors.

A few musings... 1) Wolstein has owned most of the land to be developed for decades and watched as the area plummeted towards the wasteland it currently is. He has been doing nothing about development and then arguing that the only way for it to happen was for the owners of adjacent lots to sell to him. He gets rich, while we wait. 2) Forest City, the other major land holder in the flats (Scranton frickin Penninsula for one) is playing the same game and has done multi-million dollar deals in San Francisco, Chicago, Pittsburgh, New York City, etc. while failing to invest in the town for whom it owes its namesake! 3) Have we learned nothing from the white flight of the mid-20th century? Trying to solve socio-economic issues by building barriers is ridiculous. Granted we don't know how large the private area will be and thus it is early to cast aspersions, however using it as a selling point is a way to say to suburban converts, "Hey there, we sterilized the central business district so that you could continue to live your shallow, greedy, consumption driven life where you forget the human capital of the world and hide in your elitist towers without facing the realities of the world." Jane Jacobs understood the correlation between population density and sense of space/place/community/safety and while the density will be achieved, the aloof high-rise population will continue to avoid the great diversity that is urban living! 4) I want Cleveland to succeed as much as anyone, however, I believe success as a leader in Energy technology and production (see CWRU Energy Program and the recent relocation of Munich, Germany's IBC solar) is a more important step than trying to subsist as a tourism and service city, particularly due to the oft inclement weather. As it becomes increasingly clear that as oil prices continue to rise, the urban centers of most of America's major cities are destined to gain population as it becomes cost prohibitive to commute long hours and what better way to employ those new citizens than in an industry designed to reduce pollution and save our earth. 5) I guess I'm just ambivalent in supporting five star hotels when the schools are still a mess and the property taxes (a primary source of Cleveland Public School District funding) on those $400,000-2million condos will likely be abated for 10 years as an incentive to build. 6) As for trader joes, why not relocate in a near west side neighborhood instead of next to Constantine's which already sells amazing products and is just up the hill.