Urban Roots

Film evenings begin with potluck refreshments & social hour at 6:30 pm,
followed by the film at 7:30 pm, followed by a discussion after the film.

URBAN ROOTS
by Mark MacInnis

Everyone may have heard about Detroit’s urban farming movement, but this inspiring documentary brings it alive by getting down in the furrows with the growers who are turning the city’s vacant lots into fields of abundance. This documentary on the urban farming phenomenon in Detroit is timely, speaking to a nation grappling with collapsed industrial towns and the need to forge a sustainable and prosperous future. Determined, resourceful Detroit citizens have seen jobs and neighbors disappear as the city depopulates. Instead of deciding to flee with the rest, they’ve stayed behind and begun growing vegetables. Lots of them. These resourceful people may have lost their jobs, but they never lost their stiff upper lips. Where nature reclaimed vast stretches of the abandoned rust belt, Detroit citizens are reclaiming their spirits. Wherever there is grass, there is a chance to put food on the table. And where there is a chance to put food on the table, there’s a chance for a new start. Now, all around the city of Detroit, a growing movement of urban farmers is changing the way people think about food — and life in Detroit. And so it is with Detroit — the city that lost its engine never lost its drive. No longer an industrial powerhouse in search of the American dream, Detroit has stumbled upon a dream much larger than its people could have ever imagined possible. It took men like Henry Ford, William Durant, and Lee Iacocca to build this city, but it’s taken a bunch of strong willed self-taught urban farmers to save it. The decline of Detroit is perhaps a blessing in disguise. From this “food desert” has, out of necessity, formed an idea so important it could change future agriculture as we know it. Perhaps this moving documentary is the beginning.

Wheelchair accessible around the corner at 411 28th Street

$5 donations are accepted