PASS THE URBAN VEGGIES PLEASE!

Making this a part of community development and urban design strikes us as low-tech genius. Davenport city designer Darrin Nordahl established a corner plot near his City Design Center office at 2nd and Brady Streets. Now aldermen have OK'd a parking plaza makeover at 5th and Brady streets that will include fruits and vegetables among landscaping plants.
Nordahl wrote the book on urban agriculture. Literally. "Public Produce: The New Urban Agriculture" comes out Sept. 25 and "profiles urban food growing efforts, illustrating that there is both a need and a desire to supplement our existing food production methods outside the city with opportunities inside the city," according to publisher Island Press.
Those opportunities won't resolve world hunger. But they will bring people together to plant, tend, harvest and share in public, urban places. And that builds community, the network that elevates great towns above the average.


Darrin Nordahl, urban planner for the city of Davenport picks corn at the Northeast corner of 2nd and Brady streets. Nordahl has a book coming out titled "Public Produce" that talks about cities using public land (easements, medians, parks, etc.) to plant food rather than just flowers. (Kevin E. Schmidt/QUAD-CITY TIMES)

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