Detroit's urban farming future

In addition to safety and good schools, Detroit parents want access to healthy foods for their families. As Marian Wright points out on Huffington Post, many areas of the city are 'food deserts' - areas without access to groceries like fruits and vegetables, instead relying on convenience stores and fast food places. She cites a 2003 University of Michigan study that found only five grocery stores in Detroit larger than 20,000 square feet.

There is national buzz about how people in Detroit are addressing this with urban farming, which DPN's Agenda for Detroit Kids suggests as a solution. The people behind the North Cass Community Garden have recently published a book about the project's first year that has gotten some attention. With efforts like this and Detroit Black Community Food Security Network (DBCFSN), the city is at the forefront of the urban agriculture movement.

Businesspeople like John Hantz, who was recently featured in Fortune's Assignment Detroit, have bigger (and more controversial) plans. His new company, Hantz Farms, envisions a huge, futuristic farming complex (pictured above) taking up acres of abandoned land. Hantz says the enterprise will not only feed Detroit, but provide hundreds of jobs and increase property values by creating more housing scarcity - not to mention make the for-profit company lots and lots of money. Critics like DBCFSN's Malik Yakini say a project like this is a corporate takeover of the movement and that the people backing it don't represent the neighborhood people it will immediately affect. Hantz sees this as a win win for everyone in the city - providing  food security, jobs and greater home values, eliminating blight, and even adding to the beauty of the city.

What do you feel is better for your family and community? Should Detroit's future in urban agriculture be gigantic for-profit urban farms, small non-profit community gardens managed by community groups, or some sort of collaboration or mix? Check out the articles and tell us what you think.

(image via Assignment Detroit)