This year, I have a small garden of herbs, tomatoes, lettuce and a few other things. So I am thinking about gardens a lot.
My garden is not in the city, but I drew this one below the other day. The idea of city gardens is interesting to me— I’ve done a number over the years. Maybe it’s the way people are resourceful, that even in the concrete jungle, they strive for the self-sufficiency of gardening. This one below is a simple combination of something in the news and personal experience.
The news I am referring to is that New York City is about raise the rent of rent stabilized apartments. It’s very sad, the city keeps getting more and more expensive, crowding out so many who cannot afford it.
So it’s not a funny drawing, that’s for sure. Because you can’t grow apartments, last I heard. Maybe its funny in its absurdity.
If you are growing a garden (or anything else), enjoy interacting with the earth!
The rent hike is a sad sign of the times and a reflection of the meanness inherent in human nature. Thanks Liza for this food for thought.
Here again, you’ve served food for thought.
It’s plausible to think of cities as organisms that with care and feeding will thrive. But cities are also the work of human hands, created to meet needs that in the fulness of time become obsolete. Plenty of cities have withered on the vine. How much was it worth to salvage them?
As it happens, I’ve walked the streets of a dead city, and in one of those fits of poetical hubris that sometimes afflicts me, I wrote about it:
https://unwokeindianaag.substack.com/p/poetry-corner-184
More prosaically, I will just note that ”affordable housing” goes both ways: If it’s not affordable on the supply side, it won’t be available on the demand side.