A Story of Urban Farming and the Cultivation of Community and the Human Spirit

First paragraph: In the book Street Farm: Growing Food, Jobs, and Hope on the Urban Frontier, Michael Ableman tells the story of how an urban farm has transformed vacant lots in the Low Tracks neighborhood of Vancouver, British Columbia, into sites where food is produced, community is in part restored, and the human spirit is nurtured. Ableman’s storytelling is raw and transparent. Through this transparency, he reveals a tenuous balance between the promises of urban farming and the harsh realities of the addiction, hunger, homelessness, and violence that often characterize inner-city conditions. This balance illustrates how urban agriculture can help produce the food a city needs in a sustainable way and, perhaps more importantly, feed the souls of disenfranchised individuals and communities.