Urban Homesteading
Encyclopedia
Urban homesteading can refer to several different things: programs by local, state, and federal agencies in the USA who work to help get people into city homes, squatting, practicing urban agriculture
, or practicing sustainable living
techniques.
Aspects of urban homesteading include
Urban homesteading practices can conflict with current city zoning regulations and homeowner’s association by-laws.
Urban homesteading is associated with urban agriculture
.
or vegetable garden has been common throughout history, notably, victory gardens
during the WW1 and WWII eras, immigrant gardens, the Integral Urban House
, and the inner-city community gardening
movement in the 1970s. The "back-to-the-land" movement of the 1960s, exemplified by numerous groups such as Tennessee's The Farm, has recently been reformed into a "back-to-the-city" movement.
A wealth of urban homesteading books (Urban Homestead by Kelly Coyne, Erik Knutzen; The Backyard Homestead by Carleen Madigan; Urban Homesteading by Rachel Kaplan, K. Ruby Blume; Toolbox for Sustainable City Living by Scott Kellog) have been published in the past decade. All over the world, people have found ways of growing their own food in inner-city urban areas.
) registered "urban homesteading" and "urban homestead," as well as other phrases, as trademarks in 2010. In February 2011, a controversy arose concerning a letter the Dervaes Institute sent to authors, bloggers, and organizations using the term "urban homesteading" in which they were asked to not use the terms "urban homestead" or "urban homesteading" without permission or attribution.
On February 14 - 15, 2011 The Dervaes were successful in their attempts to disable several Facebook pages using the term.
This caused outrage in the urban homesteading community and a backlash against the Dervaeses. Three of the entities whose pages were disabled, including authors Erik Knutson and Kelly Coyne, Process Media and Denver Urban Homesteading filed Petitions to cancel the Dervaes Institute's trademarks in the US Patent and Trademark Office in April 2011.
On 21 February 2011, Corynne McSherry, Intellectual Property Director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation
(which is representing authors Coyne and Knutzen and publisher Process Media), sent a response to the Dervaes Institute and published the letter on the EFF website.
On 4 Apr 2011 the Electronic Frontier Foundation
filed a Petition to Cancel the trademark on "urban homestead".
On 7 Apr 2011 Denver Urban Homesteading filed a Petition to Cancel the trademark on "urban homesteading".
, organic food
, and sustainable development
.
The approach to urban homesteading depends on what people are looking to gain from it: urban homesteaders can raise chickens and bees, compost food waste to create high-quality soil, they can grow and subsequently can their own foods for consumption in winter, enjoy a closer relationship with nature, enjoy organic food, and save money in the process, all while living in urban areas all over the world.
In addition to saving money and enabling people to eat healthier food whilst having a lower impact on the planet, urban homesteading has a community element to it too; The New York Times
found that urban homesteading events attract people from far and wide: everything from tomato-canning, jam making, and pumpkin-processing to pig-butchering, sausage-making, and homemade wine production – all raised and grown on people's own ground in the cities.
Urban agriculture
Urban agriculture is the practice of cultivating, processing and distributing food in, or around, a village, town or city. Urban agriculture in addition can also involve animal husbandry, aquaculture, agro-forestry and horticulture...
, or practicing sustainable living
Sustainable living
Sustainable living is a lifestyle that attempts to reduce an individual's or society's use of the Earth's natural resources and his/her own resources. Practitioners of sustainable living often attempt to reduce their carbon footprint by altering methods of transportation, energy consumption and diet...
techniques.
What is Urban Homesteading
According to UC-Davis, "an urban homestead is a household that produces a significant part of the food, including produce and livestock, consumed by its residents. This is typically associated with residents’ desire to live in a more environmentally conscious manner."Aspects of urban homesteading include
- Resource reduction: using solar/alternative energy sources, harvesting rainwater, using greywater, line drying clothes, using alternative transportation such as bicycles and buses
- Raising animals, including chickens, goats, rabbits, fish, worms, and/or bees
- Edible landscaping: growing fruit, vegetables, culinary and medicinal plants, converting lawns into gardens
- Self-sufficient living: re-using, repairing, and recycling items; homemade products
- Food preservation including canning, drying, freezing, cheese-making, and fermenting
- Community food-sourcing such as foraging, gleaning, and trading
- Natural building
- Composting
Urban homesteading practices can conflict with current city zoning regulations and homeowner’s association by-laws.
Urban homesteading is associated with urban agriculture
Urban agriculture
Urban agriculture is the practice of cultivating, processing and distributing food in, or around, a village, town or city. Urban agriculture in addition can also involve animal husbandry, aquaculture, agro-forestry and horticulture...
.
History of Urban Homesteading
Having an allotmentAllotment (gardening)
An allotment garden, often called simply an allotment, is a plot of land made available for individual, non-professional gardening. Such plots are formed by subdividing a piece of land into a few or up to several hundreds of land parcels that are assigned to individuals or families...
or vegetable garden has been common throughout history, notably, victory gardens
Victory garden
Victory gardens, also called war gardens or food gardens for defense, were vegetable, fruit and herb gardens planted at private residences and public parks in United States, United Kingdom, Canada and Germany during World War I and World War II to reduce the pressure on the public food supply...
during the WW1 and WWII eras, immigrant gardens, the Integral Urban House
Integral Urban House
The Integral Urban House was a pioneering 1970s experiment in self-reliant urban homesteading. The house was located 1576 Fifth St. in Berkeley, California. The founders were California State Architect Sim Van der Ryn and Bill &...
