cities growing smaller 71 (Terry Schwarz) - Cleveland Urban Design ...

corrosion to plows and equipment, is less damaging to green spaces, and less polluting
to ground and surface water. To evaluate this idea, we would need to know how
many miles of roads there are in the city and how much beet juice it would take to
de-ice 25% of these roads in a typical winter. A rough calculation is that we would
need about 12,000 gallons of beet juice, produced from the equivalent of 768,000
beets. It would take approximately 9 acres of land to grow this many beets. To
continue the analysis, we would need to know which vacant sites in the city are most
conducive to growing beets, and whether it would make sense to create numerous
beet gardens on residential-size lots or a handful of larger beet farms. We would have
to determine how many processing facilities would be needed to turn the beets to
juice and to store the juice and whether it would be more cost-effective to purchase
a commercial beet juice produce rather than to produce it ourselves from Clevelandgrown
beets. Aside from beets and apples, there are many other possible agricultural
opportunities that we could explore for privately held or public-sector inventories
of vacant land. Burten Bell Carr is currently conducting a similar analysis to determine
the feasibility of a city tree nursery in the Forgotten Triangle neighborhood in
Central.
Vacant properties may also offer opportunities for the generation of alternative
energy. Solar, wind, and biofuel technologies can all be incorporated into urban settings
where there is ample vacant land and reduced population density. For example,
could we reduce Cleveland’s gasoline consumption by 5% through the use of vacant
sites to generate biofuels? Once again, we would need to do some simple calculations
to consider this question. We know that per capita gasoline use in Ohio is about
451.1 gallons per year. (Energy Information Administration, statistics for 2004)
Based on the current population of Cleveland, this equates to about 200 million
gallons of gasoline per year used by city residents. To meet 5% of this demand, we
would need approximately 10 million gallons of biofuel. If we look at the specifics of
biofuel production using plant materials grown on city sites, we can make some estimates
of the acreage needed. Switchgrass, for example, reaches its full yield potential
after the third year planted, producing approximately 6 to 8 tons of material per
acre; that is 500 gallons of ethanol per acre. So it would take roughly 20,000 acres of
switchgrass to meet 5% of Clevelander’s annual fuel consumption. Many other issues
would need to be addressed in order to develop an alternative fuel strategy for vacant
sites such as whether biofuel produced from plant material grown in urban conditions
would result in a usable fuel that meets industry standards and whether the energy
it would take to grow these crops would offset any net gains in fuel production.
Another compelling possibility for reusing vacant land would be as a way to
restore urban ecosystems and address the growing challenges of stormwater management
in the city and the region. Stormwater runoff is a leading cause of pollution
cities growing smaller 79