The NYC Food and Fitness Partnership is running some interesting bus tours of community gardens, parks, playgrounds, trails, and greenways In Harlem, the South Bronx and Brooklyn on Saturday, October 18. There’ll be a tasty meal at the end on Randall’s Island and the whole thing is free! RSVP at www.nycfoodandfitness.org.

Despite the large number of Americans now living in cities, urban issues have been astonishingly absent from the U.S. presidential debates. PPS did a spoof article for Faking Places, the annual April Fool's Newsletter, in which Hillary, McCain and Obama make promises for more livable neighborhoods. The glaring omission of urban issues from the national discourse is actually no laughing matter.

The Philadelphia Inquirer reports:

"There are three times as many urbanites in America as country folk, yet you wouldn't know it listening to the three main presidential candidates, or perusing their Web sites. Instead, you might come away thinking the United States is a collection of Norman Rockwell small towns surrounded by picture-book farms."

Related Stories: 
The Candidates and the City [Gotham Gazette]
Urban Issues Get Short Shrift [Politico]
Candidates Largely Ignore Urban Issues [City Mayors]

"Urban planner and lecturer at the University of Technology, Earl Bailey, says the chaos being created by vendors on the streets could be lessened if market areas were designed with pedestrian traffic more in mind, rather than motor vehicular.

'The reason why street vending is such a bad thing is because we are planning for motor vehicles rather than planning for people and their activities,' he argues."

Planetizen has named PPS/Jay Walljasper's The Great Neighborhood Book as one of its top 10 planing books of 2007.  http://www.planetizen.com/books/2008

Also, Urban Land magazine recently reviewed The Great Neighborhood Book in the November/December 2007 issue. Click here to read the review.

The Great Neighborhood Book also received an honorable mention on the American Booksellers Association's list of books about promoting local businesses.

Jay Walljasper discusses the need for cities to have life on their streets -- even in the most frigid days (and nights) of winter.

"Plunging temperatures don't necessarily sentence us to months of house arrest. People around the world from Copenhagen to New York are figuring out how to keep things lively throughout the colder months. City streets bustle with festivals and outdoor attractions showing that winter is something to enjoy rather than endure.

My colleague Cynthia Nikitin, vice president of Project for Public Spaces, describes Berlin in the dead of winter: "It gets dark at 3:30. It's snowing like crazy. But it's no problem. People are playing bocce ball on the ice. There are tents selling hot mulled wine. You are walking down the street just watching all the other people. Life is good, and winter feels good, too."

But you need to give people reasons to be outside, Nikitin adds -- "a market, ice skating, music, decorative lighting. No one will stay outdoors to stare at an empty plaza."

The Rockefeller Foundation is now accepting nominations for the 2008 Jane Jacobs Medal on its website through February 1, 2008. The 2008 Rockefeller Foundation Jane Jacobs Medals will recognize two living individuals whose creative vision for the urban environment has significantly contributed to the vibrancy and variety of New York City.

Click here for the full  press release

Click here for the The 2008 Jane Jacobs Medal Nomination Form

Do plunging temperatures, gray skies and the year's shortest days have to force us to huddle indoors? When we flick on the television, do we have to cringe at the weathermen's dire warnings of monster storms on the way?

Not at all, argues Jay Walljasper, a writer on world cities, in a Christmas-season bulletin for Project for Public Spaces. There's a tremendous amount that cities, towns, even individual neighborhoods can do to brighten the wintertime scene. And not just for Christmas and the holidays -- though that's a great start -- but until the crocuses bloom.

The 97 year old Dapper Market in Amsterdam was voted 2007 best market of the year in Holland. With 250 stalls operating 6 days a week from 9am to 5pm, Dapper Market enjoys 15,000 visitors a day which is a total of 4.6 million a year.

