Cities Built on Fertile Lands Affect Climate

Devar writes "While cities provide vital habitat for human beings to thrive, it appears U.S. cities have been built on the most fertile soils, lessening contributions of these lands to Earth's food web and human agriculture, according to a study by NASA researchers and others. Though cities account for just 3 percent of continental U.S. land area, the food and fiber that could be grown there rivals current production on all U.S. agricultural lands, which cover 29 percent of the country. Studies like this one may lead to smarter urban-growth strategies in the future."

Comments

This is the entire concept behind Urban Harvest

[MarkusH]

Their Mission Statement:

We help build communities from the ground up by promoting sustainable urban land and horticultural practices to grow food and reduce hunger. We carry out our mission by working with volunteers and community groups building community gardens and orchards.

Their website.

Disappearing Farms

[Anonymous Coward]

I know that here in NYC we used to have loads Long Island potatoes in the stores. Now we don't have any. I am not talking about 50 years ago, I am talking about 15 or 20.

Maybe the potatoes in in the store are from Long Island just not labeled as such. Maybe they have been out competed because of cheap transportation costs but mostly I think it is because as you drive out on I-495 (The Long Island Expressway) you see miles and miles of suburbs most of which used to be farms.

The lack of urban planning in America has been a major irritation to me since I moved temporarily outside of New York City. I lived in the Tidewater area of Virginia for a few years and in Stutgart Germany for a half a year.

Stutgart was laid out as little clumps of Urban areas mixed into farm, woodlots and vinyards. There were vinyards in the middle of the city. Plus you could walk or bike ride for miles on trails from one part of town to the other and there were trains everywhere.

New York City is very dense. The whole world should not be like that, but it definitely should not be like the miles and miles, 50+ miles of suburb that surround it. The worst is places like Raleigh Triangle that has no city, just urban sprawl alon highways. I haven't been to California, but I get the impression that large sections of it are like that also.

Putting on my ObviousMan cape and shorts

[Spamalamadingdong]

... like where the first 13 colonies were set up and they really didn't know how to grow their own food until the Native Americans taught them how to.

Yeah, like the natives had wheat, and rye, and oats, and apple trees, and all those other crops unknown to Westerners. <insert DUH with red circle and bar sinister here>

Actually it was the reverse. With minor exceptions western agriculture out-produced the native American crops and techniques by large margins (until western crop-breeding practices produced things like modern maize)... and if you actually care about the facts, here is a good introduction which explains why this was, among many other important factors.