Step into Green: Reimagining our Urbanscapes with Integrated Green Spaces

Abstract

Communities across the country, and beyond, suffer from food insecurity due to Food Desert conditions. Food deserts persist due to lack of reasonable access to nutritious foods, often as a result of distance to the nearest grocery store or market. Minorities, impoverished areas, and otherwise marginalized peoples are particularly subject to this inadequate access to healthful foods and produce. Existing infrastructures and urban planning provide little relief, particularly for those communities that wish to become more self-reliant by establishing greenspaces devoted to urban agriculture (UA). Zoning, local regulations, costs, and access to viable soil and clean water compound the challenges that inhibit a transition from consumer (reliant) to producer (provider). While there are many factors that contribute to the commonness of Food Deserts, the following proposal shows how rethinking urban design approach can, at various scales, provide meaningful relief by way of UA to those in need of nutritious supplements to their diets.This design scheme must be scalable, affordable, and resilient while also being applicable to a variety of build scenarios including new construction, renovation, and repurposing. As such, this proposal rethinks urban design strategies from a theoretical standpoint and exemplifies the execution of this theory in the neighborhood of Harlem Park, Baltimore, MD, that currently and historically suffers from food desert conditions. The scale of this neighborhood will allow the execution of urban planning aspects, community integration strategies, and individual household or unit-scale production to be showcased. Many UA initiatives have proven successful across the country and will serve as a basis by which to quantify the potential impact and effectiveness of this new design proposal in terms of initial and upkeep costs, volume of produce, and sustainability.