In a recent innovative move, an environmentally-friendly water bus transport service commenced connecting the market with Central Station. There is also an idea to create the largest international food court in the Netherlands on Dapper Square, which is embraced by local shops and retailers who actively participate and profit from the market’s many promotional activities and events.

Live radio and television shows are often presented from the market, as well as major launches (the last was a SAAB car launch which was also televised in Sweden). The market area features fibre optics cable to facilitate broadband broadcasting. Festivals and live multi-cultural entertainment shows complement the market’s intensive promotional program.

The market will celebrate 100 years in 2010, along with three other major markets in Amsterdam. A city-wide and potentially European-wide celebration is planned to mark the event: Amsterdam European Market Metropolis. Much attention has been paid to the market’s vital role in supporting social integration and establishing and maintaining feelings of safety and community within the neighborhood.

Discussion of environmental, economic, and taste benefits from buying locally produced food at farmer's markets.

Jonathan Player for the New York Times (London); Koichi Kamoshida/Getty Images (Tokyo)

FROM LEFT Vegetables at Borough Market in London, open to the public on Friday and Saturday; tuna for auction at the Tsukiji market in Tokyo; stollen for sale at the traditional Christmas market in Dresden, Germany.

By Mimi Sheraton, New York Times

It is a given that no serious traveler would forgo visits to museums, cathedrals, castles, monuments and legendary streets. Yet food markets deserve equally high billing on a must-see list. For as inspiring as the more standard sights can be, they do not rival the ebullience of modern-day markets and their colorful links to the economy, customs and even dialects of a city.

In a world ever more homogenized, food markets afford visitors one of the few opportunities to glimpse locals going about one of their essential daily chores.  The most dramatic of these sprawling, jumbled indoor or outdoor markets sell wholesale, generally between midnight and dawn, when one feels vaguely conspiratorial watching the alert trading action while much of the city sleeps. There's an instant spirit of camaraderie as strangers mingle among the lights and shadows, shouting, banging and clanging, inhaling whiffs of hot coffee and bracing alcohol that combine with scents of damp night air, gasoline, fish, spices, herbs and fruits that have so much more aroma elsewhere than they ever seem to at home.

Attending this living theater, one can assess the local economy by noting the quality and variety of foods available and compare prices to our own. One can observe how locals treat one another. Are sellers and buyers polite and trusting as they deal under intense pressure— the first to sell out highly perishable merchandise, the second to get the best value for family, shop or restaurant?

 

The City of Charleston, South Carolina is seeking firms or teams to provide full-service property management of the City Market, including marketing, leasing and operation, and to develop a strategic vision for the Charleston City Market.

Included within the City Market is approximately 40,000 sq. ft. of retail space, market stalls, and public right-of-way. Parking for the City Market is provided in adjacent parallel parking spaces along North & South Market Streets (as well as adjacent side streets), neighboring surface parking lots, and neighboring parking garages.

The City Market is a unique property in Charleston, South Carolina as well as the nation as a whole. The City Market is the largest in the Southeast and is the anchor for the surrounding City Market area. The City Market is successful financially.

For the last thirty (30) years, the City has leased a majority of the City Market to a private company. This lease shall expire at the end of April 2008. The remaining portion of the City Market has been managed by the City of Charleston. The City of Charleston, through this RFP process, seeks a qualified operator as hereinafter defined to provide full-service property management of the City Market, including promoting, leasing and operation thereof and to develop a strategic vision for the City Market (including the portion which the City currently manages) that would complement the overall experience of the City Market for visitors and residents, improve connectivity between the Market and the Central Business District as a whole, and strengthen the contribution of the Market to downtown business and vice versa. The City is seeking proposals which shall assist it in realizing the above-stated objectives.

The RFP can be accessed online at: http://www.charlestoncity.info/shared/docs/0/citymarketrfp.pdf

Due date is December 19, 2007

Discussion surrounding possibilities for farmers markets to occupy supermarket parking lots one day a week. 

