How Detroit's abandoned lots became one of America's largest urban farms

Detroit was once built for two million residents, but the population today stands at under a million. That shift left behind a vast amount of unused space, and rather than let it sit idle, residents began reclaiming it. What started with small community gardens on scattered plots has grown into one of the strongest urban agriculture movements in the United States. Today, the city counts more than 2,200 gardens and farms, run largely by local residents who turned neglected land into a source of food, income and community pride. This transformation reflects decades of grassroots effort, changing city policy and a determination to make the most of the land Detroit has in abundance.How Detroit's urban agriculture movement evolved from potato patches to 2,200 community gardensDetroit's relationship with urban farming is not new. According to Planet Detroit, the city's urban agriculture movement dates back to the 1890s, when Mayor Hazen Pingree introduced a potato patch scheme, and it continued through the victory gardens of the Second World War and Mayor Coleman Young's Farm-A-Lot programme in the 1970s. Over the past two decades, this history has taken on new significance as the city d...