In planning a new neighborhood, a developer includes some form of food production — a farm, community garden, orchard, livestock operation, edible park — that is meant to draw in new buyers, increase values and stitch neighbors together.What about the noises and the smell?!
December 17, 2013
"Farms — complete with livestock, vegetables and fruit trees — are serving as the latest suburban amenity."
"It's called development-supported agriculture, a more intimate version of community-supported agriculture — a farm-share program commonly known as CSA."
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51 comments:
Sounds economically dubious.
People spend a smaller part of their income on food compared to fifty years ago. Some people think that there is something wrong with that and it needs to be fixed.
At first they said the community garden was voluntary...
Luckily here in VT we have right-to-farm laws that preclude new homeowners moving into a house near an existing farm from suing the farm for its odor or dirt/dust issues as long as the farm is appropriately managed and operated. Flatlanders need to know that there are consequences to living in dairy country before they buy their 10 acres of rural heaven.
The smell of cow shit in the morning is one of the singular Vermont smells. I won't get into chicken farms; that stuff probably runs afoul of several international bioweapons treaties.
I've often thought that Montmorency Cherries should be planted all the way up and down the SW Bike path, so people can glory in their deliciousness.
Or maybe thickets of raspberries along the path would work too.
I also do not mind the sweet smell of cow manure. Pigs or chickens smell disgusting though.
This is great! Next we can start smelting our own community steel! I think a lot of people would really leap at this.
The problem with shared space for farming, though, will that people will pilfer others' hard work. Or they will damage others' hard work (accidentally).
The rules would have to spelled out very clearly for me to live somewhere like that; otherwise, it's just license for disharmony.
And I'm not a fan of convenants. So you can tell I won't be moving soon.
This will come in handy when the economy collapses. Not too long now.
Seems silly to me since I live rurally anyway but if I were to be forced to live in a city I'd pick a neighborhood that still allowed me to have a goat or two. I imagine many feel the same way about their plots of land, etc.
A community garden is not the logistical nightmare that some say. We have one at my employer. Everyone who wants space signs up and gets a 10x10 plot to weed and whatever during their lunch break if they desire. Community water bucket, etc are provided as well as some quality earth but it's not a first come, first serve all you can eat garden buffet or anything...
Sounds like a petri dish for the Tragedy of the Commons, in practice.
Susie my first Doberman used to chase a Stearman up and down the back fence, the biplane spraying crops. It seemed to her that that was unusual enough to require a response of some kind.
Nowadays they use an AT-504.
Actually a trend. Lots of communities are being developed with open land where once golf courses would have been situated. The "agricultural" bit is purely a marketing gimmick. Aspirational.
Fucking NPR.
They had on a 'feature' this evening - some middleaged bint going on and on and on and on and on about the dead, deceased, over 'Occupy' "movement", based solely on the fact that Wal-mart (and only Wal-mart) is now getting around to selling a pro-Occupy poster. Said bint intoned about how this showed how deeply Occupy had wormed its way into the psyche blah blah blah, as I shouted at the radio You're the only people that give a flying fuck and thought how glad I was I didn't give to their last beg-a-thon.
Unless they allow hunting as well I'm going to cite this as another example of the war on masculinity.
I miss living in the city with the sound of the interstate in the morning and the smell of diesel when the gas station had its delivery. It was comforting to never see the stars at night. So cold and remote and depressing they are.
Downwind of pig shit is downwind of Hell. But that downplays Hell.
OT, but speaking of the war on masculinity, the elephant in the room here at the Althouse blog is the glaring omission of any reference to Camille Paglia's article prominently referenced by both Drudge and Instapundit.
Thinking today about the different brain structures of men and women and how men are indeed the builders of civilization, a glaring example of men's superiority in the type of thinking needed to create and run the world sprung to mind.
Where are the female chess masters?
The feudal manor returns anon!
Unless they allow hunting as well I'm going to cite this as another example of the war on masculinity.
I'd prefer not to have guns discharging within a couple 100 yards of my front door. Sure, the odds of the bullet hitting me are small. But I would worry.
Live and let live I suppose.
Huddling naked in trees is the next marketing gimmick.
Come on, you sorry-ass bastards! Sing it! You know you want to!
What could go wrong? Disease, pestilence, chemicals, the list is endless. Good luck with all that.
Madisonman wrote:
"I'd prefer not to have guns discharging within a couple 100 yards of my front door. Sure, the odds of the bullet hitting me are small. But I would worry."
You extreme, radical feminists always cloak your rabid anti-masculinity in the language of emotion and reason.
Farmers in the midwest used to say "That's the smell of money!"
Most of the smell is coming from the bullshit.
"You see, in this world there's two kinds of people, chrisnavin my friend: Those with loaded guns and those who dig. You dig."
"You see, in this world there's two kinds of people, chrisnavin my friend: Those with loaded guns and those who dig. You dig."
"Dang, man. This community garden is hardcore."
My skeptical friends: Consider that these CSA Levitt-towns are being built by developers. The mix of agriculture and housing is attractive to buyers.
But what about the noises and the smell?!
How are lower cost houses in a good neighborhood a problem?
In the parts of New England in which I've lived this process happens in reverse. The farmland is gradually sold off to housing developers. As long as some farms remain, people enjoy the proximity to open areas, farm stands, and more variety in the local retail & business community. People like living in mixed environments.