In an effort to attract more traffic to downtown businesses, one New Jersey downtown partnership planned for a diverse farmer's market in a plaza, just off of the city's main traffic artery. Surveys show that 80 percent of the 1,000 weekly market customers, also visited local businesses while at the farmers' market. 

To Market to Market to Buy a Fat Pig is a celebration of market houses, market places and farmers' markets across the United States. Rick Sebak checks out crab cakes in Baltimore's Lexington Market, shops with a chef in Pittsburgh's East Liberty Farmers' Market and attends a tomato tasting in Asheville, North Carolina. This program looks at the joys of talking to people who grow our food and the fresh opportunities that are found in markets.

The DVD is available for $24.99. 

Organic vegetables? Check.

Jams and jellies? Check.

Crafts and baked goods? Check.

E-mail orders? Better check.

Before heading out to set up their stands each week, some area farmers' market vendors go online, looking for last-minute customer requests for fresh fruits and vegetables, cut flowers and herbs.

Many farmers' markets now have their own Web sites, some simply listing time, place and a contact. But others are extensive, with page after page of market items and vendor information.

Customers of the Scottdale Producers Association, which runs farmers markets in Scottdale and Connellsville, can now order sweet corn, salsas and jam over the Internet and browse vendors' postings. Customers can pre-order, much like they used to at the corner market, and their order will be awaiting them at the market of their choice.

Tom Bailey, of the Scottdale Producers Association, said the small market has only a handful of on-site vendors. The association hopes to bring more local products to area residents by offering the purchase of farm-fresh produce, meats and baked goods online.

Farmers markets are important, nationwide outlets for agricultural producers.  The popularity of these markets continues to rise as more consumers discover the joys of shopping for unique ingredients sold direct from the farm, and the pleasure of buying familiar products in their freshest possible state.

More than 4,300 farmers markets across the country offer consumers farm-fresh, affordable, convenient, and healthy products and also serve as integral links between urban, suburban, and rural communities.

For more information on National Farmers Market Week or to search for a market in your area click on the link below.

After funding the research that helped Jane Jacobs produce her landmark book "The Death and Life of Great American Cities" nearly 50 yeas ago, the Rockefeller Foundation has inaugurated the first Jane Jacobs Medals.

Barry Benepe, the 79-year-old founder of Greenmarket, will receive the first medal for "lifetime leadership." Omar Freilla, the 33-year-old founder of Green Worker Cooperatives in the Bronx, was named the winner of the first medal for "new ideas and activism."

The medals will be presented in September in conjunction with the opening by the Municipal Art Society of an exhibit titled "Jane Jacobs and the Future of New York."

While neighborhood farmer's markets are all the rage in the U.S., redevelopment officials in Hong Kong are making plans to raze of the city's oldest open-air food markets -- which is falling victim to gentrification.

After 700 years, a Sicilian market's heart still beats. It's a place where old men selling olives suddenly start singing their favorite arias.

Image (c) Chris Warde-Jones for The New York Times

An op-ed from the New York Times on possible changes to the Farmers' Market Nutrition Program in the 2007 Farm Bill, and how this could impact farmers' markets.

 

"Flames soared through the high roof of the 134-year-old Eastern Market as firefighters struggled to control the conflagration. By dawn on April 30, about $30 million in damage was incurred.

Immediately, public grief welled up. Throngs flocked to the site seven blocks east of the U.S. Capitol, comforting themselves and the distraught vendors of meats, produce, cheeses and bakery goods.  Washington Mayor Adrian Fenty was immediately on the scene; the embers were still cooling as he pledged to restore the building ``to 100 percent of its architectural and historic splendor.'' Within hours, the Capitol Hill Community Foundation launched a fund to benefit the market and its vendors.

Why did Washingtonians react so viscerally, so rapidly? What makes one building matter so much?"

Read more in Neal Peirce's column.

 

The historic Eastern Market, located on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, was badly damaged by a fire that apparently started in a dumpster.

