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Wayne Shingler
Columbus, OH
I'm an urban microfarmer in Columbus, Ohio. I'm interested in sustainable living and social justice.
Recent Activity
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Wayne signed the petition | -
Wayne signed the petition | -
Wayne commented on the petition |Why should Mr. Guererro's neighbor be the only one whose interests are considered? The garden does nothing to the neighbor but offend his aesthetic sensibilities. Unless the court has recognized this neighbor as the community arbiter of good taste, able not only to decree what plants his neighbors may grow on their own private property, but also what color they may paint their own houses and what style of clothes they may wear, his opinion of Mr. Guererro's landscaping choices is wholly immaterial. Mr. Guererro, on the other hand, will be monetarily damaged by being forced to remove his garden. He bore an expense to install it, is enjoying ongoing value from it's use, and would have to invest more time, labor, and money to have it removed.
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Wayne signed the petition |
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Wayne signed the petition | -
Wayne signed the petition | -
Wayne commented on the article |I'm a little surprised that nobody here has said it's rape just because he's a man. Not only does no mean no, but "I changed my mind," "I regret it," and "I'm embarrassed that somebody found out," also all mean "no" these days.
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Wayne commented on the article |It's so frustrating to see, on the one hand, public officials, universities, and various organizations heralding this as the Great New Answer, and then on the other hand, those very same officials, numerous property owners, and lower-level bureaucrats are working to criminalize urban agriculture. You hear people paying lip service to the innovation and wholesomeness of growing food in the city, but then when somebody--especially an individual trying to do it for profit instead of a non-profit doing it to give away to schools or food pantries--then it's a nuisance, an eyesore, a public health hazard, destroying property values. Everyone wants organic vegetables, but nobody wants to smell compost (let alone manure). They expect clean food to come out of manicured lawns. You can't grow healthy, non-genetically-modified vegetables right next to lawns that are being sprayed with broad-leaf herbicides. Having all the work done by hand means having people in your neighborhood who are willing to do that kind of dirty work for a living.
My county health code actually has an ordinance prohibiting "vegetation over ten inches high." This is in Ohio. We have trees...way, way over ten inches. I once tried to grow wheat in a vacant lot--a lot I had rented from the city for gardening--and a city mowing crew came and cut it down!
And if you get past all the obstacles and actually manage to grow food in the city, then a lot of the consumers are like, "Ew! Doesn't that have lead and other contaminants in the soil? I'd think it would get runoff from the road and paint chips from old houses and stuff. Has this been tested? And how do you know it hasn't been cross-pollinated by GMO crops? That stuff can travel for miles," as if every farmer is also a forensic pathologist with a mobile laboratory.
Oh, and let's not even get started on animals. Even the people who say they're unreservedly in favor of vegetable gardens in the city balk at anyone raising a few hogs or goats or cattle. They'll act like they're doing you a favor passing a law that allows you to keep three chickens in a cage with an impermeable floor after you go through all the inspections and license fees and whatnot. If it's not profitable, it's not going to be sustainable on a commercial scale, and it's not profitable to run a chicken farm with just three chickens. 100 free-range broilers can be comfortably housed in a 12' x 12' house with fenced in paddocks around it. A quarter-acre can handle that well and still have space left over. But people hear "100 chickens" and immediately think of the pictures they've seen of broiler houses containing a hundred thousand chickens and they freak.
If we're going to see urban agriculture really take off, either urbanites are going to have to get over themselves and learn to tolerate a little dirt and disorder, or they're going to have to get mighty damned hungry first.
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Wayne signed the petition | -
Wayne signed the petition |
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