Mixing Suburbia With Farmlands, "Agri-hoods" Are Taking the U.S. by Storm

This is something I just found out about last week. I was waiting for my haircut appointment and struck up a conversation with a woman already in the chair. She was spending her Thanksgiving with her sister in Marrow, Ohio and her sister lived in an agri-hood. I wasn't familiar with that term so that started a whole new discussion.

Wikipedia describes an agri-hood as

"a type of planned community that integrates agriculture into a residential neighborhood. The purpose is to facilitate food production as well as provide green space, recreation, aesthetics and value for a community."

She said there was a community room (barn) to gather at with other community residents and orchards to pick produce from and gardens to harvest from. There are chickens for egg production and honey bees for fresh honey. And what not used by the residents was sold to surrounding neighbors at a weekly Farmer's Market.

There were walking paths, lakes to fish in, shops and farm-to-table restaurants. In the midwest, large acreage farmlands converted to agri-hoods could provide for vast suburban developments and still feel like a close-knit community.

This agri-hood idea would fit in well in Bonita-Sunnyside. The new development proposed for Jonel Road could benefit as an agri-hood and instead of another storage facility on Quarry Road, they might consider an agri-hood. I think that Bonita-Sunnyside residents would welcome this type of "development".

To learn more, read Seeds of a New Community: Farm Living Takes Root in the Suburbs by Clare Trapasso.

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