Making the Edible Campus: A model for food-secure urban revitalisation

The Edible Campus project was begun in spring 2007 in Montréal. An action-research project launched by volunteers and researchers from two leading local NGOs and university-based researchers (Alternatives, [online]; Santropol Roulant, [online]; McGill University's Minimum Cost Housing Group, [online]), it sought creative solutions to turn underutilised urban spaces into productive places. It involved citizens in the creation of green community spaces by incorporating productive growing in containers on a prominent but concrete-covered part of McGill University's downtown campus. Not only is it an investigation into making cities more food-secure by increasing urban food production, it is also a live demonstration of how ‘edible landscapes’ can be woven into urban spaces without diminishing their utility or functionality.