Throughout our project, we paid considerable attention to our immediate neighbors. Our project goals involve serving the community where our farm resides. In our case, the Woodside and City View communities tend to have residents with lower incomes. There is also a high concentration of residents on disability income.
Our political efforts have involved meeting our neighbors at their door steps. By partnering with community organizations like Bon Secours, we go door-to-door sharing news about the farm.
A lot of our neighbors admitted that they can’t help us physically or financially. However, everyone’s thrilled about the project! Neighbors are happy about us turning an overgrown plot into something they can be proud of seeing in their local community.
We’ve also built a relationship with the City View Coalition, a group of concerned citizens who want to see the community improve. We attend the monthly meetings and help spread the word to neighbors about the coalition and their efforts. Because of these meetings, we’ve seen the farm operation become a part of the community planning effort.
Politics play a big role in an urban area.
Higher land prices and smaller lots make land supply low and related costs high. Even when land has limited use, questionable history, or limited development value, urban areas have more people with conflicting ideas of how to make things happen. Food will always have a political aspect.