“Better Block: Bottom-Up Urban Reboot In a Single Weekend

Julie Ma. August 23, 2012

It’s remarkable what some people can accomplish in a single weekend. While others spend those days catching up on lost sleep or exploring their city with friends, Texas-based nonprofit The Better Block uses that time to rally communities to rethink their neighborhoods. Since itsinception in 2010, the project has built temporary dog parks, pop-up shops, urban forests, cafes, and bike lanes. They’ve left their mark in more than 35 cities including Philadelphia, Wichita, Cleveland, Houston, and Oklahoma City.

The organization’s next stop: Detroit, where the city’s first-ever Better Block project will take place from September 22 to 23 as part of theDetroit Design Festival. Headed by volunteers from the US Green Building Council and Wayne State University, the project aims to reshape a location with plenty of vacant commercial space—New Center.

Better Block will fill the vacant lots with work from local artists and artisans, food and drinks, and art exhibits via collaborations with local galleries and art organizations. There will also be pop-up retail shops, music performances, outdoor games, yoga instruction, urban farming demonstrations, and general lounging. The project aims for zero net waste, a temporary bus route to access the site, plus bike lanes and crosswalks painted around the block for the occasion. 

Better Block wants to jumpstart local policy shifts. “We want to change the planning process in the United States,” says organizer Andrew Howard. “It can be frustrating when things are taking too long, and our idea is that we don’t have to wait for the perfect city. It starts from the bottom up.”

The Better Block gives neighborhoods a temporary community-focused facelift, and can give struggling areas a glimpse into their futures. The organization provides training to community members interested in revitalizing their blocks by increasing multi-modal transportation and fostering economic development. Post-project, the communities work with The Better Block to see what was successful and take the steps necessary to turn these temporary solutions into permanent fixtures. In some cities, weekend pop-up shops have even turned into lasting storefronts. “

Via: GOOD Magazine

Photo: Better Blocks

“Farmscape Brings Urban Agriculture to Los Angeles

Zak Stone. June 25, 2012

In a dry and sunny city like Los Angeles, planting grass is one of the more useless ways to use your property. It takes a lot of water to grow and it’s expensive—but beyond that, what’s the point when the climate supports much more interesting flora, like succulents, and delicious ones, like fruits and vegetables? A company called Farmscape is proving that there’s enough of an appetite for farming on residential land to turn the proposition into a high-growth business. The less-than-four-year-old company has 12 full-time employees—including seven farmers who receive a living wage plus healthcare—and is looking to keep growing.

“One of the things that people don’t talk about when they talk about the food system is who is working,” says Rachel Bailin, Farmscape’s marketing manager. It’s often poorly paid and vulnerable migrant workers. But the company is changing that by bringing farm labor out into the open, into the yards of city-dwellers and businesses. So far they’ve installed more than 300 urban farms throughout the L.A. area and maintain 150 of them weekly.

Projects range from a rooftop garden on a downtown Los Angeles highrise to small plots for families. An exciting project in the works is a three-quarter acre-sized farm for a restaurant in the West San Fernando Valley. And the diversity of the projects is echoed by the diversity of their clients. “When we first started, we expected that our clients would be of a higher income level and would be two-parent working families,” says Bailin. Instead, Farmscape has been delighted to build gardens for preschool teachers, single mothers, and institutions and businesses that want employee gardens as perks.”

Via: GOOD Magazine