Sole Food

Using vacant lots to feed a city

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The Doable City Reader

There is so much that can be done to make our cities happier, healthier and more prosperous places. Every day in cities around the world, citizens and city planners alike are showing us how small actions can scale up to have massive impact. And they can in your city too.

That’s what the Doable City Reader is about. In June 2014, 8 80 Cities, in collaboration with the Knight Foundation, brought 200 civic innovators from around North America together in Chicago at the Doable City Forum to share and discover methods for rapid change making. The Doable City Reader is inspired by the rich conversations amongst presenters and participants at that forum. It is a resource for any and all people who want to make change in their cities and is meant to educate, inspire and empower anyone to do so.

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Sole Food Street Farms is an organization in Vancouver, B.C. that transforms vacant lots in the city into street farms that grow fruits and vegetables, which are sold at farmer’s markets and to local restaurants and retail outlets. The land the farms occupy is often awaiting development by the private owner, so they have worked with the city to develop creative leases that provide landowners with tax incentives as well as farming practices that guarantee they can and will move on short notice. [end]

Learn more about Sole Food here.

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Author

Christine McLaren is one of Discourse Media’s co-founders. She is a journalist and researcher focusing on the intersection between urban development and environmental and social issues. She has worked with media outlets including Monocle, GOOD, Metropolis, Next City, The Globe and Mail, Xinhua News Agency and MSN. She spent three years travelling around the world as the resident writer of the BMW Guggenheim Lab, a mobile urban think tank project of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. Christine was lead researcher for the book Happy City: Transforming Our Lives Through Urban Design. She now gives keynotes, conducts workshops and consults with cities and organizations around the world on urban wellbeing.