FROM HEROIN MARKET TO FARMERS’ MARKET

Marvin Gaye Park sits in Lincoln Heights, a Washington, D.C. neighborhood that is overwhelmingly poor and non-white and suffers some of the worst rates of crime, unemployment, and social breakdown in the city. By 2000, the park was in disuse, and one of the worst drug markets in the city had cropped up nearby. So Lincoln Heights residents and Washington Parks and People—an urban park organization—stepped in. They transformed the park, using 85,000 volunteers to move nine million pounds of trash and debris. Crime dropped over 50%, playgrounds rose, and a farmers market replaced the drug market. Lastly, they created a 1¼-acre farm right in the middle of the park: 41 raised beds, a small hoop house, a composting operation, and fairly intensive crop rotation. 

Source: Think Progress, 9/18/14, Urban Farming