Urban Farming Guidebook - Enjoy!

Comment by Catherine, The Herb Lady on January 27, 2013 at 9:33am: Nice Bryan. I used to envision a development of a 'master plan' city as a huge wagon wheel with the outer rim the residential area, the inner hub the commercial district, the spokes the roads leading to and from and the area between the spokes as all farm land. I have also thought about using my bicycle with a trailer to become a "green grocer" in the neighborhood - don't have enough extra yet for that -- maybe some day :-) Thank you for posting.

Comment by bryanwhitebeyondthekitchengarden on January 27, 2013 at 12:38pm: Thanks for taking a look Catherine,

This document seems to put all the pieces of the system together in one place ... 'big picture' ... now we need to amend / overlay it with our specific 'locale' ... the sonoran desert ...

Comment by Catherine, The Herb Lady on January 28, 2013 at 5:01am: I wish there was a 'person' to take this to at the State level to encourage a guideline for cities to use to encourage rather than discourage this.

Comment by Morgan Coffinger on January 29, 2013 at 1:10pm: You both are AWESOME. I love this thread and I have no idea how I stumbled upon it. Catherine your model for urban wheel is very appealing. Also, I think this 'person' you want to take it to State level is YOU, BRYAN, US and ALL OTHERS who see this as a real successful synergistic model. What I've been tossing around in my head lately is to work on a working neighborhood block model, food/garden facility, composting (food and land "waste") facility, alternative energy methods, and work with individual neighborhoods..start with our own. If everyone is on board or at least enough, then we can present it to another neighborhood. I think our fuel to this movement lies within the grassroots approach however, my gut tells me the State level would be pumped as it would decrease costs, pollution, crime, etc. Forgive me for barging in, I'm inspired by you both for your involvement with the community/fields and I look forward to meeting you!

Comment by Morgan Coffinger on January 29, 2013 at 1:13pm: Thank you for this great resource!

Comment by Catherine, The Herb Lady on January 30, 2013 at 5:32am: Morgan, to be sure beginning with each of our own neighborhoods is really one of the best ways to go, because it is not just a plan, but an action. I'm trying to think of which of our legislators on the state level would be 'go-to' people - we need more than one to get any traction with the state. I'm going to try and see if I can find out who has the background or related interests.

Comment by Kristin Parsons on February 5, 2013 at 1:17pm: in between the neighborhood level and the state level is each municipalities planning and development board- those people are the best direct link between zoning regulations and the general public. I used to work with a wonderful guy who was a chairman on the city of phoenix planning commission...he and I wrote "green" newsletters and he has a masters degree in environmental planning...I think it would be someone like him who could take things to the next level. The neighborhood and grass roots levels will move faster than a larger planning board type entity though, in my humble opinion.