Huerto Roma Verde
Mexico City, Mexico · Operator: Huerto Roma Verde (community-run biosocial lab and civic collective)
Overview
A citizen-run urban garden in Mexico City's Roma district that turned an earthquake-scarred vacant lot into a laboratory for permaculture and the solidarity economy. Styling itself a 'biosocial lab', it works as a community centre spanning farming, environment, culture and health.
Citizen participation
In 2012, residents and civic organisations reclaimed a lot left vacant since two buildings collapsed in the 1985 earthquake, restoring it as a 'green lung' for the city. Around a permaculture garden, volunteers run recycling workshops, art fairs, theatre and film screenings, and holistic-medicine workshops, making it an open community hub anyone can join.
Operating model
A citizen-led non-profit operation. Income from an outdoor market, restaurant, workshops and event spaces, together with donations and volunteer labour, sustains it as a working example of the solidarity economy.
Impact
Restored green and shared space to a dense inner-city neighbourhood and helped drive Mexico City's urban-gardening wave as a model of urban farming, recycling and environmental education. It has drawn attention at home and abroad as a neighbourhood anchor.
Crops
- vegetables
- herbs
- medicinal plants
- edible flowers
Scale
Occupies a plot in Roma Sur where two buildings collapsed in the 1985 earthquake and the land lay vacant for some 27 years
Sources(3)
This entry is compiled from the public sources, official sites and research below.
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