Green Street Video

Via Causecast, a video about Green Streets in Portland: "Net Green News reports on how Portland Oregon handles their rainfall in a more natural, sustainable way. Portland receives an annual 37 inches of rain per year... and one way to help prevent overflooding of streets and rivers is to build curbside “green streets,” which are vegetative islands between roads and sidewalks. They plants absorb the water and the soil breaks down the chemical runoff from cars. Net Green News adds that Portland has budgeted $1.4 Billion by the end of 2011 to manage the stormwater, and plans to create an additional 150 green streets in that time, totaling 900 citywide."

Urban Ag Infographic

The previous post on the 'branches' of urban agriculture made me think of a recent graphic that I created for a local project with Oregon Solutions that investigated approaches to expanding the availability and reach of community gardening in Portland. Read more on the process here.

While less expansive than the previous example, a vital part of this study of placing and visualizing community gardens within the realm of gardening in the city, as well as nesting this into the larger framework of urban, peri-urban & rural agriculture.


:: Click to expand - image copyright - Jason King

Branches: Urban Agriculture

I found an interesting and complex graphic on the many facets and interrelations of urban agriculture via the site Urban Agriculture Worldwide, which is published by David Mason and tracks his journeys investigating UA examples around the globe from 2006-2009. The site has immense amounts of information (and is frankly frustrating to navigate) so I've barely scratched the surface of what it contains.

One aspect, that, although in desperate need of some Infographic assistance for legibility, offers a complex web of interrelationships within UA within a post 'What is Urban Agriculture?' Click the graphic below to expand the image into a more legible version.


:: image via David Mason, Urban Agriculture Worldwide

Each of the subsequent branches spin off into a series of subgroups investigating ideas such as Sustainability, Planning, and Economics. I've isolated a couple of the images below to give an indication of what it contains - add flash and some hyperlinks, and this could keep someone occupied for weeks.




:: images via David Mason, Urban Agriculture Worldwide