Urban homesteading is associated with urban agriculture. Urban homesteading practices can conflict with current city zoning regulations and homeowner’s association by-laws. Community food-sourcing such as foraging, gleaning, and trading.Food preservation including canning, drying, freezing, cheese-making, and fermenting.Self-sufficient living: re-using, repairing, and recycling items homemade products.Edible landscaping: growing fruit, vegetables, culinary and medicinal plants, converting lawns into gardens.Raising animals, including chickens, goats, rabbits, fish, worms, and/or bees.Resource reduction: using solar/ alternative energy sources, harvesting rainwater, using greywater, line drying clothes, using alternative transportation such as bicycles and buses.This is typically associated with residents’ desire to live in a more environmentally conscious manner.' Īspects of urban homesteading include Urban homesteading and agriculture Īccording to UC-Davis, 'an urban homestead is a household that produces a significant part of the food, including produce and livestock, consumed by its residents. While such policies have provided affordable housing for homeowners entering an area, homesteading has been linked with gentrification since the 1970s, especially in neighborhoods such as the Lower East Side of New York City. Homesteading is practiced in Detroit, but as of 2013 zoning laws prohibit such activity despite talk to encourage more urban agriculture and combat the shrinking population. Policies by the U.S Department of Housing and Urban Development allowed for federally owned properties to be sold to homesteaders for nominal sums as low as $1, financed otherwise by the state, and inspected after a one-year period. Urban American cities, such as New York City, have used policies of urban homesteading to encourage citizens to occupy and rebuild vacant properties. Urban homesteading and affordable housing Urban homesteading can refer to several different things: programs by local, state, and federal agencies in the USA who work to help get people into city homes, squatting, practicing urban agriculture, or practicing sustainable living techniques.

The Urban Homestead by Kelly Coyne