Concerned donors raised more than $5 million to ensure an urban farm in the Bay Area would not wither in the shadow of a huge click-and-ship distribution center.
The real estate standoff on a windswept spit of land in industrial North Richmond, Calif., had the makings of one of those bitter and protracted battles in which community well-being was once again at risk of being squashed by the rapacious might of big business.
In a community plagued by environmental injustice and all manner of economic and political oppression, one group’s battle for empowerment, it seemed, was blocking the dreams of a humble neighbor with a well-earned right to prosperity.about the dispute last year, Urban Tilth was able to raise millions of dollars — enough to buy Nabeta’s land, enable her to retire and save her faded flower nursery from becoming yet another mega-warehouse development in a community already overwhelmed by them.
Underlying the dispute in North Richmond, a community tucked at the northern edge of the San Francisco Bay and ringed by oil refineries, are America’s changing shopping habits. Namely: our embrace of click-and-ship online shopping. To meet that need, distribution centers have marched into communities around the Bay Area. North Richmond, with its relatively cheap vacant land near freeways, has been ground zero.
The managers at Urban Tilth have not mapped all their plans for the new land; that will be decided after consultation with the community. But one thing is certain: there will be an exhibit on the rich history of the Bay Area’sA century ago, North Richmond was mostly agricultural land, farmed by Italian, Asian and Portuguese immigrants. During World War II, the area became a shipbuilding mecca, and drew thousands of Black workers from Louisiana and other parts of the South.
Satoko Nabeta, in her 90s, needs to sell her family’s nursery. A plan to turn it into a warehouse is a threat to a neighboring community garden. “She ran the nursery by herself — she ran that whole business by herself for decades,” her granddaughter Lauren Brodksy recalled.
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