A solution to urban homelessness?
A little food for thought this morning. Dickson Despommier (pictured), a professor at Columbia University, made a semi-novel proposal last Thursday on an appearance on the Colbert Report: vertical farming. The idea is that farming on a large scale could be done in cities indoors to reduce the need to transport food long distances. While the idea has been suggested before—see this PSD post on the topic from April 2008—Dr. Despommier took it a step further when he suggested vertical farming could help reduce or eliminate urban homelessness. While I'm not exactly convinced of the economics of the proposal, I wonder what implications it would have for the Harris-Todaro model of urban unemployment? Follow the link for Dr. Despommier's interview with Colbert.
Update: Graham Harvey offers a somewhat more modest proposal than vertical farms in the Guardian.
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A complimentary solution to vertical farming is sub-acre farming, and a method now being practiced throughout the U.S. and Canada is called SPIN-Farming. SPIN stands for S-mall P-lot IN-tensive, and it makes it possible to earn significant income from growing vegetables on land bases under an acre in size. Every day more and more aspiring farmers from around the U.S. and Canada are using SPIN’s franchise-ready system as an entry point into the farming profession, wherever they happen to live. They are using front lawns and backyards and neighborhood lots as their land base. Perhaps most importantly, this is happening without significant policy changes or government supports. So while vertical farming will take some time and considerable investment to get off the ground, sub-acre farming is already showing how agriculture can be integrated into the built environment in an economically viable manner. This is not subsistence farming. This is recasting farming as a small business in cities and towns, "right sizing" agriculture for an urbanized century and making local food production a viable business proposition once again.
Posted by: Roxanne Christensen | Jun 20, 2008 9:11:26 AM