Open Voices News Roundup: January 23

Every week, we bring you the latest news in placemaking, landscape architecture, the nature-mental health link, and much more. Check back each week for new roundups and items.

Betting the Farm: Is There an Urban Agriculture Bubble?
It’s no secret that urban agriculture is in vogue. But as major urban farms such as the Milwaukee-based Growing Power gain new facilities, employees and glowing media attention, most have not yet figured out how to yield enough profit to become self-sustaining businesses — or, looking even further afield, to feed significant portions of their hometowns. With all this demand and no sure way to scale, is urban agriculture facing an imminent bubble?

Lots of Parkland, Please – And Make it Nearby, Too!
Large amounts of parkland in cities is important, but equally vital is to have parks which are nearby and easily accessible to residents, according to the latest report by The Trust for Public Land (TPL). In seven of the nation’s largest cities — New York, Chicago, Boston, San Francisco, Philadelphia, Seattle, and Washington, D.C. — nine out of 10 residents live within a one-half mile walk to a park, according to the report.

The Case for Shared Greenspaces
A group of civic and architectural partners in Little Rock has developed a great concept for improving a declining neighborhood, incrementally increasing density, and applying advanced measures for storm water control at the same time. All this in a single-family, affordable infill development with first-rate design.

Restoring Peace: Six Ways Nature in Our Lives Can Reduce the Violence in Our World
In the wake of the Sandy Hook school shootings, we’ve talked about gun laws and mental-health treatment, amid a host of other responses. But one potential tool has not been mentioned. Now, let me say right off that I don’t pretend that nature is a paragon of peace. The violence of nature is a fact, but this is also true: by assaulting nature, we raise the odds that we will assault each other. By bringing nature into our lives, we invite humility.

Landscapes Can Be Open-ended
In Operative Landscapes: Building Communities Through Public Space, Alissa North argues that the best contemporary landscape designs are concerned with more than just aesthetics. Instead of striving for fixed, static designs, the goals of these landscapes are “operational”: they aim to guide “the transformation of urban environments over time.” By moving away from fixed form, landscapes can be open-ended and non-prescriptive, changing in response to — but also influencing — the development of their communities.

Place Capital: Re-connecting Economy With Community
At the 8th International Public Markets Conference in Cleveland, USDA Deputy Secretary of Agriculture Kathleen Merrigan stated that “We’re all here because we recognize that markets can be far more than places just to buy food. We’re looking at markets as venues for revitalizing their communities.” Even when we disagree with our neighbors, we still share at least one thing with them: place. Our public spaces — from our parks to our markets to our streets — are where we learn about each other, and take part in the interactions, exchanges, and rituals that together comprise local culture.

U Don’t Know Squat! Activist Architecture in NYC
It’s no secret that New Yorkers are obsessed with real estate, so it’s fitting that the city’s newest museum has dedicated itself to desirable square footage—though not of the gleaming high-rise or glamorous co-op variety. Instead, The Museum of Reclaimed Urban Space tells the story of East Village activists’ efforts to preserve and protect community spaces—gardens, unused lots, derelict tenement buildings—through photographs, artworks, and historic artifacts like copies of underground newspaper The Shadow, active in the ’90s and early 2000s.