Agroecology for the Shrinking City

Abstract

Many cities are experiencing long-term declines in population and economic activity. As a result, frameworks for urban sustainability need to address the unique challenges and opportunities of such shrinking cities. Shrinking, particularly in the U.S., has led to extensive vacant land. The abundance of vacant land reflects a loss of traditional urban amenities, economic opportunity, neighbors, businesses, and even basic city services and often occurs in neighborhoods with socially and economically vulnerable or underserved populations. However, vacant land also provides opportunities, including the space to invest in green infrastructure that can provide ecosystem services and support urban sustainability. Achieving desirable amenities that provide ecosystem services from vacant land is the central tenet of a recent urban sustainability framework termed ecology for the shrinking city. An agroecological approach could operationalize ecology for the shrinking city to both manage vacancy and address ecosystem service goals. Developing an agroecology in shrinking cities not only secures provisioning services that use an active and participatory approach of vacant land management but also transforms and enhances regulating and supporting services. The human and cultural dimensions of agroecology create the potential for social-ecological innovations that can support sustainable transformations in shrinking cities. Overall, the strength of agroecological principles guiding a green infrastructure strategy stems from its explicit focus on how individuals and communities can shape their environment at multiple scales to produce outcomes that reflect their social and cultural context. Specifically, the shaping of the environment provides a pathway for communities to build agency and manage for resilience in urban social-ecological systems. Agroecology for the shrinking city can support desirable transformations, but to be meaningful, we recognize that it must be part of a greater strategy that addresses larger systemic issues facing shrinking cities and their residents.

Keywords: ecology for the city; ecosystem services; urban agriculture; urban amenities; urban sustainability; vacant lot.

Figure 1.

The City of Detroit has a large amount of vacant parcels (i.e., parcels without structures) and vacant buildings (i.e., parcels with structures that are not occupied). As of 2013, 30% of Detroit’s parcels were vacant, and 18% of parcels with structures were unoccupied. Data source: “Motor City Mapping, Winter 2013–2014 Certified Results” via Data Driven Detroit (http://portal.datadrivendetroit.org/).

Figure 2.

Detroit street where structures no longer exist because of demolition; evidence of neglect (e.g., unmanaged vegetation growth) and undesirable uses (e.g., refuse dumping) persist after demolition. Vacant urban land in shrinking cities is extensive and presents an opportunity for natural resource management for social and environmental benefits.

Figure 3.

Farm landscape in Detroit that demonstrates growing food in the city with a mural of an urban agrarian landscape on the side of a boarded structure that depicts themes of social activation (home/farm buildings), food security (baskets of produce), ecosystem services (pollinator), and hope (large rays of light emanating from a sun). (Photo credit: Stephanie Held, Detroit Daily).