, and the inner-city community gardening
Community gardening
A community garden is a single piece of land gardened collectively by a group of people.-Purpose:Community gardens provide fresh produce and plants as well as satisfying labor, neighborhood improvement, sense of community and connection to the environment...
movement in the 1970s. The "back-to-the-land" movement of the 1960s, exemplified by numerous groups such as Tennessee's The Farm, has recently been reformed into a "back-to-the-city" movement.
A wealth of urban homesteading books (Urban Homestead by Kelly Coyne, Erik Knutzen; The Backyard Homestead by Carleen Madigan; Urban Homesteading by Rachel Kaplan, K. Ruby Blume; Toolbox for Sustainable City Living by Scott Kellog) have been published in the past decade. All over the world, people have found ways of growing their own food in inner-city urban areas.
Trademark Controversy
The Dervaes Institute (the Dervaes FamilyJules Dervaes
Jules Dervaes is an urban farmer and a proponent of the urban homesteading movement. Dervaes and his three adult children operate an urban market garden in Pasadena, California as well as other websites and online stores related to self-sufficiency and "adapting in place."- Self-sufficient in the...
) registered "urban homesteading" and "urban homestead," as well as other phrases, as trademarks in 2010. In February 2011, a controversy arose concerning a letter the Dervaes Institute sent to authors, bloggers, and organizations using the term "urban homesteading" in which they were asked to not use the terms "urban homestead" or "urban homesteading" without permission or attribution.
On February 14 - 15, 2011 The Dervaes were successful in their attempts to disable several Facebook pages using the term.
This caused outrage in the urban homesteading community and a backlash against the Dervaeses. Three of the entities whose pages were disabled, including authors Erik Knutson and Kelly Coyne, Process Media and Denver Urban Homesteading filed Petitions to cancel the Dervaes Institute's trademarks in the US Patent and Trademark Office in April 2011.
On 21 February 2011, Corynne McSherry, Intellectual Property Director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation
Electronic Frontier Foundation
The Electronic Frontier Foundation is an international non-profit digital rights advocacy and legal organization based in the United States...
(which is representing authors Coyne and Knutzen and publisher Process Media), sent a response to the Dervaes Institute and published the letter on the EFF website.
On 4 Apr 2011 the Electronic Frontier Foundation
Electronic Frontier Foundation
The Electronic Frontier Foundation is an international non-profit digital rights advocacy and legal organization based in the United States...
filed a Petition to Cancel the trademark on "urban homestead".
On 7 Apr 2011 Denver Urban Homesteading filed a Petition to Cancel the trademark on "urban homesteading".
Reasons for Urban Homesteading
A lot of people are worried about the human race's impact on the environment and ethical living, when it comes to topics like climate changeClimate change
Climate change is a significant and lasting change in the statistical distribution of weather patterns over periods ranging from decades to millions of years. It may be a change in average weather conditions or the distribution of events around that average...
, organic food
Organic food
Organic foods are foods that are produced using methods that do not involve modern synthetic inputs such as synthetic pesticides and chemical fertilizers, do not contain genetically modified organisms, and are not processed using irradiation, industrial solvents, or chemical food additives.For the...
, and sustainable development
Sustainable development
Sustainable development is a pattern of resource use, that aims to meet human needs while preserving the environment so that these needs can be met not only in the present, but also for generations to come...
.
The approach to urban homesteading depends on what people are looking to gain from it: urban homesteaders can raise chickens and bees, compost food waste to create high-quality soil, they can grow and subsequently can their own foods for consumption in winter, enjoy a closer relationship with nature, enjoy organic food, and save money in the process, all while living in urban areas all over the world.
In addition to saving money and enabling people to eat healthier food whilst having a lower impact on the planet, urban homesteading has a community element to it too; The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
found that urban homesteading events attract people from far and wide: everything from tomato-canning, jam making, and pumpkin-processing to pig-butchering, sausage-making, and homemade wine production – all raised and grown on people's own ground in the cities.
See Also
- Urban AgricultureUrban agricultureUrban agriculture is the practice of cultivating, processing and distributing food in, or around, a village, town or city. Urban agriculture in addition can also involve animal husbandry, aquaculture, agro-forestry and horticulture...
- PermaculturePermaculturePermaculture is an approach to designing human settlements and agricultural systems that is modeled on the relationships found in nature. It is based on the ecology of how things interrelate rather than on the strictly biological concerns that form the foundation of modern agriculture...
- Urban chickensUrban chickensAn Urban chicken or backyard chicken is a chicken kept in a city.The primary reasons for keeping chickens are the food and income made by selling the eggs and meat...
- Simple LivingSimple livingSimple living encompasses a number of different voluntary practices to simplify one's lifestyle. These may include reducing one's possessions or increasing self-sufficiency, for example. Simple living may be characterized by individuals being satisfied with what they need rather than want...
- Self-sufficiencySelf-sufficiencySelf-sufficiency refers to the state of not requiring any outside aid, support, or interaction, for survival; it is therefore a type of personal or collective autonomy...
- The Good Life
External Links
- Urban Homesteading: Heirloom Skills for Sustainable Living, website run by Rachel Kaplan and K. Ruby Blume
- Urban Homestead (Book written by Kelly Coyne and Erik Knutzen, published June 2008)
- Urban Homesteading, article in Mother Earth News, Sep/Oct 1980
- Root Simple, urban homesteading website by the authors of *Urban Homestead
- Denver Urban Homesteading An urban agricultural center and farmers market near downtown Denver
- The Institute of Urban Homesteading Non-profit educational project in Oakland CA
- Take Back Urban Homesteading Activist group on Facebook