Local Networks

So I was all thinking about FarmVille the other day, right? And I'm all like, why don't people, you know, stop growing magic elephants and stuff and start growing actual vegetables? And start to think, well, maybe it's because FarmVille is all social and fun and stuff, but gardening, especially in the suburbs is pretty lonely and depressing...so why doesn't someone (me) start a site devoted to bringing all the amazing benefits of social networking to real people growing real stuff?  Well, it turns out someone, and by someone I mean pretty much everyone, thought of that too and so here's a list of some pretty amazing sites devoted to making gardening cool and social again. Read this article, it says all the stuff I was going to say about this here.

• Gardening Network: http://www.gardening-network.com/
• Folia - Social Garden Tracker and Organizer: http://myfolia.com/
• Oh My Bloom: http://www.ohmybloom.com/profiles/members/
• Your Garden Show: http://www.yourgardenshow.com/
• Freedom Gardens: http://freedomgardens.org/

Oh, and you have some other really cool ones, too, that bring Gardening enthusiasts together with people who have extra land. If you know anything about suburbia, you know that everyone has extra land. 

• We Patch: http://www.wepatch.org/
• Yardsharing: http://yardsharing.org/

I am thrilled to hear about these online ways of bringing folks together. But ultimately, they represent a way of coping with rather than addressing the root of the problem. These encounters are still "point to point" and generally away from public view. They won't take the place of genuine public spaces, public gardens and neighborhoods full of people invested in the common good.

In any event, the specialized and then localized garden sites pointed me in the direction of a new and growing trend in networking, that is, hyperlocal and neighborhood social networks. Residents organizing, sharing ideas and interacting with management to better take charge of issues that effect them, creating real physical communities that break the isolation of urban life. Cool:

•  DeHood: http://www.dehood.com/home
• Meet the Neighbors: http://www.meettheneighbors.org
• Life At: http://www.lifeat.com/
• i-Neighbors: http://www.i-neighbors.org/

Sense and Suitability

Word on the street is that, back in the day, the government actually encouraged people to plant real food in their yards. Right. Well, last week, a woman in Oak Park, Michigan was fined and threatened with imprisonment for growing vegetables on her own land. Authorities charged Mrs. Julie Bass with a misdemeanor for refusing to uproot her garden. City ordinance states that grass or other "suitable living plant material" should cover unpaved land, which makes enough sense to you and me. Ah, but wait: 

Oak Park’s Planning and Technology Director Kevin Rulkowski says, “If you look at the dictionary, suitable means common. You can look all throughout the city and you'll never find another vegetable garden that consumes the entire front yard.”

Because in Rulkowski's world, suitable means common and common means suitable, what is now uncommon is destined to be forever unsuitable; for none may render the uncommon common without first engaging in the ill-suited, and by extension, illegal. Do you follow?

After the story, pretty much everyone and their dog made a beeline for Merriam Webster's definition of suitable and found no mention of "common". You can follow the unraveling hilarity here.

Void where not Suitable

The proper response seems clear enough. Everyone should emulate the work of our Julie Bass, because in the absurdistan that is America's suburbs, growing vegetables on your own land is a revolutionary act. Julie is writing all about this on her blog. I think the implications of this case and the attention it receives are going to be huge (or at least, they could be), so tell your friends.

Pedestrian Prisons

The difference between freedom and captivity is related to the ability to move, to interact with others, to speak in effective, meaningful spaces. The right to health is tied to the ability to access services, real food and environments conducive to basic needs of human beings as social animals. To remove these outlets of behavioral expression is to simulate captivity, to create spaces at odds with necessary conditions for a dignified life.

Returning briefly to the American suburb has reminded me of this. All around, I see intensive grass cultivation at the hands of immigrant laborers while homeowners, inside, tend to their Second Lives and FarmVilles. Zynga, the company that produces FarmVille, was recently valued at around $20 Billion, nearly twice the agricultural GDP of Afghanistan. Naturally, this puts my own and others' grueling and often dangerous work in that country into sobering perspective.  

A digital space that augments our social realities is one thing, but when these imitative environments begin replacing our physical lives, they truncate and impoverish our experiences. Undeniably, many people find answers to unmet needs in these digital spaces. My goal is not to indict our online experiences, but simply to wonder aloud; are the mechanics of spacial organization (eg: low walkability and high autodependency) factors in generating these unmet social needs?

I recently found an innovative group in Hyderabad fighting for the “Right to Walk”, the right to live in a walkable city. In Bogota, too, the colorful tenures of Mockus and Peñalosa consistently saw walkability couched in the language of human rights. An exciting new US based website now helps generate a "Walk Score", assessing pedestrian access in neighborhoods there. 

The fight to help shape the spaces we inhabit is one that can bring people in diverse geographies closer together. Let's start thinking seriously about pedestrian rights in America, about genuine walkability, and let's start learning from examples overseas to help guide our discussions.