Urban Farming Program

Urban Farm Program Seeks Urban Farmers

Ready to make that career transition and jump into work you love? Are you a great gardener seeking to make your avocation your vocation? Or, maybe you are farming in the hinterlands of metro Cincinnati (or beyond) and want to establish market production plots just blocks from Findlay Market. Or, perhaps you have friends, family, neighbors, church members, or others who you know would be great urban farmers if only they had the land and the opportunity. The key variable is the willingness to earn significant income through the long hours and hard work of commercial vegetable production farming. This will be long-term, ongoing work.
Findlay Market seeks both apprentice and experienced farmers. We will train apprentice farmers (having less than two years experience) and support skilled farmers (at least two years growing and commercial selling of produce, dairy, or meats). Working together, we will take vacant lots and develop them into lush, green, productive, and income producing farm plots. Farmers will be responsible for all aspects of growing food in the urban core: clearing ground; preparing raised beds; tilling; adding organic soil amendments; irrigating; and planting, cultivating and harvesting vegetables. Participants will write business plans; plan their plots; market and sell their harvest; keep expense and incomes records; analyze and evaluate all aspects of their work; and strive to make a living.
Interested in applying? Know someone who needs to apply? Contact Urban Farm Manager Ken Stern at the Corporation for Findlay Market, 513-665-4839, x14 or kstern at findlaymarket dot org. Interviews will be in February and chosen participants will jump into planning their 2010 farm plots in March.

Great Transit Articles

This was the set of links in the weekly email from Protransit. If you're not on their email list and are supportive, send your contact info here.

Investment, Not Spending
Every High-Speed Rail system around the world generates operating surpluses (including Amtrak’s Acela) and are highly popular with riders.

Can high-speed rail succeed in America?
High-speed rail represents the kind of long-term infrastructure investment that will pay back for decades, just as the interstate highway system of the 1950s has.

Accessibility, mobility and automobile dependency
During the last century, faster and cheaper automobile transport significantly increased accessibility, but those improvements essentially peaked about 1980.

The Architecture of Healthiness
“It’s not necessary for us to go to the gym.”

Magic Highway Predicting Today

I've been thinking a lot about predicting the near future, and watching a video like this from 1958 shows the weaknesses starkly.

This is not to say that much of what is predicted didn't come true. Unfortunately much of it did. See for example at 2:44:

..The shape of our cities will change as expanded highway transportation decentralizes our population centers into vast urban areas. The commuter's radius will be expanded many miles...

All of which has certainly happened. And I can appreciate and maybe be nostalgic for the optimism shown in the video, however a more realistic predictor would have seen the negative consequences of 62 million cars on congestion and energy demand.

Dreaming of Summer

 

You may have noticed that this blog has slowed quite a lot lately. This is not because I have run out of things to say, not at all. I have a backlog of stuff I want to blog about, from Greg Harris's recent Enquirer editorial, to new designs and schedule of Washington Park redesign, to the search for a pool club that suits downtowners. But I have been happily implementing some of my New Year resolutions from last year. Hey, better late than never. Anyway, there are lots of posts coming soon, ....or not so soon, but maybe after karate, piano, cub scouts, wrestling and my freelance work and some home improvement projects etc etc... after all that I'll get a blog post out now and then, I promise.