Welcome
to City Speaks

Journal entries chronicling my reflections & recollections from my class at Barnard College which examines the food system of NYC and the broader region through a sustainable farming, policy-forward lens. The bittersweet end. A perpetual date looming in the air, a seemingly mystical day that was never supposed to come. Untill now. Nevertheless, I'm beyond greatful for my time spent in the city (yes, I now know "the city refers to Manhattan-- I used it correctly!). This past

Journal entries chronicling my reflections & recollections from my class at Barnard College which examines the food system of NYC and the broader region through a sustainable farming, policy-forward lens. 08.01.2026 On the West Side of Manhattan, my class and I took a trip to the Javits Center today to tour their massive, seven-story-high steel rooftop garden. Highly sophisticated and engineered, not only did we get to learn about their commercial infrastructure and enjoy the

Background Historically, the infrastructure of the American food system was designed around industrial overproduction, a structure heavily subsidized during the mid-to-late 20th century to prioritize volume over economic resilience. This systemic bias toward macro-scale operations incentivized hyper-aquisition, directly leading to the projected death or retirement of farmers overseeing 300 million acres of land. Because land is increasingly treated as a low-risk financial as

Journal entries chronicling my reflections & recollections from my class at Barnard College which examines the food system of NYC and the broader region through a sustainable farming, policy-forward lens. 07.28.2026 South of Manhattan, my class and I took a trip to Governers' Island today and visited GrowNYC's Teaching garden. Large and spacious, not only did we get to learn and explore from the farmers and teachers helping on the farm, but enjoy the island's landscape and ti

Background During the mid-20th century, the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) and private underwriters codified institutional disinvestment through redlining, using explicit maps that marked Black, brown, and immigrant neighborhoods as "hazardous" risks to choke out capital (outlined in red). This was expanded as Robert Moses’s highway expansions went directly through places like the South Bronx, which isolated communities into high-pollution corridors choked by freight t

Every-other-day journal entries chronicling my reflections & recollections from my class at Barnard College, which examines the food system of NYC and the broader region through a sustainable farming, policy-forward lens. 07.23.2026 My class visited Harlem Grown: a prominent community garden existing within the greater Food Aparthaid of the Harlem Area. After that experience, we cooked pesto pasta, a salad, and roasted bread together out of locally-produced ingredients. "To

Background While the Green Revolution of the mid-20th century left an undeniable mark on feeding a rapidly increasing population, the movement also structurally hooked Third-World nations (the Non-Aligned states of the Cold War era) into a system of dependency on Western superpowers. Today, as massive corporations aggressively acquire their competition, global markets strip away farming choices of independent farmers in such nations. Growers across the global south are syst

Every-other-day journal entries chronicling my reflections & recollections from my class at Barnard College, which examines the food system of NYC and the broader region through a sustainable farming, policy-forward lens. 07.22.2026 Today, as the first day of class, lectures focused on defining the key players in America's food system. In three teams, we participated in an activity where each group was presented a set of questions from the perspective of a different supplier

Disney streamlines themes of historical redlining initiatives in America through an ostrasized reptilian neighborhood, executes message without overdoing it Disney-released image shows the "perfect" city of Zootopia (Disney). When initially going to see Zootopia 2 with my friends, we arrived with the conceptions of a bland Disney sequel plot mixed in with some charming scenes of Nick Wilde (I mean, who didn't put him on their "hear me out"cake?). While the flirty fox clips

What a documentary reveals about the true barriers to transforming vacant office space into affordable housing For the past year, my community has seen an influx in local politics as a result of newly-proposed low-income housing in our traditional suburban neighborhood. As a California resident, my area's situation is a result of a larger problem being solved with Band-Aid solutions- the housing crisis. At first, I thought to look to already exesting infrastructure in my

Remote sensing expert and retired UC Davis Proffessor Dr. Susan Ustin discusses how data driven land monitoring can support sustainable...

Inside the Michelin-awarded Sacramento Restaurant helping Trailblazing the Relationship Between Fine Dining, Sustainability, and...

As federal housing quotas and mandates prompt new construction for low-icome and multi-family housing, wealthy suburbs like Granite Bay...

Three Sisters Garden is transforming the fresh produce landscape in West Sacramento on a small lot-transformed-garden space through youth...