Most of the southern half of the building was gutted by the fire, and all the vendors in the hall will be temporarily displaced.  Many are already calling for federal funding to rebuild the market.

The flea market, which operates on Sundays in outdoor stalls next to the market hall, has vowed to stay open.

 

This article in from the NY Times looks at why a person's wealth is the most reliable predictor of obesity in America, and what the farm bill has to do with it.

Policymakers are ignoring the wishes of local people and exaggerating the importance of “metropolitan” urban design in creating successful public spaces, according to a new report, the Social Value of Public Spaces.  

“Most public spaces that people use are local spaces they visit regularly, often quite banal in design, or untidy in their activities or functions, such as street markets and car boot sales,” the report said.

A farmers' market has been invited to set up on campus by the University of the West of England (UWE) in a bid to get students to eat healthily.

Is progress taking the farmers out of farmers markets?

Are farmers markets an inefficient business model?

New York City is eyeing a new target for promoting health among Gotham’s poor: supermarkets.

On Friday, the city’s food policy coordinator, Benjamin Thomases, sat in on a briefing about the nuts and bolts of bringing supermarkets into low-income neighborhoods. “We’re definitely looking at the issues of access to healthy food,” said Thomases, who said the city has been meeting with local food industry players, from biggies like Pathmark – whose extremely successful store on 125th Street in Harlem is generally considered a model project – down to the Washington Heights-based National Association of Bodega Owners, to discuss possible strategies.

The Public Market House in Portland, Me., is an example of how fresh local food and downtown markets promote activity in American cities.

Image (c) Herb Swanson for The New York Times

Propelled by the obesity epidemic and the drive for more sustainable economies, an urban agriculture movement is flowering across the U.S.

The popular Market Basket program at Pike Place Market was in such disarray last summer that some farmers quit and others planned to picket the downtown public market, frustrated over how the program was run.

Still, many were surprised two weeks ago when Pike Place Market council members voted to discontinue the Community Supported Agriculture program, which has provided summer produce baskets to Seattle residents for a decade.

The Rockefeller Foundation announced the creation of the Jane Jacobs Medal, an award that will recognize individuals whose creative vision for the urban environment has significantly contributed to the vibrancy and variety of New York City.

The medal will be given annually to two people: one who has made a lifetime contribution and another who is at the start of a promising career.

The Foundation is accepting nominations through March 2, 2007 on its website.

 

"Even as our farmland has been devoured by suburban sprawl, Californians have voted with their shopping bags to make farmers' markets an increasingly ubiquitous element in big cities, small towns and, yes, even those suburbs that pave fields of vegetables. Beyond the showcase pavilion of San Francisco's Ferry Building -- an orgy of organic gourmet comestibles for the deep-pocketed foodie -- more modest farmers' markets have sprung up in the darnedest places, including the empty lot behind Target in Serramonte Plaza in Daly City and on the banks of the Russian River in the hamlet of Duncans Mills."

"While it seems that "clone town Britain" is on the rise, with independent retailers slowly vanishing at the expense of supermarkets and chain stores, the market remains a feature of many city centres. However, their continuing presence has not been without a battle. With supermarkets offering convenient one-stop shopping, markets are beginning to suffer."

Outdoor holiday markets are a boon for artisans who sell their wares, as well as for the downtowns that host the markets.  Organizers of holiday fairs in cities around the country have seen them grow in recent years. "They're just sort of being rediscovered as a no-brainer for downtowns," says Ethan Kent, vice president of the Project for Public Space, an international nonprofit organization based in New York that promote activities like holiday markets.

"Bob Chorney wants to put farmers back in farmers' markets.

The executive director of Farmers' Markets Ontario is tired of so-called "hucksters" who simply resell produce they've purchased wholesale and then pass it off as their own at markets — often undercutting the prices of career farmers.

