RE: How many CG in U.S.?

F* C*

I'm just doing this because I don't feel like working and I can still look
really busy.

It appears that figuring a national number based on one city isn't going to
yield a very defendable number.  Too many variables.

In Atlanta, all over the southeast perhaps, where land was relatively
inexpensive and zoning non-existant, urban neighborhoods are indeed verdant.
Neighborhoods here are often forests because the houses are mostly detached
single-family units on generous lots.  Elderly people have their own yards
to cope with, and tackling abandoned property (garden style) with just a few
folks is quite a chore.  I don't know how many vacant lots we have, but it
works out to about 1,300 acres I believe.  

Urban redevelopment has only wiped out one garden (Charles Allen Community
Garden) that I know of here.  It didn't make the news and our Mayor, Bill
Campbell, supports the gardens and has even dedicated one of them (Ashview
Community Garden).  It's like we're not in the same country as New York.

The worst part is, John Rocker doesn't want us to bring any New Yorkers down
here to fill up the empty spaces!  He keeps getting really nervous about who
is riding MARTA with him and that screws up his pitching, and we can't have
that!  

fgc
Community Garden Coordinator
Atlanta Community Food Bank
970 Jefferson Street, NW
Atlanta, GA  30318

-----Original Message-----
From: Honigman, Adam [A*@Bowne.com]
Sent: Monday, May 08, 2000 4:56 PM
To: 'Fred Conrad'; 'Jack N. Hale'; John & Keisha;
community_garden@mallorn.com
Subject: RE: [cg] How many CG in U.S.?

NYC with it's 7.5 million has 500 - 600 community gardens as of this morning
( sometimes this administration bulldozes a few in a day, I'm serious!)
Which gives us one garden per 15,000 residents. But comrades, we are dealing
with one of the worst ratios of people to open space in any major American
city 1.5 acres per 1,000 citizens. And this includes Prospect, Van Contlandt
and Monaco Sized Central Park.  Boston is positively verdant with 2.5 per
thousand. Gardeners consume alot of adult beverage, but often it's high
sodium because of the considerable crying that we do in our beer. So we
drink more.

In case anyone thinks that these gardens need to be destroyed to house the
teeming millions, we have an additional 11,000 vacant lots that could be
built on before a single garden is bulldozed.

Upstate is so sparsely occupied, we send them NYC residents on a regular
basis via the draconic Rockefeller Drug Laws, to help populate Pataki land
for 10-25 year stretches. Those upstate rustbelt type towns are so desperate
for cash, they compete over who gets the prisons. The La Esperanza garden
was destroyed with snow on the ground, so the garden wars are a year round
affair here.

In envy of those who merely battle indifference,

Adam Honigman

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