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.i r �t ir �a a 5 s � t1 1.,. IL y _y a project fails," he says. "We need to discover how to overcome that." "I think it would be self- defeat- ing to insist on the economic stabil- ity of these enterprises, but urban agriculture is still a very viable revi- talization strategy for neighbor- hoods," says Kami Pothukuchi, an MARY SETON CORBOY, PHILADELPHIA: T'_? urban planner at Detroit's Wayne State University, who started her own city garden in a vacant lot two years ago. "It is better when you don't insist the food be sold." Pothukuchi says that a city garden cultivated by residents can generate economic advantages for its neighborhood that might not be evident in a narrow cost - benefit analysis. At her grant - supported "youth nutrition" garden in a poor Latino neighbor- hood, kids from ages 5 to 13 tend the plots. The children are taught the nutritional value of broccoli or green peppers as they plant them, and residents increasingly see their neighborhood as "a destination, rather than as a pass - through on the way to the high- way," she says. Ever since the garden replaced a trash- strewn lot, residents say, traffic has slowed down and more people walk to the edge of the neighborhood near the freeway, where the garden lies. Two neighbors have also started their own gardens. Pothukuchi hopes that these signs of community attach- ment will prompt a chain of events that can lead to increased investment, and "that people will begin to say, `Hey, I might fix my stoop,' or `I might paint my house. "' Yet it is difficult to find an urban farm like Pothukuchi's that incorporates many members of the surrounding community and also generatesjobs. In North Philadelphia, Mary Seton Corboy is trying to 64 PRESERVATION bridge this gap with her four - year -old hydroponics farm, which is sandwiched between row houses in a struggling neighborhood on the site of a former galvanized -steel factory. Her hydroponic system circumvents the problem of planting in contaminated land by cultivating lettuce, sprouts, herbs, and other plants in liquid- nutrient solutions rather than in the soil. She has deco- rated the fenced perimeter of her farm with flowers, and the neighbors passing by show affection for her. Like Ableman, she has built relationships with restaurants in the city and pro- duces crops specifically for them. Tempered by her experience, Corboy has grown skeptical of people like Jac Smit who think you can create cities that almost entirely feed themselves. "Unfortunately, most of the people who are drawn to urban farming are white, college- educated, Preservation- magazine - subscription - holding people, not those who live around here," she says. In her view, Detroit and Philadel- phia won't have much farming as long as cheap processed food like Twinkies and 99 -cent hamburgers are sold on nearly every block. People won't generally turn to farming unless they must, she says, and few see it as an upwardly mobile profession. Corboy conceived her hydroponics project with the pri- mary motive of helping the impoverished neighborhood around