Sustainable Communities

Growing Homes with a Land Trust: Supporting Community with Good Food

A Seattle-based non-profit organization retained MetroAG Strategies to complement the work of its real estate design and development team. The development project will create about two dozen affordable, net-zero energy, cottages for sale on a parcel of land currently owned by a church. The site currently hosts a thriving community garden that supports a handful of low-income immigrant families with healthy food options for themselves and their neighbors.

Thoughts on Healthy Communities

by Kathryn Gardow

The inner world is in our mind. Our outer or human experience is where and how we exist, interact and observe others, gather news, spend our time, and be in the world. The mind is the harbinger of mental health. Can the environment we live in impact our mental health?... Read more...

How Does Your Neighborhood Score?

by Kathryn Gardow

I live in a great city-the Emerald City- Seattle, Washington. Living here 32 years is more than half my life. I started life as a New Englander, growing up in a Connecticut suburban town with a couple elementary school years in Buffalo, college in Schenectady, New... Read more...

A Feast of Agri-hood Opportunity:
from Suburban Ornamentals to Nourishing Healthy Community

by Stephen Antupit

At the invitation of University of Washington’s Green Futures Lab, I was asked to lead a mixed group of professionals and community representatives in a day-long visioning workshop. The subject of the charrette exercise was Molbak’s Garden + Home Center. Located in... Read more...

Where Sustainability Reigns and Community Flourishes

by Kathryn Gardow

My yard peaked in abundance in September. The last tomatoes were picked before the fall rains came. At the same time, ideas percolate about creating community where families thrive because children play, elders impart wisdom, Millenials connect and food is grown.... Read more...