FILM
D
etroit, Michigan is in
some ways Ground
Zero of the recession that
hit the United States in
recent years. Automakers closed down plants,
leaving the local economy staggering as other
businesses closed down
in turn. With jobs hard to
come by and homes being foreclosed, people
have been leaving the
city in droves. Its population is now less than half
what it used to be. Whole
neighborhoods lie semiabandoned, a handful
of people living among
an incredible number
of sagging, neglected,
tumble-down homes. It
seems unlikely that Detroit
- sprawled out to such an
extent that Boston, Manhattan and San Francisco
could all fit within its surface area - will see a resurgence of population to
fill all these homes again.
So what do you do with
the land?
The documentary Urban
Roots has an answer to
that question. Under cooperative
commu nity
movements,
seasoned
growers and beginners
alike are growing organic
gardens on abandoned
plots of land, and keeping
livestock such as chickens
or bees in abandoned
houses. They clean industrial fill off the land, and
enrich it with compost
to redevelop the topsoil.
They eat the food they
grow, or sell it in farmer’s
markets or simply out of
the trunk of their car.
Detroit has major potential
for redevelopment in this
manner. Michigan, as the
film points out, has significant agricultural diversity.
And there is ample land in
Detroit to turn into places
to grow food so that people are not dependent on
produce shipped in from
thousands of miles away.
The film points out the serious issue of “food deserts”
in Detroit where many
residents live almost twice
as far from a supermarket
as they do from a convenience store. Food deserts are an urban issue in
many cities in North America and are often linked
with low income neighborhoods and increased
trends toward obesity as
people eat what is available to them: cheap, fatty,
starchy packaged food
with little fresh produce.
What we see over and
over in the movie is the enthusiasm by the growers.
They care about the food
they grow, they see the
value in what they’re doing, and they feel deeply
appreciative of what they
get out of engaging with
the land, even the physical challenges of tending a garden in the hot
sun. They work without a
handbook, without any
kind of legislative framework. They simply start
revitalizing a patch of
abandoned land. If growers such as these continue to transform the lands
of Detroit, the city could
finally see the true renaissance it has been in need
of for decades. Watch
the film and be inspired to
add purpose and growth
to the world around you.
Pranada Devi is a communications professional living in Toronto, Canada.
She is the Managing Editor of Parvati Magazine, and serves as an advisor
on marketing communications for Parvati’s various projects. Recently, she
edited Parvati’s new book “Confessions of a Former Yoga Junkie”, which
has gone on to sell out its first printing run.