Chicago Plans Nation’s Largest Urban Farming District

The plan is an ele­ment of Chicago’s Department of Housing and Economic Development’s (DHE) Green Healthy Neighborhoods ini­tia­tive, designed to shep­herd and fos­ter rede­vel­op­ment in 13 square miles of the South Side. Years of dis­in­vest­ment and pop­u­la­tion decline have left the area rid­dled with 11,000 vacant lots total­ing 800 acres.

Peter Strazzabosco, deputy com­mis­sioner for the DHE, says that although the plan lays out a dis­trict “with a small d,” the city has a deep his­tory in urban plan­ning know-how. He, along with other city offi­cials and com­mu­nity orga­niz­ers, hope the farm dis­trict will help sta­bi­lize the South Side by putting vacant land to use and cre­at­ing entre­pre­neur­ial and job oppor­tu­ni­ties. They also expect it to become a model for other city plan­ners as well as a tourist des­ti­na­tion for peo­ple inter­ested in farm­ing and grow­ing food.

At the core of the blue­print is the three-mile long New ERA (Englewood Re-making America) Trail, which will serve as the “spine” of the farm dis­trict, Strazzabosco says. A for­mer rail­road line, the three-mile-long trail will become a lin­ear park with foot and bike trails and farm stands. The area des­ig­nated as the dis­trict begins directly across from the trail, as that’s where an esti­mated 100 acres of city-owned, vacant parcels are located. Over time, they can be con­verted into farms and other agri­cul­tural projects.

Not only will the farms bring healthy and afford­able food to the com­mu­nity, the hope is that they will also cre­ate jobs and attract new hous­ing, indus­try, and busi­nesses. Two half-acre job train­ing farms already exist in the dis­trict — Growing Home’s Wood Street and Honore Street farms — as well as the 1.7-acre for-profit Perry Street Farm. All grow sea­sonal veg­eta­bles such as toma­toes, kale, let­tuce, and beets. A fourth half-acre edu­ca­tional farm run by the Center for Urban Transformation and Angelic Organics Learning Center will be planted next spring.

Farms, how­ever, are just the begin­ning of an over­all urban plan­ning project to rebuild the South Side from ground up. Think of it, says Brandon Johnson, “as a 21st-century com­mu­nity that just hap­pens to have farms.”

Johnson, a pub­lic econ­o­mist, heads the Washington Park Consortium, a neigh­bor­hood group made up of civic and busi­ness lead­ers who have been care­fully plan­ning the South Side’s future for the last two years.

Johnson and Strazzabosco both hope this effort dif­fers from urban farm­ing ini­tia­tives in both Detroit and Cleveland in that the city is not suf­fer­ing from a col­lapsed economy.

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