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I’d like to see urban gardens and solar farms in North Tyler — primarily because it’s 40% vacant, as in no homes nor businesses, and anything over 15% is considered bad.

Fortunately, I found a relevant article in my home amidst many magazines, books, and spiral notebooks. It is “Cultivating Community,” by Lizbeth Scordo in AAA Explorer, Oct/Nov/Dec 2023, p. 22-24. Furthermore, I visited a leader of The Rose City Farmers Market who totallly agreed with my concerns — calling that region a food desert too.

“Cultivating Community” is described in the Table of Contents as follows. “Urban farms don’t just grow food; they also educate people about farming and serve as social hubs.” Four urban farms were described in this article: Urban Roots of Austin; City Farm SLO of San Luis Obispo, California; Urbavore Urban Farm of Kansas City, Missouri; and Baton Roots of Baton Rouge, Louisiana. All offer tours, workshops, or volunteer opportunities.”

“Urban farmers credit the trend to a growing interest in locally grown food for health and environmental reasons,” according to Scordo. She also provided the names of two other urban farms: E.A.T. South of Montgomery, Alabama; along with Hampton Roads Urban Agriculture of Newport News, Virginia.

Urban Roots of Austin “operates two farms and has a youth leadership program that provides paid internships to high school graduates, and most of its farms’ produce goes to underserved communities.” Ian Hunter-Crawford is the programs director of Urban Roots. He sees the interest in urban farming as an interest in self-sufficiency and community sufficiency.

In an interview with Ray Cook, an Athens ISD Middle School Science teacher, I asked him about urban gardening. Read the full interview here: academia.edu/1084754/Urban_Gardens.

Urban gardens are a great way to deal with vacant land in the city; and they could give the undereducated, folks with a criminal background, and disabled some extra money — as well as folks who just like to farm.