Though farming has long been a part of the fabric of this city, its popularity has soared over the last decade and a half. In 2000, there were about 80 farms within city limits; now, there are 1,400.
These spaces are diverse in nearly every sense imaginable: they’re scattered across the city in every direction; they include for-profit and non-profit operations; the farmers themselves cut across races, sexes, and socio-economic standings. Farmers work the soil for many reasons, too—among them, to brighten their blocks, feed their families healthier food, and earn an income. But for many of the farmers I visited over the course of a busy summer week in Detroit, undergirding those commitments is a common and deep-seated conviction: Opaque, inscrutable city agencies have let them down again and again, and radical self-sufficiency is the only way to survive.
At 139 square miles, Detroit is a sprawling city. It was once home to 2 million residents, but evaporating jobs, flight to the suburbs, and decades of foreclosures shrunk the population and blighted the landscape. As of the last Census, the population now hovers around 688,000.
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