Sky Farms
The Times revisits the idea of "tower farms", a very New York version of allotments. One insight, from the chair of the Lincoln Institute, came shining thru, “Would a tomato in lower Manhattan be able to outbid an investment banker for space in a high-rise? My bet is that the investment banker will pay more.” Never the less, it makes for some great renderings, of impossible dreams. London's famous allotment program has been suffering wildly under the pressures of development, the city documents from which the below image was lifted.
These types of proposals have a certain history within the imagination of architecture & planning, much like the helicopter commute, wildly exciting and amazingly rendered, but hopelessly unhinged from the economic realities of land-use patterns. Don't get me wrong, I'm more than excited at the idea of moving food production & consumption within blocks of each other, but the decimation of even hi-functioning manufacturing (garment district) from the city core demonstrates how that principle does not translate when folks are willing to shell out $8,000/sqft for a condo. Again, the chair of the Lincoln Institute, "“There’s embodied energy in the concrete and steel and in construction,” which off-sets much of the carbon reduction. May I draw us back into more regionally appropriate solutions, whereas opportunities for transport (Hudson River), production (Dutchess/Columbia) and distribution (5boros) are already established, if even the smallest amount of leadership would make a committed effort to address food distribution patterns and their relationship to 'greening a city' we would be having a conversation that would engage reality, and make changes in the near-term. I'm not waiting for the Jetsons, because if we do, we'll be living like the Flinstones before long.