When farmland is preserved, by land trust, or zoning, or capitalist planning, lots of good things happen.
If you don't like that kind of community, it's really really really really really easy to avoid it.
I will add that mixed environments in the city -- mixed residential and retail/business -- is also a very rich experience. Historically it was top-down planning that separated residential from retail.
Reminds me of the old lady who announced to her friends that she was going to raise a pig, but since she had no barn, she was going to quarter him indoors.
Said they, "But what about the smell?"
Said she, "I suppose he'll just have to get used to it!"
Great. Vanity Farms.
Great. Put together a food growing operation that is not economically viable and can't produce enough food to feed the surrounding people.
Great. Offer real estate tax subsidies and force the home-owners to pay higher than normal taxes, raising the cost of living for all.
Great. Only the rich will be able to live there, but they'll feel good about themselves.
I sympathize with those commentators who live Vermont or other such aromatic environs, but they are as nothing compared to the atmosphere here in Pennsylvania Dutch country.
"Paul said...
OT, but speaking of the war on masculinity, the elephant in the room here at the Althouse blog is the glaring omission of any reference to Camille Paglia's article prominently referenced by both Drudge and Instapundit."
That was a transcript of a speech given a month or so ago that I blogged at the time. Would have been a reprint here. The only "glaring" omission is your keeping track of what I've already done.
This sort of farm will almost certainly not have the manure lagoons that will create the really horrid smells you're probably thinking of ...
You can't produce the sheer amount of meat Americans consume without having massive factory farms and the corresponding manure ponds.
Would anyone get upset if I hired an illegal immigrant to work my part of the communal farm?
I would pay him minimum wage, and in the time I saved from working my plot myself, I would work at an occupation that paid more than minimum wage.
I would then invest the surplus I accumulated by leasing the plots of other community members. Then I would bring in more illegal immigrants to work their plots.
An empire might be a-bornin'.
Congrats Ann, Your snobbery should thru with your "what about the smells " comment. Who do you think provides the food you eat?
Two words:
Mister Haney
Captain Ned said...
Luckily here in VT we have right-to-farm laws that preclude new homeowners moving into a house near an existing farm from suing the farm for its odor or dirt/dust issues as long as the farm is appropriately managed and operated. Flatlanders need to know that there are consequences to living in dairy country before they buy their 10 acres of rural heaven.
If the farm was there first, I fully agree with that law. I see the same thing around airports. People buy land near an existing airport and then complain about the noise, trying to get it shut down.
On the other hand, if the homeowners were there first and someone wanted to set up a loud or smelly operation (e.g. feedlot), that's an entirely different matter.
I live surrounded by dairy farms. You get used to the smell, which I only really smell when the wind is right, err, wrong. My daughter used to go to the "smellementary" which had dairy farms on three sides. That place was tough to take, but the kids didn't seem to mind. We also have apple orchards around, which are very pleasant places to visit in the fall, and very pretty in the spring. I can see why people would want to live around the apple orchards, anyway. I think the dairy farm proximity is something of an acquired taste.
"a more intimate version of...agriculture"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B94lP-fZyLk
So, how many of these places will get flipped within 5 years (and probably within 2) once these starry eyed idealists finally realize how much serious, repetitive work is involved in farming? I'm betting it'll be in the high 90 percent range.
I see MattL up @6:20pm
must either be my age or reads a lot of old newspapers, lol. I think his forward-looking belief that a lot of people would leap at the idea is GREAT!
Here is the master plan of the development NPR praises:
http://www.bellisimoinc.com/sites/default/files/attachments/bucking_horse_master_plan11x17_2013-07-03.pdf
The farm area is quite small, and the closer your house is to it, the bigger your lot and the more you'll pay.
Isn't there a line of evidence that's starting to show children growing up in 3rd-world, rural/farm environments are far less prone to develop allergies?
I won't get into chicken farms; that stuff probably runs afoul of several international bioweapons treaties.
Wouldn't that be "afowl"?
"That was a transcript of a speech given a month or so ago that I blogged at the time. Would have been a reprint here. The only "glaring" omission is your keeping track of what I've already done."
This is not a blog I follow daily. Sorry. And the mention on Drudge was the first I'd seen of her speech. It did prompt me to come here and see what a rabid feminist like you would say about it.
Still though...where are the female chess masters?
The subdivision cited is not a farm. It's a community garden. In this particular case, the garden has the original farm outbuildings as large lawn ornaments.
Nothing wrong with it, it is a clever MARKETING scheme. If it goes bad, there is always room to build a few more houses.
"What about the noises and the smell?!"
That'll be the subject of the lawsuits later. Make work for the legal profession.
"What about the noises and odor?
I imagine that anyone who wants to avoid those things simply wouldn't choose to live there, and those marketing the neighborhood will want to appeal to buyers who romanticize farming so it will be big vegetable plots with a few cows, sheep, and free range chickens, not pigs and not high intensive poultry farms.
What about the noises and the smell?
Don't buy in. Stay out. Don't visit. Keep driving by. Don't stop. Leave.
"What about the noises and the smell?!" (Dan Ackroyd voice) Ann, you ignorant slut. That's a FEATURE, not a bug. Until it isn't.
Still though...where are the female chess masters?
Under the boot of the Patriarchy.
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