Cultivating the sustainable city: urban agriculture policies and gardening projects in Minneapolis, Minnesota

Abstract

In the past 20 years, municipal governments across the United States have increasingly tried to incorporate environmental efforts into city business and policies. Urban sustainability has become the key concept around which such activities are organized. Official sustainability plans are most often implemented through indicators and metrics. In Minneapolis, Minnesota, urban gardening, in a variety of forms, has been the focus of ongoing citizen- and NGO-led environmental efforts, as well as municipal measures of sustainability. Here, debates around the recent adoption of a city urban agriculture policy, as well as a program to encourage the installation of raingardens in neighborhoods across the city, reveal some of the rich variations in gardening practices and spaces. These far exceed the relatively narrow official focus on sustainability indicators. Better understanding how urban sustainability initiatives might work with, but also move beyond, indicators may provide directions toward wider visions of sustainable urban life.

Keywords:

• urban sustainability
• urban agriculture
• gardening
• yards

Acknowledgment

The author gratefully acknowledges Helga Leitner for insightful discussion and comments on earlier drafts of this essay.

Notes

1. The most recent Minneapolis comprehensive plan underscores the “Three E’s” approach to sustainability, but contains no chapter or plan focused specifically on sustainability: “The Minneapolis Plan for Sustainable Growth is a deliberate title…indicating that as Minneapolis grows, its growth will be achieved in ways that promote our economic development, strengthen the social and cultural fabric of the city, and value our natural environment and livability while creating conditions for economic opportunity for current and future generations” (Minneapolis Plan, 2009).

2. Definitions according to the 2012 City of Minneapolis zoning text amendments: Aquaculture: the cultivation, maintenance, and harvesting of aquatic species; Hydroponics: the growing of food or ornamental crops, in a water and fertilizer solution containing the necessary nutrients for plant growth; Aquaponics: the combination of aquaculture and hydroponics to grow food or ornamental crops and aquatic species together in a recirculating system without any discharge or exchange of water (City of Minneapolis, 2012b).

3. According to the 2012 Minneapolis zoning text amendments: An arbor is considered “a landscape structure consisting of an open frame with horizontal and/or vertical latticework often used as a support for climbing food or ornamental crops… may be freestanding or attached to another structure”; a cold frame is “an unheated outdoor structure built close to the ground, typically consisting of, but not limited to, a wooden or concrete frame and a top of glass or clear plastic, used for protecting seedlings and plants from cold weather”; composting is officially understood to be “the natural degradation of organic material, such as yard and food waste, into soil”; and a hoop house is “a temporary or permanent structure typically made of, but not limited to, piping or other material covered with translucent material for the purposes of growing food or ornamental crops…considered more temporary than a greenhouse” (City of Minneapolis, 2012b).