Perhaps you’ve seen an abandoned lot in your neighborhood or wondered who owns it or what your city or town is doing with the unused land it controls. Well, others who have felt the same way are doing something about it. Over the last decade, interest in community-led initiatives to turn neglected space into a shared resource—for housing, for growing food, for recreation—has ballooned. But it’s never quite as simple as taking donated equipment and throwing up a raised bed in a vacant plot. “It was blood, sweat, and tears,” says Alexis Foote, who spent the last decade working toward community control of waterfront property in New York City. Dwell spoke to Foote, along with Queen Frye of the R. Roots Garden in Minneapolis and Darren Cotton of The Tool Library in Buffalo, New York, about how they’re transforming spaces in their neighborhoods into collective assets and asked them to share any advice they have for people hoping to start a similar project themselves. “You gotta bring your community with you,” says Foote, “and you gotta fight, fight, fight.”
ReAL Edgemere Community Land Trust, New York City
Alexis Foote says it