So Chorney is pitching a certified market for Toronto next year that would be open only to farmers who grow their own goods, the first of its kind in Canada."

"It boasts hot porridge doused in whisky, fresh ostrich meat, organic beers and hunks of wild boar, and it nestles under the battlements of one of the country's most imposing castles. Welcome to the farmers' market in Edinburgh, officially crowned as the best in Britain.

Now six years old, the Edinburgh market is one of the few in Britain to open every weekend. Its award from Country Life, to be handed over by the magazine's editor, Mark Hedges, tomorrow, is the latest accolade. It has also been judged the UK's best by the Farmers Retail and Markets Association (Farma), the national industry body."     

Community groups and politicians are creating new strategies to bring fresh foods into low-income neighborhoods.

Eau Gallie organizers initially hoped to attract 200 people to their first farmers market. Their estimates were a bit off, and between !,400 - 2,000 people attended the opening day.

The farmers market in Carlisle (MA) is an example of how markets can become an incubator for creative products and marketing ideas hatched by youths.

Because farmers markets are less bureaucratic and less strictly regulated than other sales venues, they provide an ideal venue for young people to try out their sales and marketing skills.
 

"The Street Vendor Project released a report that demonstrates that NYC vendors are tax-paying entrepreneurs who, despite their hard work, struggle below the poverty line due to harassment and over-regulation. As everyone knows, some of the biggest businesses in NYC got their start as pushcarts on the Lower East Side. Sadly, those kinds of success stories are virtually unimaginable today. The report, "Peddling Uphill," lists policy recommendations that would improve economic opportunity for our city's smallest of small businesses: for example, revoking the $1,000 fines for minor violations, opening up more space for vendors, and providing language access at the court where vending tickets are heard."

A farmers market in Petershead, in the UK, is sponsoring a cycle safety initiative.  Road safety advisors will check bicycles for safety, and will distribute leaflets to kids.

 

CALL FOR ENTRIES
2007 RUDY BRUNER AWARD

About the Rudy Bruner Award:

The Rudy Bruner Award is given to urban places that demonstrate the successful integration of effective process, meaningful values and good design. RBA winners are distinguished by their social, economic and contextual contributions to the urban environment, and often provide innovative solutions to our cities’ most challenging problems.

The RBA awards one Gold Medal of $50,000 and four Silver Medals of $10,000 each.

Case studies of winners are published on line at www.brunerfoundation.org and in a book distributed by the Bruner Foundation.

2007 Selection Committee:

• Mayor Manny Diaz, Miami, FL
• Reese Fayde, CEO, Living Cities: National Community Development Initiative, NY
• Reed Kroloff, Dean of Architecture, Tulane University, New Orleans
• David Perry, CEO, Great Cities Institute, Chicago
• Josephine Ramirez, Director of Planning, The Music Center, Los Angeles
• Robert Kroin, Chief Architect, Boston Redevelopment Authority, Boston

For more information or to receive an application, contact:

Bruner Foundation
130 Prospect Street
Cambridge, MA  02139
Ph. 617-492-8401, Ext. 184
Fax 617-876-4002
Email: application@brunerfoundation.org
Download the application: www.brunerfoundation.org

The application deadline is December 18, 2006.

Please provide your name, title, company or organization, full address and daytime phone and/or fax number on all application requests. Please let us know how you learned about the Award.

"Just five years ago, fruit farmers William Schober Sons Inc. sold all their apples, peaches and nectarines on the wholesale market and dealt with the low prices they often got for the produce.

This season, the Monroeville farm only sold about 40 percent of the farm's crop to wholesalers. Next season, it could be even less.

So where's the farm's fruit going?

"We have a roadside market and we go to farmers' markets in Collingswood, West Cape May and Woodbury," said John Hurff, who heads the fourth-generation family farm astride the Elk-Franklin boundary."

