Matthew – A red herring is when you bring up something irrelevant to distract attention from the real issue. This post and my comments are only about urban farming, which I think is an oxymoronic fad and a symptom of deep confusion about urbanism. Namely, urban places are horrible locations for farms, because the land is much more valuable as housing for humans, who have much more need to be in cities than apricots. I am distressed about how anything with leaves is considered “green”, these comments are just a way of saying that isn’t necessarily so. It is true that this project is temporary so I am not so offended, but much of the buzz around the topic seems to completely miss the fundamental trade-off, and may have the paradoxical effect of pushing development out into the real agricultural hinterlands that we desperately need to survive.

Taomom — actually 3 story buildings are about perfect. Three story attached single family or stacked triplexes are kind of a sweet-spot density-wise and economically (wood frames, cheap, easy). Unfortunately they are illegal in 90% of San Francisco and pretty much all of San Mateo and Marin, I would start with changing that. Arden Estates in West Portal is a good example of what not to do. Big backyards, no, would not be my first choice for wise land use. Parks are great, and they have the added environmental benefit of providing recreation near where people live, obviating the need for travel. Of course, the fewer people live near them, the less useful they become, which is why I think you want a good number of people around.

For example, you have vacant condos at $800,000. That does not mean that there is not a demand for residential units for rent at $800/ a month.

The City would have a less transient feel to it if developers were allowed to build up.

I think we can discuss the carbon footprint of the garden in contrast to leaving the lot vacant until development starts, but I don’t think the other comparison is apt.

By your logic we shouldn’t have any parks, playing fields, backyards or open space in San Francisco. In addition, every every building under three stories should be razed and a tower erected. Developers would love it. Again, when we see all the current vacant condo and houses inhabited as well as all the high density development planned near the Transbay terminal built and filled, then filling in community gardens should be considered, but I’d rather you take a golf course or two and build on that.

I think it would be great if San Francisco was a big, ambitious city of a couple million, with subways down Geary and Judah, to Marin and Pacifica, with approximately zero percent of its land suburban as opposed to the current 70%. That is, a real large interesting city with tons and tons of affordable housing, unaffordable housing, kind-of affordable housing, flower shops, etc. 12% in 18 years is less than nothing — at that rate even the people born here are forced out, much less the immigrants, dreamers and artists the city claims to want to be a sanctuary for. There should also, to take one of hundreds of obvious examples, be dense patches of urbanism within walking distance of all the caltrans stations on the peninsula, probably some apartment blocks in Palo Alto and Berkeley, because there are lots of people who want to live there.

My point about the carbon footprint of a community garden is that you have to calculate the total amount of carbon in two scenarios for using the space. In the condo or attached single family housing scenario you get dozens or hundreds of extra people living in easy-to-cool, easy-to-transport housing. In the play garden scenario you have a few people walking to their vegetable patch, and the hundreds of people who might otherwise live there going elsewhere, in all likelihood to places with much worse carbon patterns than SF. One for the transport, but even more so because the climate means we don’t have to burn fossil fuels for heat. In fact one of the best things you can do for the environment on Earth is get an average American out of a cold suburb and into a temperate coastal dense city — we should be giving environmental prizes to San Francisco developers.

Community gardens, where people take responsibility for growing a portion of their own food, can reduce the city’s carbon footprint, especially if people arrive and depart on bicycle or foot, rainwater is stored in cisterns for irrigation, no chemical fertilizers are used (compost is used instead),and no fossil fuels are used to power cultivating machinery beyond the initial transport of dirt. In addition, in case of oil shortages due to black swan event (i.e. hurricane or war) or an advanced acceleration of Peak Oil, people will be very thankful to have some ability to produce 20-30% of their own food. Even if you don’t want to grow food, there will be less scarcity in the stores when you want to buy something if you’re not competing against the 808,000 other San Franciscans for the same inventory.

Right now, condos in San Francisco are in abundant supply and many sit empty or rented out in hopes that the market will rebound. Rents for apartments and flats are also dropping. The second the Fed stops fattening the banking industry through quantitative easing, housing prices of all types will drop even further. Maybe this will lure folks in the far-flung suburbs to downsize into high density living, though the poor quality of San Francisco public schools will still be a barrier. I personally think we have tremendously overbuilt our housing supply in the US and it will likely be a decade before it evens out again. (Hence, nation-wide we have both a high foreclosure rate and a high rental vacancy rate, which seems counter-intuitive. Maybe families are moving in with relatives and doubling up in the ginormous McMansions?) When all the unsold condos in San Francisco finally move off the market, then it will be time to feel the food versus housing angst. If we are wise, we’ll look at the example of Havana and dedicate some space to food.

Not to single anyone out, but this is a tolerable use of public space because it is temporary. (Though 1989 wasn’t exactly yesterday.) The carbon footprint of the few hundred tomatoes and apples grown at that location would make overnight-flown, greenhouse-grown Antarctic cherries look responsible by comparison. That is, you could grow the two truckloads of food this site will yield in Solano Co., and bring them to Pier 1 in two trips. Meanwhile you have hundreds of people who might otherwise have lived in the dense housing that is by far the most appropriate use there commuting in daily from Oakland and Castro Valley, and even Contra Costa and Suisun. It is insanely irresponsible to grow vegetables (unless for fun and temporary) on land that, given how few such slivers of it we have, should be used to house people. (I do sometimes get the sense that urban farmers think a row of squashes is always better than dread condos.) Streetsblog needs to get on this, for example with a report on the carbon footprint of the ludicrous zoo planned for Treasure Island, and the full cost of all that rare and precious land amortized across a few thousand tomatoes, and millions of extra vehicle miles traveled by the people who otherwise would have lived there but are instead commuting around a “green” potemkin commons.

FYI, just a few update. The other organizers are David Cody, Jay Rosenberg, John Bela and Kevin Bayuk. Also, this wouldn’t be possible with out our volunteers, they’ve been doing the REAL work.

Take care and hope to see you out farmin’ with us!
-C