The Department of Public Works in San Francisco argues against public fruit trees saying that they attract homeless and rats. We find it strange that these two figures — that of the houseless and that of vermin — are always paired. We are suspicious. Is it possible to conceive of the city and of abundance together, and not to let fear and disgust consume us, to perhaps have these feelings in check via an ethics of decolonization and difference? We argue that resiliency, abundance, regeneration can be conceived without a disgust that blinds one to possibility. Successful harvests and their distribution are a design problem, not an impossibility.
(It remains to be seen whether the graft of edible landscape and city will take. It is our largest and most daring undertaking….)