Feeding Cleveland: Urban Agriculture

Urban Farm DB summary

This historical account traces urban agriculture in Cleveland, Ohio, across the 20th century into the present. It documents recurring revivals of city-land food cultivation in response to economic hardship—working men's farms during the Great Depression, victory gardens during World War II, community gardens established during urban renewal, and present-day market gardeners of the local food movement—along with the Cleveland Public Schools Horticulture Program (CPSHP), which trained generations of student gardeners until it ended in 1978, after which some former school garden sites (tract gardens) became community gardens, and notes that greater Cleveland was once home to America's largest concentration of farming acreage under glass (Rose, 1950).