Integrating Philadelphia’sUrban Agriculture Initiatives

Thesis Proposal Fall 2009 Megan Braley & Victoria Perez

The Story of Our Food System

Family Farms

IndustrializedFood System

Global Food

When you look back through time, the story of food is one of agricultural development, moving from family-owned farms through the industrial revolution toward a global food system.

In recent history problems with the global food system have become more apparent and many local food movements have developed.

Opportunities

Philadelphia is attempting to follow this movement, and is working toward utilizing urban agriculture as a means of development for blighted land throughout the city.

However, the movement is having trouble tipping. Our thesis will address the needed collaboration between the different stakeholders involved.

The current interactions among food-focused organizations in Philadelphia indicate a need for integrative development, and will serve as a case study for constructing a cohesive plan informed by design tools that reference Malcolm Gladwell’s framework for creating a tipping point.

Thesis Statement

Systems. Organizational. Service.DESIGN.

Project Type

This project is concerned with developing an organized urban agricultural system that can be offered to the city of Philadelphia as a service.

The Primary Players

Local FoodFor-Profits

Local FoodNon-Profits

Municipal Departments

URBANAGRICULTURE

The stakeholders involved in this project include a large number of local food non-for-profit organizations, for-profit farms, markets, grocery stores, restaurants, and schools and a number of city agencies. Each of these stakeholders has a specific reason to promote urban agriculture, and our job is to design a plan that involves everyone equally.

growlots Design Tools

To engage these stakeholders we will use a variety of design tools including: presentations to frame a number of scenarios, interviews, collaborative forums, participatory design, discussion cards, a blog for documentation and a newsletter that will be sent out twice a month to update our progress.

Growlots is an initial project has acted as a model designed to foster further dialogue, test a number of assumptions and create potential strategies by soliciting feed-back and input from local activists, organizations, and city agencies involved in local farming initiatives and policy development.

Director:

Thesis Committee

ECONSULT CORPORATION

Richard Voith Angel RodriguezMichael McAllister Alison Hastings Joan Blaustein

Our committee is comprised of Director Michael McAllister, Professor at the University of the Arts; Richard Voith, Senior Vice President Econsult Corporation; Alison Hastings, Director of the DVRPC Greater Philadelphia Food System Study;

Angel Rodriguez, Urban Planner and Executive Director of the Empowerment Group; and Joan Blaustein, Director of the Division of Environment, Stewardship and Education at the City’s Department of Parks and Recreation.

Timeline

December January February March April

15

27

ResearchInterviews and Forums

Prototype and Receive FeedbackRevision to Narrative

Suggested Conclusions

1916 1623

02

Documentation

06

2121

Our projected timeline is divided into Committee Meetings (orange) and Stakeholder Meetings (blue).

Design Process

Municipal Government Departments

Non-For-ProfitOrganizations

For-ProfitOrganizations

Defining the Right Problem

Collaboration Refinement Execution

Our first step was to consider how we as designers can contribute to the progress of urban agriculture in the city. We were very influenced by Malcolm Gladwell’s “The Tipping Point,” so we are looking at this thesis as a way to test a combination of Gladwell’s laws for creating a tipping point and our design process on a systems’ issue.

The Tipping Point

as defined by Malcolm Gladwell's "The Tipping Point"

the dramatic moment when ideas, messages, behaviors, and products suddenly become so popular that they transform into social epidemics.

The social epidemic we are trying to create is urban agriculture in Philadelphia. To accompish this, we must break down the barriers to create collaborative progress.

The following slides will explain how social epidemics can evolve through the execution of three laws: the Law of the Few, the Power of Context, and the Stickiness Factor.

Laws of Tipping

1. Law of the Few spread by a few extraordinary people

The Law of the Few explains that social epidemics are spread by a very few extraordinary people. Our attempts to induce this first law is through interviews and collaborative forums with experts connected to urban agriculture in Philadelphia.

Boston

Cambridge

New York City

Austin

Berkley

Oakland

San Francisco

Portland

Seattle

Eugene

Chicago

Kansas City

MilwaukeeDetroit

2. Power of Context sensitive to the conditions and circumstances of the specific time and place

The green movement has been around for more than a decade. Many successful models exist, and Philadelphia can look to them for suggestions.

Philadelphia to the best of its ability has chimed into this movement through the creation of a large number of non-for-profits connected to greening and urban agriculture.

Non-For Profits

For-Profits

There are a few key players when it comes to urban farms and farmers’ markets such as: Greensgrow Farm, Weavers Way Cooperative, and Fair Food Farm stand at the Reading Terminal Market in center city.

Municipal Government Departments

ZONINGMatters

Philadelphia Zoning Code Commission

A number of city departments are now pushing urban agriculture for separate agendas as varied as public health to zoning codes.

Discussion Cards

minutes discussing each one. We gained a lot of valuable information that pointed us in the direction of integrative development. There is a great need for the stakeholders in urban agriculture to better understand who exactly is involved and what exactly everyone is currently working on so that we can eliminate the redundancy of efforts and finally move urban agriculture forward.

During the Collaborative Forum we held at the Univeristy of the Arts on November 20, 2009, we had everyone in attendance take part in a card activity. We asked each person to place the cards on the wall in the order they felt the topics should be discussed. It is easy to see that everyone had a different order in mind. We then chose the top three and spent twenty

For-Profits Non-Profits

Municipal Departments

URBANAGRICULTURE

Present Narrative

The present narrative is that each of the players within a group is either collaborating on a small scale or is in competition with one another. Disconnections exist and result in miscommunication or no communication at all.

The process of participatory design is our most important design tool. Participatory design enables the stakeholders to contribute to the final design, which allows them to gain emotional investment. This ensures that the future system is irresistible to the stakeholders involved because they helped construct it.

Participatory Design3. The Stickiness Factor information is packaged in a way that makes it irresistible

Participatory design is a process that involves all stakeholders to create the most relevant solution.

Interaction makes messages stickier because contributors become a part of the message.

Integrative Development

Projected Outcome:A cohesive framework demonstrating how all of the stakeholders involved in this movement can work collaboratively to re-write the narrativeof Philadelphia’s urban agriculture movement.