For Modern Foragers, This Map Reveals Urban Abundance
Through Falling Fruit, people around the world can find edible plants to enjoy — often in unexpected places.
By: Natasha Khullar Relph
Reasons to Be Cheerful
March 27, 2025
Excerpt:
This vision — of cities as abundant landscapes rather than sterile concrete jungles — is at the heart of the urban foraging movement. Instead of parks filled only with ornamental trees or sidewalks lined with purely decorative greenery, advocates like Christopher Macy of the Phoenix Urban Food Forest Initiative believe urban spaces should be designed to nourish people.
“I fell in love with the idea of bringing food into urban spaces,” Macy says. “I started on my own property, planting fruit trees and perennial vegetables. Once I proved to my neighbors that this was possible, more and more of them said yes.” The transformation started small: just a few trees, a handful of neighbors willing to experiment. But it quickly gained momentum. What was once an overlooked stretch of city property became a source of fresh produce, a meeting place, a way to bring people together. “Now, we’re on over 11 parkways with more than 90 fruit trees and over 100 perennial vegetable plants. By next year, it’ll be over 160. We can grow food and have food for our neighborhood,” says Macy. “It brings a little balance between urban and rural.”
The problem isn’t a lack of food — it’s how cities are designed. The U.S. alone throws away over one-third of the food it produces, worth an estimated $161 billion to $218 billion annually, even as millions struggle with food insecurity. Food forests and urban foraging initiatives, like the ones Macy and Welty are building, challenge the idea that city spaces should be purely decorative.
Read the complete article here.
Source: https://cityfarmer.info/for-modern-foragers-this-map-reveals-urban-abundance/
