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> people owned this property and were forced off the land, along with many others who may have rented from them[...]We should always remember the proper names that go with the improper deeds. We bought the lesson; what shall we learn from the lesson? > Keith Reitman NearNorth Many community gardens serve as monuments to the crime-plagued structures that once stood on their lots. You can find example after example of groups of neighbors that changed abandoned vacant lots once home to drug trafficking and prostitution into centers for community activity. I don't believe many were aware of the positive impacts community gardening would have in these communities plagued with vacant property. Now community gardens are being removed from the lots with the same slash-and burn mentality that destroyed so many residential properties in the 1980s and 1990s. Leases are being revoked, gardens are being mowed down, and lots are being sold to housing developers without anyone informing community gardeners (people who are properly, legally leasing the sites) that their gardens are at risk. (By the way, Mr. Mayor, community garden activists now call this a "Giuliani-Style" community garden policy). We lost too much housing to demolition. Now we have lost too many gardens in the same manner. Soon we will begin to lose the connections between people that were grown in the gardens. _______________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A Civil City Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe, Unsubscribe, Digest option, and more: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
