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Today, Philadelphia sinks millions of dollars into vacant land.
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What if the city began leasing vacant land to farmers?
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Within 30 years, farmers will ahve earned deeds to their land, to invest in or develop in farming-related industry.
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Mapping Farmstead yields, in produce and other resources and quality-of-life improvements.
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The map's legend includes types of urban farms and socioeconomic factors related to an urban farming industry.
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Projecting Farmstead's effect on productive acres, job creation, and revenue from formerly vacant properties.
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A sample Farmstead block on North Broad Street.
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Thirty years on, the Farmstead has expanded to include a complex vacant space across the street.
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A sample Farmstead block near Drexel University benefits from a full block to plant.
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Large portions of this block have been sold by farmers and redeveloped.
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These plots along the Delaware are uniformly planted as a single large-scale production.
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Once full of factories and shipping warehouses, the Delaware waterfront now houses large, farm-related businesses in addition to cultivated fields.
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Vacancies as small as a single lot can host a hoop house full of greens.
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Fallow fields in autumn, on a large plot in South Philadelphia.
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Former industrial sites along the Delaware River, in the shadow of I-95, transformed into winding rows of crops.
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Urban agriculture as a tool for economic recovery.
Greening the Urban Appetite imagines returning vacant land to small-scale agricultural production for market, as a solution not only for urban food security but also for economic and infrastructural concerns. Jobs, reliable transit, and safe neighborhoods are important concerns for Philadelphians--as for city-dwellers everywhere--and Farmsteads are proposed as an alternative to development, densification, and other conventional solutions. The need for affordable, productive, and educational community investment is clearer than ever in the current economic climate. Through a Farmstead or similar plan, the City of Philadelphia would distribute vacant land to professional farmers in return for 10 years’ on-site agricultural production. Farmers would benefit by avoiding the high costs of land acquisition, transportation and distribution. The city would gain new neighborhood businesses while shedding the expense of maintaining vacant land. Training and apprenticeship programs would connect farmers and community, helping to establish a tradition of urban agriculture in Philadelphia's neighborhoods.