"After three years of studying ways to restore the authenticity of New Orleans' renowned open-air market, members of the French Market Corp. and the City Council broke ground Thursday on a $5 million project to revitalize the French Quarter landmark.

The two-phase project, which will take between eight to 10 months to complete, will include new tenant spaces; renovated and modernized sheds for both the Farmers Market and Flea Market; roof and gutter replacement; newly installed metal awnings and canvas drops; and new public restrooms in both markets."

An article from Grist Magazine that examines local food systems and the economics of small farms and farmers markets. 

Twenty years ago, following the collapse of the Soviet empire, Fidel Castro's small island faced a food crisis. Today, its network of small urban farmers is thriving, an organic success story that is feeding the nation.

The 2-month-old Midtown Global Market, in one of the nation's most ethnically diverse neighborhoods, is a place where patrons can hear music or play chess, as well as shop and blend cultures. Its opening revitalizes 58,000 square feet of an abandoned Sears building and helps re-energize an area best known a decade ago for its crime and prostitution.

"Street vendors might give the Fayetteville Farmers’ Market a feeling of the past, but the old-fashioned concept is synonymous with the present-day vibrancy of downtown Fayetteville (Arkansas).

It has brought crowds to the Square since the 1970 s, when citizens launched a renovation effort to salvage the area. As one has grown, so has the other, and the initial market organizers still pride themselves on establishing something that has become a four times weekly event."

"A recently completed province-wide survey shows the local Farmers' Market in Mission City, British Colombia, generates over $200,000 annually in the district.

...Hundreds of people attend the market each week, and the money spent circulates around the community about three or four times, and impacts local suppliers, businesses, restaurants and downtown merchants, noted the survey."

When authorities closed down the South Central garden in Los Angeles, the community lost more than an urban farm writes LA Times columnist Al Martinez.

Celia Barbour, a chef who lives on Union Square in NYC, discusses her obsession with shopping at the Union Square Greenmarket, and discovering how to build a meal with seasonal items that come straight from the farm.

This piece is a part of Bringing it Home, a column on Greenmarket that will run weekly this summer in the New York Times.
 

Not only do farmers markets provide fresh local produce to customers who are increasingly savvy concerning what they eat, they also provide a community gather place to neighborhoods. This article discusses the current issues as well as the history of farmers markets.

Wednesday May 24, 2006 marked an exciting moment for farmers and farmers markets in New York State and City! Mayor Michael Bloomberg presented the Doris C. Freedman Award to the Greenmarket Farmers Market network on its 30th anniversary and to its founders, Barry Benepe and Robert Lewis at Gracie Mansion.  The award symbolizes the increasing awareness of the positive contributions farmers markets have on the communities they serve, ranging from enriching public social spaces to improving access to healthy, local food.

Bob Lewis, Greenmarket co-founder, with the Doris C. Freedman Award

In 1976, frustrated by the utter lack of local produce in NYC and the financial hardships faced by many of the states' small farmers, Barry Benepe and Robert Lewis created a farmers market on 59th street and Second Avenue.  The market soon moved to Union Square at 14th street, and its great success led Greenmarket to develop and help spur the creation of close to 40 producer-only farmers markets throughout the city's five boroughs.  Today, Greenmarket farmers serve over 250,000 weekly customers, help donate about 500,000 pounds of produce to local hunger relief organizations annually, own or lease 27,355 acres of farmland, and have placed 1,277 acres in farmland protection programs, ensuring that the land will never be developed.

 

Barry Benepe, Greenmarket co-founder, at Gracie Mansion Award Ceremony 

The Doris C. Freeman Award was established in 1982 to acknowledge an individual or organization for "a contribution to the people of the City of New York that greatly enriches the public environment."  The Award is dedicated to the memory and vision of Doris Chanin Freedman (1928-1981), the founder of the Public Art Fund.

NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg and a Greenmarket farmer 

August Schumacher, former Under-secretary of Agriculture, USDA and Greenmarket farmers