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The Salt
African Cities Test The Limits Of Living With Livestock
May 21, 2013 Hipsters may just be discovering the joys of backyard chickens, but in African megacities, people have been bringing their animals into the slums with them for decades. That's creating a new ecosystem of animals and huge numbers of people living closely together like never before.
The Salt
Vertical 'Pinkhouses:' The Future Of Urban Farming?
May 21, 2013 Architects have come up with spectacular concepts for vertical farms that would grow crops in city skyscrapers. But many horticulturists think the future of vertical farming isn't in skyscrapers, but rather in large, indoor warehouses lit up magenta by superefficient LEDs.
The Salt
How Google Earth Revealed Chicago's Hidden Farms
January 9, 2013 When scientists scoured lists of the city's community gardens, they discovered they didn't tell the whole story of where food was being grown. Satellite images instead show the city's food-producing gardens tucked away in backyards, on roofs and thriving in vacant lots.
The Salt
Sky-High Vegetables: Vertical Farming Sprouts In Singapore
November 9, 2012 Urban farming goes vertical, as Singapore opens a 30-feet tall greenhouse for bok choy and cabbage. The farm is already producing half a ton of veggies per day for local supermarkets. But are these vertical "farmscrapers" any more efficient than traditional, flat greenhouses?
13.7: Cosmos And Culture
Cities: Salvation Or Infestation?
October 23, 2012 There are lots of lines of evidence telling us our current model for cities is unsustainable. Does that mean cities themselves are the problem and we should all move back to the farm?
The Salt
Meet A Man On A Mission To Save Rare And Unusual Figs
August 22, 2012 Bassem Samaan of Bethlehem, Pa., is on a quest to save rare varieties of figs often growing unnoticed, right under our noses in neighbors' backyards. He's donated some of his finds to a government-backed fruit tree preserve in California.
The Salt
Guerrilla Grafters Bring Forbidden Fruit Back To City Trees
April 7, 2012 In many metropolitan areas, urban foresters ensure flowering fruit trees don't bear fruit to keep it from being trampled into slippery sidewalk jelly. But a group of fruit fans in the San Francisco Bay Area is surreptitiously grafting fruit-bearing tree limbs onto those fruitless trees.