Guerrillas Gone

Photo by Bradley Maule PhillySkyline.com/MauleofAmerica.com

The Food Trust reports 150,000 shoppers at its 26 farmers markets; Farm to City operates 15 more.

With Mill Creek Farm, Greensgrow, and Weavers Way as mainstays, urban farming is growing. But half of all community–or guerilla–gardens are gone.

Deindustrialization created the climate for community vegetable and ornamental gardens, which took off in Philly in the 1970s. By 1994, there were 501 community vegetable gardens. In 2008, there were 226, according to an excellent study by Penn’s Dominic Vitiello and Michael Nairn. Why–and what does this mean for the reuse of vacant land, poverty, and food insecurity? More tomorrow, in Possible City.

About the author

Nathaniel Popkin is co-founder of the Hidden City Daily and author of three books of non-fiction, including Philadelphia: Finding the Hidden City (with Peter Woodall and Joseph E.B. Elliott) and two novels, Everything is Borrowed and Lion and Leopard. He is co-editor of Who Will Speak for America, an anthology forthcoming in June 2018, and the senior writer of the film documentary "Philadelphia: The Great Experiment."

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